Making PAL footage look like its NTSC at DVinfo.net

Stick Tully · December 11th, 2006, 06:29 PM

Working on a project at the moment which as been shot in hdv on my fx1 which is PAL... the program is a mock up of an american television channel and we are trying to achieve that NTSC look and feel (or sound)

i think it was Chris Morris' Brasseye or The Day Today where they had an American section which came out perfectly

any tips for achieving this look?

Ive read ntsc and pal have different scanning rates but im not too sure how to go about playing with this...

ive tried increasing saturation and converting to 29.97fps and ntsc resolution (its dv output so 720x480)

hope someone can give me a few pointers
Stick

Conor Ryan · December 12th, 2006, 04:38 AM

Aye, it was both Brass Eye and The Day Today. I think in both cases, they did a tape dub, and then used a converter box. They may even have dubbed it to VHS and then done all sorts of magnet-related things to it.

Aside from the frame rate changes, which you can do in AE, Shake, and FCP with varying degrees of success (the best I have done is through AE), you can start by adding brightness, reducing contrast, add some colour separation (maybe take the reds towards magenta), increasing overall sharpness, blurring out highlights, and adding trails (something like motion blure). This will get you the "old" NTSC-Pal look.

For retiming, convert PAL to NTSC (drop a PAL clip into an NTSC comp in AE), pre-render it (experiment with frame blending here) and then reimport for the colouration. Then convert back to PAL the opposite way. You could skip the prerender, but it'll take ages to do the colour part then.

When you're done there, crunchy up the audio too.

Of course, if you want the modern look, just conver the framerates. Most of the look of American production (particularly news) is different by virtue of its lighting and filtration (they tend to be a lot lower contrast, and softer).

December 11th, 2006, 06:29 PM	#1
Stick Tully Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Brighton Posts: 92	Making PAL footage look like its NTSC Working on a project at the moment which as been shot in hdv on my fx1 which is PAL... the program is a mock up of an american television channel and we are trying to achieve that NTSC look and feel (or sound) i think it was Chris Morris' Brasseye or The Day Today where they had an American section which came out perfectly any tips for achieving this look? Ive read ntsc and pal have different scanning rates but im not too sure how to go about playing with this... ive tried increasing saturation and converting to 29.97fps and ntsc resolution (its dv output so 720x480) hope someone can give me a few pointers Stick

December 12th, 2006, 04:38 AM	#2
Conor Ryan Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Dublin, Ireland Posts: 67	Aye, it was both Brass Eye and The Day Today. I think in both cases, they did a tape dub, and then used a converter box. They may even have dubbed it to VHS and then done all sorts of magnet-related things to it. Aside from the frame rate changes, which you can do in AE, Shake, and FCP with varying degrees of success (the best I have done is through AE), you can start by adding brightness, reducing contrast, add some colour separation (maybe take the reds towards magenta), increasing overall sharpness, blurring out highlights, and adding trails (something like motion blure). This will get you the "old" NTSC-Pal look. For retiming, convert PAL to NTSC (drop a PAL clip into an NTSC comp in AE), pre-render it (experiment with frame blending here) and then reimport for the colouration. Then convert back to PAL the opposite way. You could skip the prerender, but it'll take ages to do the colour part then. When you're done there, crunchy up the audio too. Of course, if you want the modern look, just conver the framerates. Most of the look of American production (particularly news) is different by virtue of its lighting and filtration (they tend to be a lot lower contrast, and softer).