I have a one hour MiniDV tape to be converted to a PAL DVD. A company I spoke with said they can convert it but the time frame to get it completed does not work for us. (The person originally wanted VHS but is asking if we can do it as DVD instead and I'm needing to get this completed quickly.)

Here are some questions:

1. Can I capture the footage into a file on computer and upload it to a server and then, once man in Africa downloads the file to play on his computer, will it already be in the PAL version for him to burn a DVD on his own computer?

2. Is there a free software application that I can load this one hour video into and convert it myself to PAL file and then upload it to an online server for Africa to download, burn to DVD and play it on DVD player there?

3. What do you suggest is the quickest way to convert this, if possible to do it myself or is it best to outsource it to a company that does the conversions?

Thank you,
Lisa

Why not output a NTSC DVD, so no conversion. It will play in all PAL countries on all settop boxes from 2000 or later.

Hi Harm,

I wasn't aware that a NTSC DVD disk will play in PAL countries. The person that I am communicating with in Uganda said they use PAL and it requires conversion. They are connecting the DVD player and/or VHS machine to a video projector for a conference.

Thank you,
Lisa

The answers are as follows:

1. No; whatever you upload, that's what he will download, so it will still be NTSC.

2. I don't know of any high quality FREE software for this. Any decent encoder like Procoder, TMPGEnc will do a decent job.

3. Unless you need a really high quality output, most likely you can do it yourself. What editing softwares do you have?

As to NTSC DVDs playing in PAL countries - there is no guarantee! They may or may not play... they will play on MOST players, but you never know what your client might have.

Thanks guys for the info. It's helpful. Appreciate it. This forum is always so great to help.

Best Regards.

video projectors do not care about signal, they play all.
the problem is more with the DVD player, but they can also play it from a PC.

Lisa, if you have CS3 or CS4, the AE preset does a very good job of converting. If fact, better than anything else we tried.

We tried a number of options, but at someone's suggestion ended up with superior results with what we already had! This was with HD (1920x1080p) material using Cineforms codec though, so am not sure what you'd get with anything else.

you can export the file into PAL MPEG2 DVD format, and let them download it and burn without any conversions. Any editing software will let you do it.

For transferring large files over the net you can use any of those free file sharing websites like megaupload.com