NTSC to PAL in Premiere

Helge Larsen

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Jan 3, 2003, 8:34:11 AM1/3/03

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I am in US and of course use NTSC format.
However, I have family in Europe and wonder if I can export movies to PAL format to put on DVDs.
Previously I have exported NTSC to tape and then converted to PAL on a PAL Tape Recorder, but the quality sucks.
Does anyone know if I can create PAL movies from NTSC and then write them to DVD from Premiere?

Thank you in advance.

Helge Larsen
California

richard_99_uk

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Jan 3, 2003, 9:59:17 AM1/3/03

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Yeah, that's not a problem. I've done it a couple of times. The only difference is I've converted PAL to NTSC, what you have to is get a little knowledge about the PAL format. I'm sure you know enough about it; it’s not that different from NTSC.

Ok the first part of the conversion is the frame size, PAL typically works at 768X576 but you best convert it to 720X576.

The next difference is the frame rate; you need to drop it down from 30/29.97 fps to 25fps.

But more important than that is the field dominance, in NTSC the odd fields, that 1,3,5,7,9,11 and so on right down to 525 are activated first. In PAL the even fields are activated first 2,4,6,8,10,12 all the way down to 624 so you need to reverse the field dominance in the field options.

That's all there is to know, burn them on to a DVD or export them through fire wire to a PAL VHS deck (with firewire in) and the quality should only be marginally different from your NTSC copy.

Hope that helps
- Richard

Phil Potter

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Jan 3, 2003, 10:31:02 AM1/3/03

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Helge,

You probably do not need to go to all this trouble. 95% of European DVD players will play NTSC discs with no problem. I use the NTSC settings in Premier, export with either TMPG or the Mainconcept encoder in 6.5, and burn with DVDit. The discs play fine both on NTSC and PAL systems.

I haven't seen the PAL output yet, but my folks in the UK tell me they look good.

richard_99_uk

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Jan 3, 2003, 11:30:02 AM1/3/03

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Well I would still convert it if I were you, I live and in the UK, but I have done work for clients in the states, not all PAL TVs are compatible with NTSC anyway.

I think to save a lot of faffing around on the other end here in the UK you should just do the full conversion, all you need to do is export it as a Microsoft compressed DV PAL project and tell it to activate the even fields first.

What I'm trying to say is some PAL TVs get confused if they're not getting a totally PAL signal which can lead to weird effects like ghosting, distortion and bad colouring.

For example, I took my DVD player over to a friends house to show him something I made for a band, I shot the whole thing in NTSC because there was very little chance it was going to be shown in PAL, and his TV didn't understand it, it thought it was a widescreen picture so it squashed it and everyone looked fat.

So it may very well work on some or even most TVs over here but the main problem is we use SCARTS over here, I don't think the US uses SCARTS and to save a lot of faffing about and problems on the other end I really think you should convert it first it won’t take long depending on how big the project is and how fast your system is.

richard_99_uk

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Jan 3, 2003, 11:32:48 AM1/3/03

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Oh yeah, sorry I forgot to mention if you're planning on putting it on some kind of analogue format like VHS then a PAL VCR won't record the signal unless absolutely everything totally and utterly conforms to PAL parameters.

Phil Potter

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Jan 3, 2003, 11:44:55 AM1/3/03

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I'm sure for the very best video quality, conversion is the way to go, but for my home and vacation videos, the NTSC discs have been a godsend. My family in the UK has not seen any compatability problems with 4 different players and different brands of TV. These used either composite or SCART connections. It also works from a video games box. Even my 72yr old mother can get the suckers to work!

I encode at the very highest quality (8000kbps), so maybe that reduces any resolution losses in the player. Whatever, it is still vastly better than any conversion of VHS tape that I used to use, and certainly avoids any issues with frame rates, resolutions and field dominance.

richard_99_uk

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Jan 3, 2003, 12:16:47 PM1/3/03

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Yeah I'm sure it does mate but TVs in the UK and TVs in the US are becoming quite different, TVs here are having to be made to take Widescreen and NTSC but if you convert it in premiere digitally, it should be just as good as the original NTSC copy.

I've tried NTSC discs on a lot of region 2 players and most of them work fine but the underlying thing is the TV its going to be played on. To ensure total compatibility with every single TV made in the UK ever so it'll work properly you need to do a full conversion.

I've wrestled with NTSC and PSUEDO PAL and something in-between for years and I still find that just a little more time and effort solves any problem.

Converting NTSC to PAL on VHS is crap I agree but if you do it digitally there should be very little problems and marginal quality loss from changing the frame size.

Helge Larsen

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Jan 3, 2003, 3:39:35 PM1/3/03

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Wow...Thank you for all the replies!!
I will experiment with the various suggestions and see what works out.
I am aware of the fact that to record to PAL Tape the format has to fully comply. I wasn't sure if this also was the case for DVD.

So, thanks again!!

Helge

andrzej1313

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Jan 8, 2003, 7:24:01 PM1/8/03

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richard_99_uk or anyone else for that matter! Correct me if I'm wrong!

According to your instractions, all i need to do is to import my dv material (ntsc) to Premier 6.5 change frame size to
720x576 and rate to 25fps and export it to mpeg-2 and burn it to DVD? If I misundrestood something, please correct me or list the correct processes. THANK YOU.

richard_99_uk

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Jan 9, 2003, 6:29:36 PM1/9/03

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you need to reverse the field dominance. I hardly ever log in here any more, if you need help you can e-mail me at seifera...@hotmail.com ok?

andrzej1313

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Jan 9, 2003, 6:30:37 PM1/9/03

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Great will do!

andrzej1313

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Jan 9, 2003, 6:42:13 PM1/9/03

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Great will do!

richard_99_uk

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Jan 9, 2003, 6:41:50 PM1/9/03

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sorry seifera...@aol.com

Jorgen Bjerke

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Jan 12, 2003, 12:11:37 PM1/12/03

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There's an important thing you all forget here: By simply export a PAL-project as NTSC or opposite in Premiere (or convert it in TMPEG) the result will be jerky. Not because of field dominance but because stretching 25 to 29,97 fps or vice versa. When you have 25 frames with fields Premiere will double some frames (with fields) to get 29,97. That produces some jerky movements. And because of the fields inside the frames the double frames will result in a double movement in picture. I've testet this and I know what I'm talking about. If you test with calm camera movements and few object movements it's OK, but a pan will just screw your head completely (well, my head did). I guess this problem is more visible in PAL-NTSC converting than NTSC-PAL since some frames then have to be removed, not doubled.

You have to do FIELD-blending. Premiere will only do FRAME-blending. And that helps very little. I've found a program that converts from PAL-NTSC or opposite with field blending for $98 and is called aDVanced PAL-NTSC converter: <http://www.dvunlimited.com/>. It will even morph between fields (if you want) to get the extra fields when converting from 25-29,97 fps (but it's not nice done) and it will only understand DV-coded AVIs, and output DV-AVIs, so you can't frameserve directly from Premiere through the converter to TMPEG (for instance).

Does anyone know about a plug-in for Premiere, that does the job?