NTSC to PAL -- Premiere or Encore

[Cracker Funk]

I need to get my film onto a PAL DVD. Based on a little googling, as far as I can tell, I can simply put my NTSC video into a PAL project, and either Adobe product should make the conversion.

Only thing I couldn't determine, in my google search, is whether it's preferable to do it one way or another. Better to just go straight to Encore? Bring in my NTSC video as an asset in a PAL project, and that's it?

Or, should I re-render the whole thing from Premeire? Create PAL project, put NTSC video into timeline, then export. That way, I'd be using a PAL asset in my PAL Encore project.

Of course, it'd be much faster and easier, on my end, to just go straight to Encore. But is there a reason to re-render?

On a side-note, I'm totally confused as to how exactly this conversion is made. How does it magically turn 24 frames into 25?

 

[CamVader]

I think it just adds 1 frame per second by duplicating one of the 24.

Is this for the festival?

 

[PaulGriffith]

Encore is going to render it so you'll be rendering it regardless.

My best experiences have been rendering through Adobe Media Encoder, then bringing that into Encore. Encore only has to render menus then. You can go from Premiere to AME, or take your already rendered file and drag that into AME and pick your settings.

 

[Cracker Funk]

Encore is going to render it so you'll be rendering it regardless.

My best experiences have been rendering through Adobe Media Encoder, then bringing that into Encore. Encore only has to render menus then. You can go from Premiere to AME, or take your already rendered file and drag that into AME and pick your settings.

Sweet. Thanks!

 

[PaulGriffith]

No sweat, hope it helps!

 

[Cracker Funk]

I think it just adds 1 frame per second by duplicating one of the 24.

Is this for the festival?

Sorry, forgot to answer your question. This isn't for the fest I got into. That's in America, so they want good-ol NTSC. I'm about to send a submission to a fest in the UK, and they want PAL.

Does it really just duplicate a frame? I would think that'd be noticeable.

Cheers.

 

[PaulGriffith]

I'm not exactly sure how it does it, but you shouldn't really notice a difference.

In the old days you'd just interpret the footage as 25 fps, playing it 4% slower haha.

 

[CamVader]

Sorry, forgot to answer your question. This isn't for the fest I got into. That's in America, so they want good-ol NTSC. I'm about to send a submission to a fest in the UK, and they want PAL.

Does it really just duplicate a frame? I would think that'd be noticeable.

Cheers.

Well, now we know:

24p material can be converted to the PAL format with the same methods used to convert film to PAL. The most popular method is to speed up the material by 25/24 (4%). Each 24p frame will take the place of two 50i fields. This method incurs no motion artifacts other than the slightly increased speed, which is typically not noticeable. As for audio, the ~4% increase in speed raises the pitch by 0.7 of a semitone, which again typically is not noticed. Sometimes the audio is pitch shifted to restore the original pitch.

If 24p footage cannot be sped up, (for example if it were coming through a live NTSC or HD feed) it instead can be converted in a pattern where most frames were held on screen for two fields, but every half second a frame would be held for three fields. Thus the viewer would see motion stutter twice per second. This was the common result when programs were shot on film or had film portions, edited on NTSC, and then shown in PAL countries (mostly music videos). NTSC to PAL conversion also tends to blur each film frame into the next, and so is seen as a sub-optimal way to view film footage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24p

 

[NickClapper]

I actually suffered from weird blue flashes in my last project, so I had to manually alter them by creating more frames and taking out the blue flashes. I don't think it's noticeable but I'll send a brand new pebble to anyone who can spot where they are.

My question is this: can't you just burn a region free DVD? Why does it need to be PAL?

 

[Cracker Funk]

My question is this: can't you just burn a region free DVD? Why does it need to be PAL?

Cuz they said so. I don't really understand why, but that's how they want it.

 

[chilipie]

My question is this: can't you just burn a region free DVD? Why does it need to be PAL?

Regions and PAL/NTSC are a different kettle of fish. DVD regions are a way for distributors to stop people (for example) selling US release DVDs in Japan before they're released in Asia. PAL, NTSC and SECAM are video standards with different ways of encoding frame rate, colour, resolution, audio etc. and many devices (especially older TVs and DVD players) are entirely incompatible with the formatting standards that they weren't originally designed for.

 

[NickClapper]

Regions and PAL/NTSC are a different kettle of fish. DVD regions are a way for distributors to stop people (for example) selling US release DVDs in Japan before they're released in Asia. PAL, NTSC and SECAM are video standards with different ways of encoding frame rate, colour, resolution, audio etc. and many devices (especially older TVs and DVD players) are entirely incompatible with the formatting standards that they weren't originally designed for.

So it's only necessary for older technology? If I burn a PAL movie onto a region free DVD, I'll be able to play it in the US right? Or will there be a loss of quality?

I only ask because a lot of the festivals that I'm looking at ask for Region free DVDs and I haven't seen any specifically mentioning NTSC or PAL, but I wouldn't want to send a dud DVD all the way to the States.

 

[PaulGriffith]

PAL dvd's won't play in NTSC players and the reverse is true too, regardless of reigon.

Lots of festivals have a PAL player because of international submissions, but if the festival is in an NTSC country the best bet is to send NTSC.

 

[NickClapper]

I'm pretty confident that I'm being obtuse here but I still don't understand.

If PAL and NTSC are incompatible then why is there any need for regions? And what is a region free disc if it is still dependent on the format?

 

[PaulGriffith]

There are NTSC countries in different regions as well as PAL countries in different regions. Honestly I think the whole regions idea was a terribly misguided attempt at increasing profits and decreasing piracy.

PAL and NTSC are complete different formats, NTSC was designed around 60hz American power grid and technology available at the time. PAL was instituted maybe 10-20 years (I'm pretty sure) later and designed for a 50hz power source and improved upon since technology became better.

But again, they still wanted to separate NTSC countries/continents from each other same with PAL places, so they put "regions" into effect. The Region Free NTSC disc can play in any NTSC DVD player, and region free PAL in any PAL player.