Compressor & Standards Conversions [PAL to NTSC]

[Bakey]

Good afternoon,

I've had a quick search around these forums and unable to find anything of particular relevance to my query. I'm in need of converting an hour of PAL DV footage to NTSC that will later be used to author an NTSC DVD [so the output would/could be either a DV NTSC MOV or an MPEG2 NTSC DVD ready asset(s)].

I'm of the understanding that Compressor 2 can now handle this job -- but my query is as to how good this is? There's no money available to have the conversion done by means of a hardware based solution. So, what with having Compressor I'm wondering just how good of a job the PAL to NTSC conversion is via Compressor!

Any advice would be gratefully received. Many thanks in advance...

 

[Sol]

JES Deinterlacer

PAL to NTSC conversion of DV footage is exactly what I had to do several weeks ago. QuickTime 7 does a much better job than QT 6 but unfortunately it takes a lot of detail out of the video. Fortunately I found JES Deinterlacer at the following site:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~jeschot/home.html

This free utility converts from one standard to another with no loss of detail and the soundtrack simply gets copied without re-rendering. The only criticism I have about it is that it does not utilise multiple processors but even if it renders slower than Compressor or QuickTime, the results look much better.

 

[Bakey]

PAL to NTSC conversion of DV footage is exactly what I had to do several weeks ago. QuickTime 7 does a much better job than QT 6 but unfortunately it takes a lot of detail out of the video. Fortunately I found JES Deinterlacer at the following site:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~jeschot/home.html

This free utility converts from one standard to another with no loss of detail and the soundtrack simply gets copied without re-rendering. The only criticism I have about it is that it does not utilise multiple processors but even if it renders slower than Compressor or QuickTime, the results look much better.

Hey nice one Sol! Thank you very much indeed.

Out of interest, how well did the final results turn out on NTSC playback equipment & did you keep the default encoding settings offered?

Thanks once again...

 

[Sol]

Identical to PAL

Out of interest, how well did the final results turn out on NTSC playback equipment & did you keep the default encoding settings offered?

Always glad to share the goods with another editor in need but Jan E. Schotsman is the one that should be thanked.

With the default settings I converted my PAL video to NTSC and used the resulting file to make an NTSC disc with iDVD. Previously I created a PAL DVD of the same project and both videos looked the same on my television monitor.

 

[Bakey]

Always glad to share the goods with another editor in need but Jan E. Schotsman is the one that should be thanked.

With the default settings I converted my PAL video to NTSC and used the resulting file to make an NTSC disc with iDVD. Previously I created a PAL DVD of the same project and both videos looked the same on my television monitor.

Errrr... WOW!!

I eventually managed to view the resulting NTSC render on a multi-standard production monitor and the end result was nothing short of amazing!!

I've never seen/achieved a standards conversion so flawlessly outputted. Not even the slightest "shimmer" was present -- many years ago I used Snell & Wilcox equipment [well actually it was which ever company S&W purchased whose equipment I'd used - their name escapes me at this moment].

Throughout the run-up to this question being posted I'd also attempted Premiere Pro and After Effects [sorry folks, I'm still predominantly a Windows user -- for now!] of which the results of both were fairly disappointing to say the least.

I'm absolutely gob-smacked that this fella is giving away this utility as a freebie!! I'll most definitely be contacting Jan Schotsman to pass on my huge thanks for such a fantastic piece of kit and also to enquire about donations.

Many thanks once again for pointing me in the right direction Sol - it has been very much appreciated...