NTSC to PAL

[cemcik]

I have an ntsc vhs tape. I have to capture it to edius and export it as Pal without losing colors. My vhs player supports both. When I try to capture the footage (composite input) by selecting ntsc in the hardware settings and by opening an ntsc project the footage looses color. I can not see any color. Is there any way to capture without losing quality?
Also, if it is not possible to capture ntsc and export pal, how can I see the ntsc footage I captured in edius? Because when capturing, I could see the footage (b&w) but now I can not see the footage in the player window, I just hear the audio and see a blank gray screen. As I'm no expert in this matter, I'd appreciate if yu would give step by step instructions.

PS: When I change the hardware setting to ntsc, I cannot set the project to storm, only to ohci.

Thank you.

Cem

[antonsvideo]

lose color in external monitor or internal preview monitor or both?

is the VHS player outputting true NTSC VHS? most output NTSC with a Pal color frequency, this can be changed to make it correct in the player setup menu

if you capture NTSC with Pal color to Edius NTSC project, the result will be B/W

[cemcik]

my vhs player is capable of both. Ntsc playback on pal tv and true ntsc and pal. when I plug it in the tv, colors are ok but inside edius preview is with loss. And the real problem is, when using pal hardware setting and pal project, I see the footage ok with just a slight reference lost (i.e. the top of the same screen appears from below but I can arrange it with 3d pip) Anyway the real problem is: when I try to open the captured footage all I see is the gray screen. Audio is still there but I see that edius didn't capture the video, although it was there during the preview. İsn't it strange? So it must be a visualisation problem.

[antonsvideo]

what is your capture hardware? storm, NX, SP, Rex etc

not all will capture VHS without a Time Base Corrector, for example, my SP goes crazy if it is fed a signal without TBC

[cemcik]

right, I think that's the problem. VHS player doesn't have a TBC output. Well we call it here, in Turkey, reference output. Our Betacam Decks have it so it keeps the video in place and regulates it according to the timecode, right? By the way, I have storm hardware.

[antonsvideo]

storm hardware may be able to do it, wait for storm dave to reply! he may know the culprit

[cemcik]

last update: I tried to hook up my vhs player to my dvd recorder by analog input, when I press play, first 5 seconds everything is great (color, sound, resolution) after 5 sec a white screen comes out. When I stop and press play again, same thing happens: 5sec ok, then white screen comes out. I think tomorrow I'll try to connect the vsh player to a betacam deck. I have to transfer the ntsc footage to pal in some way. Maybe I'll find a tv with analog out and capture the footage to mini dv.
Thanks for your comments Anton.

[SRsupport]

If you are using a storm did you:
1 put the storm in ntsc and reboot?
2 are you chosing a ntsc project?
3 is the setting on composite not Svideo?
4 are you making a new project when you have an old one open?
if so edius won't show the ntsc storm presets because the old project is probably pal.
Make a new project when starting edius and the ntsc project will show.

[GrassValley_KH]

Asking the really obvious question here, but is there any chance the source VHS tape has macrovision or some other anti-copy protection scheme?

[skier-hughes]

This sounds exactly like my problem, when I had Video 8 tapes to apture and turn to dvd. In teh end I found out they were NTSC.
My PAL cam would play them, my PAL tv would show it all in colour, but when I tried to capture to Edius all I got was either Black and white, or nothing or rolling.

I expect you'll find your vcr does not output true ntsc, only as has been said a pseudo ntsc signal. By using a proper ntsc player you will find all is ok.

Here's my post

http://ediusforum.grassvalley.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1158&highlight=analogue

[cemcik]

If you are using a storm did you:
1 put the storm in ntsc and reboot?
2 are you chosing a ntsc project?
3 is the setting on composite not Svideo?
4 are you making a new project when you have an old one open?
if so edius won't show the ntsc storm presets because the old project is probably pal.
Make a new project when starting edius and the ntsc project will show.

1. Yes SR, I d'd all of the above. set to ntsc, select composite setting, then a whole new ntsc project, even when I do all of this, I see the video black and white and after I capture, no video shows up, only white screen. (There is video when previewing, during capture.)

2. I d'd not know vhs tapes could have a copy protection. That could be true. It is an old vhs tape of the band "The Doors".

3. And skier, you might be right. But it is not easy to find a new vhs player these days... Mine has a button on it that allows you to change the color mode (ntsc or pal)

When I open a pal project in pal hardware setting video shows up with color. When I capture, same problem, white screen...

Thanks for all your suggestions. I'll try other ways today, I'll let you know if I succeed.

[skier-hughes]

2. I d'd not know vhs tapes could have a copy protection. That could be true. It is an old vhs tape of the band "The Doors".

3. And skier, you might be right. But it is not easy to find a new vhs player these days... Mine has a button on it that allows you to change the color mode (ntsc or pal)

2. If it is a shop bought vhs then it most likley will have copy protection.
3. Sounds like it doesn't do proper ntsc, and if you try ebay you'll find lots of ntsc vcr's, maybe even cheaper to buy one and ship it from the US.

[tomroot]

Hi guys, maybe someone will help me with capturing NTSC signal from NTSC_playback_ONLY vcr using edius nx express (or maybe there is other way to do it?)

[johannesj]

Is it possible that your vhs player is playing the ntsc tape and transform the signal and sending the picture out as pal.
Try set your project back to pal and try, or try an ntsc vcr and project set to ntsc.

My best
Johannes

[pbskasaa]

my vhs player is capable of both. Ntsc playback on pal tv and true ntsc and pal. when I plug it in the tv, colors are ok but inside edius preview is with loss. And the real problem is, when using pal hardware setting and pal project, I see the footage ok with just a slight reference lost (i.e. the top of the same screen appears from below but I can arrange it with 3d pip) Anyway the real problem is: when I try to open the captured footage all I see is the gray screen. Audio is still there but I see that edius didn't capture the video, although it was there during the preview. İsn't it strange? So it must be a visualisation problem.

Hi all
Just day before yesterday I was given two VHS NTSC cassettes to convert into PAL. I have the Toshiba Multi System VCR player which can play both NTSC and PAL. I have the old Canopus DVStorm RT capture card. Mine is PAL conuntry so I usually select Canopus DV driver for PAL when installing the Edius 4.02 software.
I did have the same problem like you mentioned here. I spent whole night to overcome it. And finally it worked. So here, I will explain how I did.

1. Re-install the Edius 4.02 with Canopus DV driver selected to NTSC (NOW) setting.
2. Open Edius > New Project
3. Select Generic OHCI SD PAL in Output Device and then, select DV 50i 4:3, 48 Khz in Output Format with DV AVI as Rendering Format.
4. Select for destination drive for the project , name it and save. (Your project will open.)
5. Set your VCR player to NTSC video format . I did select NTSC 3.58. ( There is 4.43 also. To be honest ,I donot know what is it actually. And I found B/W video when selected NTSC 4.43 )
6. Go to your capture setting > Input Setting
7. Here, select DVStorm RT Stormbay for Input Device and DV 59.94i 4:3 , 48 Khz for Input Format.
8. Start capture.
9. Your NTSC video now captures in NTSC format but plays fine in PAL project timeline without any mess. No loss of quality( undetectable), no sync out problem.
10. I have not made PAL DVD yet . Let you know later.

I am not expert and I don't know does this works for you or not. But I have posted what I have found. Thanks.

Regards
Pabitra Kasaa