I'm in PAL land - never dealt with NTCS. How to render NTSC and print to miniDV?
 

This might be kind of a dumb question... when it comes to video technology, I get lost.

I'm in PAL world. I need to make an NTSC version of an animation film and print it out to a miniDV tape (NTSC).

I have the JPEG sequences of the animation film set on the Vegas timeline ready for rendering, which normally I would just render to PAL. But this time I need to send out an NTSC copy of the film. What are the steps to making an NTSC version (best quality)?

The Properties of the media on the timeline are:

FORMAT: JPEG
ATTRIBUTES: 720x576x24
FRAME RATE: 12 FPS
FIELD ORDER: None (Progressive Scan)
PIXEL ASPECT RATIO: 1.0926 (PAL DV)
ALPHA CHANNEL: None

If more information is required to best answer this post, please just state the information you need and I'll provide it.

Looking forward to your replies..... thanks! :)

I might be wrong here, but would you not need a NTSC DV camera to print NTSC? Not sure on how the recording systems differ from PAL to NTSC.

You probably have a reason, but would it not be easier to render out a file that the receiver could use, like a DVD?

come to think of it... you're probably right. my miniDV camera is PAL :S
they won't accept dvd. only miniDV, DV, beta or digi-beta tapes. if there's no other option, i'll just have to render the file and then print it to tape at a video studio. it'll cost some, but i don't see i have any other choice.

so... assuming you are right about the printing to tape, my question is then down to only rendering out the video to a file that i can then take to some video editing suite to be made into an NTSC tape.

How frustrating for you, I had a quick look at this last night, whichever software route you take, you cant get past needing an NTSC cam or deck to print it back to tape.
Might be cheaper to buy a cheap DVD player and send that with the DVD, lol.
Are these the people your working for?
YouTube - Flintstones Titles

It's an animation film festival.

No worries... I'll find a place to make the NTSC tape.

But I'd like to bring them a file - ready for printing to tape. So now my main concern is how to render the project to a high quality NTSC file.

The procedure in Vegas might be very simple - like just selecting the NTSC template settings from the drop-down list when rendering. But I'm not sure... so I'm just looking for step-by-step instructions on how best to do this.

Thanks!

Not just an NTSC DV deck, but an NTSC video monitor too. It's always worrying with modern kit because many pieces of kit actually use the same major components and you can produce something that appears to be NTSC, but isn't - yet the display says it is! DVDs are a pain for this. You record what you assume is NTSC on them, and they play fine, but in fact you've recorded something not quite NTSC, but because your monitor can 'repair' it, you're never quite sure it is real NTSC, and not PAL with a lowered colour subcarrier. A DV recorder is a better bet than DVD in my experience. It could be cheaper to buy an old US camcorder to use than pay a studio rate for the job.

ok! good tip. i'll keep that in mind and make sure that wherever i make this NTSC tape - they have an NTSC monitor to confirm that all is good.

i'm still left with the one simple question that i want to verify -

How best to render this file - in Vegas - to then bring to the studio where I'll be converting and printing to NTSC?

Should I just render it PAL and let them worry about the whole conversion thing?

I'll surely ask the studio where I'll be making the NTSC tape what they prefer, but from my experience - it's happened more than once that getting a 2nd opinion here at this forum has saved me from doing something wrong and then having to do it all over again. Even when dealing with professionals that in most cases should know what they're doing - it so happens that sometimes they don't know a few things, or think they know, or maybe misunderstand exactly what you intend to do - which you realize only after going through the whole process and only afterward realizing that something went wrong.

So I'm just looking for some advice here as to what I should make sure of and how to render a file - from PAL material - to be converted to NTSC (not by me, but by a company that has the equipment to do this, including NTSC deck and monitor).

Thanks all!

Hi Adi,

It's possible to convert to NTSC DV, and my tool of choice is DV Atlantis. You then print out to tape using a professional deck which can read/write to both standards.

I have a feeling that for you the best thing will be to go to a post-production facility where they can (a) standards convert for you, and (b) output to DV tape in NTSC at the same time. Pay the money and avoid the stress.

Andrew

ok - thanks for the advice!