Converting PAL 720x576 25fps to Canopus HQ ntsc?

[Andrew]

any suggestions as to the cleanest conversion.

[gdame]

any suggestions as to the cleanest conversion.

Andrew, Use ProCoder. I know that the full version ProCoder has PAL to NTSC conversion. Had a customer that used Canopus' Format Converter before it was integrated into ProCoder. She had a pile of DVCam tapes recorded in PAL while filming in India. Her deck was a Sony DSR-11 which has a PAL/NTSC switch on the back. She set her deck to PAL and captured all her tapes in PAL format and then one by one converted them to NTSC. Then she flipped the switch to NTSC and exported back to the deck. Worked like a charm!

[Bluetongue]

any suggestions as to the cleanest conversion.

Andrew the suggestion by George is by far the best. It can be done through edius and PC Express but using PC3 it is really good much fewer artifacts if any on transitions xfade etc
Regards Barry

[antonsvideo]

are you converting to standard def NTSC? or high def?

[gdame]

are you converting to standard def NTSC? or high def?

Anton, his thread title stated 720 x 576, so I am assuming that it is SD. He must have a PAL DVCam tape and wants to edit an NTSC project using 720 x 480 HQ SD files.

Correct me if I am wrong Andrew.

[antonsvideo]

Canopus HQ NTSC can be standard def or high def, I was just trying to find out if he is intending to upsacle to HD resolution

[AndyW69]

Ntsc

It works well to capture in as PAL, then open an NTSC preset in Edius, import the pal footage and the output will be NTSC, you may need to reverse the fields to get smooth motion. A quick render to HQ and your done.

Andy

[tingsern]

I have done tons of PAL - NTSC (and vice versa) conversions in the past. The best bet is not via software ... but hardware. Play the PAL or NTSC tape through the h/w convertor and acquire it via S-VIDEO port on the NX card. For example, if I convert PAL to NTSC -

I set my Sony DSR-25 to PAL, play the tape, connect S-Video output to the h/w convertor. The output from the h/w convertor goes into S-Video input of the NX card (or Storm if you like), and you acquire it by setting the DV standard to NTSC.

Absolutely ZERO problems ...

H/W convertor? http://www.world-import.com/cmd1500.htm

[gdame]

I have done tons of PAL - NTSC (and vice versa) conversions in the past. The best bet is not via software ... but hardware. Play the PAL or NTSC tape through the h/w convertor and acquire it via S-VIDEO port on the NX card. For example, if I convert PAL to NTSC -

I set my Sony DSR-25 to PAL, play the tape, connect S-Video output to the h/w convertor. The output from the h/w convertor goes into S-Video input of the NX card (or Storm if you like), and you acquire it by setting the DV standard to NTSC.

Absolutely ZERO problems ...

H/W convertor? http://www.world-import.com/cmd1500.htm

While I agree with you, that a hardware encoder is effective and can produce high quality results if you use a quality piece of hardware. Software encoding can be just as good with quality software and at the highest quality profile. I have sold a lot of TenLabs multi-standard converters and they work great.

http://www.tenlab.com/index2.htm

[gdame]

Canopus HQ NTSC can be standard def or high def, I was just trying to find out if he is intending to upsacle to HD resolution

I would not think Andrew would like the interpolation of scaling up. Maybe I am wrong! How does it look when you let ProCoder do this Anton? I have not tried it.

[tingsern]

I have no doubts about s/w convertors as well. They work. But - it is VERY SLOW and takes up 2 times the HDD space.

With H/W, I play the tape, output to h/w convertor, and acquire it into the respective TV system (PAL or NTSC). One hour takes one hour to "convert".

With S/W, I play the tape, capture it into the native format of the tape, run the s/w convertor and output another file just as big as the original file. One hour takes about one hour, 30 minutes or even more to convert.

If you have 100's of tapes to convert, s/w isn't the way to go.

[Andrew]

All very nice replies Gentlemen, forgot to mention, 25gig of pal were downloaded

I do not have access to the pal tape I have downloaded the client files from switz. FTP. so to complicate things here we go, the client wants to make edits to a final edit that was shown in europe, so they sent me 3 final edits clips in 720x576p pal .mov 25fps which when placed on the timeline, drops the audio track. so I convert to HQ from bin and get no audio I then convert to NTSC DV and it retains audio. but conversion is not pretty (darker, higher contrast,a little line flicker, Soft)? but I can at least do rough edits for reference with client in hopes to swap out with cleaner conversion.

Oh....did I mention that the original raw clips they sent me (if I need them)were 16x9 HD 1024x576 pal .mov files......WITH NO AUDIO???? nice!

[tingsern]

Quote -

Oh....did I mention that the original raw clips they sent me (if I need them)were 16x9 HD 1024x576 pal .mov files......WITH NO AUDIO???? nice!

Unquote.

Andrew,

May I ask - what camera was used to capture this PAL movie in the first place? In HD world, there is NO such thing as PAL or NTSC. So - I am confused by your mail - you state "16x9 HD 1024 x 576 PAL" ...

Firstly, All HD are 16x9 aspect ratio. I never heard of any video camera producing 1024 x 576 pixels ... If it is true HD, there are only two standards - 1280 x 720 or 1920 x 1080. (Of course, HDV and Panasonic DVCPRO-HD captures as less than that - 960 x 720 or 1440 x 1080). But, your resolution is very funny - 1024 x 576.

[THoff]

I have no doubts about s/w convertors as well. They work. But - it is VERY SLOW and takes up 2 times the HDD space.

I just did some PAL to NTSC conversion from SD MPEG2 to Canopus HQ with Procoder 3.05 this last weekend, and on my 3.2GHz P4D 840EE I was getting better than 2.3x realtime performance.

Your mileage may vary...