Converting PAL footage for NTSC DVD/BD

[Alpha Video]

i've searched these forums but can't seem to find an answer to my situation.

I recorded a wedding in the UK but the bride and groom are going to live in the USA. I shot 1080i AVCHD HD footage. The couple say that they have a Blu Ray player but I have no idea what way to output this so that it will look ok in NTSC land.

I know that once I've found out how to output for NTSC that the best idea would be getting an NTSC TV and BD player but I can't really justify the cost as this is more than likely to be a one off thing.

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.

[John Lewis]

If you have TMPG
Export an HQ avi off your Edius timeline
Bring it in to TMPG and export at the NTSC US framerate
If using Edisc Burn to Disc create a project to match the exported file and
import the file and burn to disc
Or import into your normal burner

Thats the way i did it for DVD for the brides family in US

[Alpha Video]

If you have TMPG
Export an HQ avi off your Edius timeline
Bring it in to TMPG and export at the NTSC US framerate
If using Edisc Burn to Disc create a project to match the exported file and
import the file and burn to disc
Or import into your normal burner

Thats the way i did it for DVD for the brides family in US

Hello John. yes, I use TMPG. is the AVI file ok for Blu Ray? I normally export MPEG 2 at 1920x1080 for HD Blu Ray.

I really do need to get this right first time as I have no way of checking if it's going to look ok. Thanks.

[Thor]

I may be mistaken, but I believe Blu-ray players are supposed to play any Blu-ray compatible disc. I didn't think PAL or NTSC was a concern with Blu-ray.

John had good advice for producing an NTSC DVD. I would add that you could simply export your edited project as NTSC DV interlaced, and it can be used in a new project to burn your DVD.

[John Lewis]

Once produced in TMPG if its a 1920 file then treat as a Bluray
The procedure i used for producing a NTSC DVD would be the same for Bluray, asuming that originally you shot it in HD

[antonsvideo]

TMPG does great downscaling, so when I make an NTSC DVD from Pal HD, I export timeline to 1920x1080 50i HQ Fine or Lossless

then use TMPG to make the NTSC elementary streams 720x480 upper field m2v+ac3 and author in DVD Lab Pro

[John Lewis]

The same procedure would apply to making a bluray disc except at TMPG create a file in the required resolution..etc

[Alpha Video]

Ok, I had to shelve this for a while as other more urgent projects took over. Now that I have a second USA BD to do I think I need to make sure I'm getting it right.

I've exported a GV Lossless AVI and import it into TMPGENC Video Mastering using the settings on the 2 attached images. Can you tell me if this is correct, please.

I used an AVI file as suggested but I normally export to MPEG2 when I do a DVD. Does it matter? I find that when I export to AVI it very often comes out looking a bit flickery, but not with MPEG2.

[antonsvideo]

which program are you using for authoring? I would export to elementary streams

is the PAL source footage progressive or interlaced?

[Alpha Video]

which program are you using for authoring? I would export to elementary streams

is the PAL source footage progressive or interlaced?

Yes, I normally just export an elementary stream from Edius into TMPGEnc Authoring Works 5 but that's for PAL. I shoot at 1920x1080 interlaced so output it as an interlaced file.

[antonsvideo]

in that case, you can export a GV HQ Fine file and then convert it in T5 to mpeg ES with 25M max for video and 384 ac3 for audio

or you can start an EDIUS 1920x1080 60i project and add the above HQ file and then export to mpeg ES the usual way

[Alpha Video]

in that case, you can export a GV HQ Fine file and then convert it in T5 to mpeg ES with 25M max for video and 384 ac3 for audio

or you can start an EDIUS 1920x1080 60i project and add the above HQ file and then export to mpeg ES the usual way

Thanks for your help. So if I use the 2nd option what I'm doing is taking a 50i project, exporting to an AVI, then re-importing into a 60i project and that will make it suitable for watching on a Region 1 USA Blu Ray player in the correct aspect ratio, not flickery and will actually play on their TV??? Just have to be sure as no way of testing my end before I send it. Thankfully I have a good relationship with the bride and groom and would love it to stay that way :)

[Jerry]

I may be mistaken, but I believe Blu-ray players are supposed to play any Blu-ray compatible disc. I didn't think PAL or NTSC was a concern with Blu-ray.

That might be the case in PAL land. I can't get a PAL disc to play on my NTSC Sony players.

[Alpha Video]

That might be the case in PAL land. I can't get a PAL disc to play on my NTSC Sony players.

well, what I do know is that it's a case of region - UK is region 2 and USA Region 1 - so Region 2 won't play on Region 1 Blu Ray player. If it did it would save my life as all I would have to do is produce a BD and it would play and we wouldn't be having this conversation :) Then there are BD players that are Region Free, which would make sense, but then I guess the big players making these machines have some vested interest as to why they don't make them region free.

But let's stay on topic so that I can learn about how to do this conversion thing, get this job done and know how to do it again for the future. Cheers

[wags]

Hi

When I made my Reef to Rainforest Blu-Ray, I tried many ways to make the NSTC version from 25p. Always the quality suffered.

What I ended up doing to give me the equal quality to the 25p was to export a 1920/1080 25p HQ fine avi and run it through Virtualdub.
The resulting 24P file was the near on the same quality as the 25P.

I also used that 24p file to make the NTSC DVD too.