Pal Dvd
 

I have a widescreen project that was shot NTSC 16:9 and it has come out fine and the DVD is great, etc.

However I need a PAL version of this for relatives of my customers in Germany.

For those familiar with PAL, is the following correct?

I resaved movie and changed properties to PAL 720x576, etc.

I re-did DVD changing the setting there as well.

Is that enough to make project compatable with German DVD players?

It should work OK. If you are rendering the project in Vegas with Pal Widescreen Mpeg2 settings, you should be fine.

PAL is also 25fps (unlike NTSC's 30fps) - and has a different black level - strictly you need to convert those two attributes too.

I would suggest you TRY just sending them an NTSC DVD first - all DVD players (and all European TV sets produced in the last, say, ten years) can display NTSC OK as well as PAL - and you would avoid the substantial quality hit from attempting the NTSC>PAL conversion.

Also make sure your DVD is "Region Free".

Jeff, be advised that this will take a very long time.
The last time I did this, the render time was roughly 6X what it was for the NTSC encode :-(
Also, most European DVD players do the NTSC to PAL conversion on the fly during playback so a PAL DVD, while a nice option to offer, may not be necessary.

Thanks everyone. I've already burned the PAL versions, not having read your responses first.

I'll burn the Germans a NTSC copy also. That is great to know.

Mike, didn't take long to render at all. I feel confident the setting were correct...maybe I did something wrong and didn't know it.

With the NTSC versions I will feel safe now.

Martin, any DVD made in DVD Architect (and, as far as I know, any other home burning software) is region-free.
It's only the "big boys" who make region-coded DVDs.

Glad to hear that Jeff.
My experience was with a P4 3.4 GHz machine so your machine is probably a LOT faster.

Your changes were correct so, as long as you rendered it out in PAL widescreen, you should be OK.
BTW, if you don't have a DVD player that will handle a PAL DVD, your computer's DVD drive should be able to play it for you.

Didn't know my PC would play pal, that's good to know, had no idea!

it should, but it'll be a bit chopy

Great thread, we just shot a tourist doc for French release, was gonna ask about the PAL issue. so NTSC will be ok for French tourists going back to France with NTSC DVD?

Hello Fred,

a lot of DVDs which are sold in Europe are NTSC - especially Music - DVDs. Therefore all DVD -Players here are capable of NTSC and Pal and also most TV Sets. Only on very cheap or old equipment the playback quality of NTSC - DVDs is not so good - but they are still playing. Many People here have regionfree players and import US - DVDs. If I were from "NTSC - Land" I wouldnt even think of producing an PAL - DVD because of the necessary framerate conversion und loss of quality that comes with it.

Greetings from Germany

Richard

While I'm glad our friends in Germany and elsewhere have had good experiences with them, NTSC DVDs are *not* universally playable in PAL lands. I stopped sending NTSC when I saw that some players would only show the program in black and white, and underscanned.

A PAL DVD is not hard to make with Vegas and DVDA. The quality, in my personal experience, is very good - much better than the alternative of what some PAL players will show of an NTSC disc.

I did a lot of viewing on a couple different PCs to confirm that the discs were recognized as PAL, and looked good, wasn't choppy, and I've had good feedback from viewers in Europe and Turkey.

See also this on AC3, this thread on deinterlacing, Spot's advice on NTSC->PAL, and much more if you search this forum!

I would say most players will be able to handle NTSC over here. Generally, the cheaper and nastier the player, the bettwr the chances. It's becoming les and less of an issue as older players start to get put out to pasture.

Please don't ask why, but I have ten DVD players around the house and all play NTSC DVDs into a PAL TV without a problem.

Ten. I know. Extreme.

Not unless you have 10 TVs to go along with them :-)