PAL DVD from 24p footage using Encore-Experiences?
 

We've just landed a foreign distribution deal that requires a PAL version of our DVD to be created. We can save some money if we do the conversion ourselves.

I've read a few articles here and on other forums that express good results just having Encore (I'm still using CS3) encode the DVD as PAL from files originally used for the NTSC version. I haven't tried it yet. Mostly because I'm not sure how I'd test it other than just reviewing on computer.

Can anyone give me any first hand experiences they've had using this process? What are the results? Good? Fair? Bad? How about testing the disk?

Thanks.

It's not that simple...
 

Unfortunately, Encore does not allow the user to change from NTSC to PAL once the original comp is created. So to test I will have to rebuild the entire DVD in a PAL comp. I was hoping for a settings change and some quick layout changes to deal with the frame size difference. That isn't the case at all.

I'm gonna start with a simple test project. Build it twice and encode twice. We'll see what happens.

I've had to produce PAL DVD versions of existing projects a few times in the past.
My recollection is that the DVD definitely needed to be reauthored as a new PAL project.
Many of the assets like graphics, menus, etc. could be reused with only minor, or no tweaking.
The biggest issue, by far, was producing a high quality PAL DVD encode of the original NTSC movie.

If you are making a pal dvd for Europe dont bother, just leave it in ntsc.
The majority of the dvd players can handle ntsc just fine.
Converting from ntsc to pal results in qualityloss.

Robert and Ann. Thanks for the input.

Ann. I've read that a lot, but my distributor insists that a PAL version is required. I'm going to have to investigate that more thoroughly. It seems that would make the entire process less painful for everyone.

Robert, that was my main concern, the quality of the video content. The research I've done so far points to the stretching of the image to cover PAL frame size as the big quality killer.

So far I've found that Encore's encoder doesn't give you an option to letterbox the content to counter the frame stretching. Other than After Affects, I've found a couple of software-based converters that I'm going to try. I'll post on this thread as I find out more.

Chad
I cannot find my notes on the workflow I used, and it has been several years, but I'm pretty sure that I:
1) Exported a 720x 480 NTSC movie.avi of the project
2) Opened a new Premiere PAL project
3) imported the movie to the PAL timeline where I was able to (or maybe PPro automatically) letterbox the aspect ratio
4) Export/Render the timeline to a letterboxed PAL.avi movie
5) Transcoded the PAL movie to PAL DVD with ProCoder
Since you are already starting with 24 fps, the frame rate conversion is minimal, and since it is progressive footage, you should be able to avoid interlace artifact- which is a big nusiance with this sort of conversion.
You should be able to end up with a pretty good looking PAL DVD :)
Also, this is a pretty common topic- many people needing to deliver DVD in both standards. It would be productive to do a search on several of the DV Info forums. It will turn up a variety of ideas, I'm sure.
Good luck

Give this converter a try:
Homepage of DVdate

the best option for quality is to have a PAL master first before you burn the DVD. Otherwise Encore will use its own engine (which is unreliable) to conform your footage.

You can use After Effects to rescale your source. Soundbooth/Premiere should be able to take care of the audio (but only your ears can really tell you whether it's acceptable or not).

if your clients had asked for a PAL master earlier, you should have mixed your audio and rendered your video to PAL too (and charged them for the same). If it's a new request, you can ask them for extra money to do the transfer. But be prepared to not be very happy with the result. If you do it perfectly, it will be just passable.

Thanks, everybody, for your input. This will be an interesting process. The UK distributor has said he can do the conversion and not to worry about it on my end. The cost to me will be minimal (less than the digibeta master I made for VOD release earlier this year). I'm thinking it's probably worth it to let him deal with it.

Thanks again.

Should work well- as long as their standards are as high as yours ;-)