Compression settings for DVD to play in Italy
 

Hi, I'm trying to figure out the best setting to make my film compatible with the DVD players and TVs that are used in Italy, and I assume Europe in general. Normally when compression from FCP I use the default setting which is NTSC with a frame rate of 23.98 and 16:9. Am I supposed to change the format to PAL? When I do that it sets the frame rate at 25. Will that screw up the sync? Since I have no Italian DVD player here so I have no way of testing this.

Do their modern HD TVs just use the same settings as ours? Is PAL dead? This stuff confuses the hell out of me...

Btw, my original footage is HDV from a Canon XH-A1 shot in the 24F mode.

Can anyone give me advice?

Thanks

most new DVD players play both PAL and NTSC DVDs. Just use the NTSC DVD - it should work - unless your clients/customers have really old DVD players that only play PAL. In that case -

You'll need to change the DVD to PAL - but it will re-encode an already compressed MPEG-2 file and audio another time. If you do it from the master (which I'm assuming is HDV) - then go right ahead and export a PAL DVD - it won't screw up the sync.

But try to stick to the earlier suggestion. I live in India and most DVDs are NTSC - even though this is a PAL region completely.

I would first try to put the original in Compressor, and put the preset DV PAL on it. After that's done, look if it looks good, and then put the DVD Best Quality setting on that PAL file.

I did it the other way around, for going from a 50i XDCAM file to an NTSC dvd and that (after much trying) give me the best results.