PAL to NTSC Conversaion Software?

  • Thread starter Thread starter JeffinMS
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J

JeffinMS

Daughter just sent a video of her vacation from Germany but its in PAL
format, is there any software that will convert a PAL DVD to NTSC standard?
 
Daughter just sent a video of her vacation from Germany but its in PAL
format, is there any software that will convert a PAL DVD to NTSC standard?
Click to expand...

If you can't find any let me know. I have a writer that can convert
from either to the other. (I wouldn't call the conversion, using any
method, really great video, but it's about as good as home video
usually is.)
 
Al said:
If you can't find any let me know. I have a writer that can convert
from either to the other. (I wouldn't call the conversion, using any
method, really great video, but it's about as good as home video
usually is.)
Click to expand...
It's also worth having a look at the "settings / installation" menu of
your DVD player. I'm in Britain, but has an option to display
NTSC-format DVD's and I suspect that the same goes for US machines as
regards PAL DVDs.

I believe that virtually all players are manufactured to handle boith
standards - otherwise they have to have two production lines - one for
US / Japan etc (NTSC) and another for Europe (PAL). Gos knows how they
cope with the unique French SECAM system which isn't compatible with
either !

Phil
 
Phil said:
It's also worth having a look at the "settings / installation" menu of
your DVD player. I'm in Britain, but has an option to display
NTSC-format DVD's and I suspect that the same goes for US machines as
regards PAL DVDs.

I believe that virtually all players are manufactured to handle boith
standards - otherwise they have to have two production lines - one for
US / Japan etc (NTSC) and another for Europe (PAL). Gos knows how they
cope with the unique French SECAM system which isn't compatible with
either !

Phil
Click to expand...

Phil,
Worth noting that with most DVD players (and burners too), theres a
limit to the number of times you can change formats. IIRC, generally
after five changes it stays where you put it.
 
John said:
Phil,
Worth noting that with most DVD players (and burners too), theres a
limit to the number of times you can change formats. IIRC, generally
after five changes it stays where you put it.
Click to expand...

I wonder if the number of changes refers to the regions rather than the
format.
 
JeffinMS said:
Daughter just sent a video of her vacation from Germany but its in PAL
format, is there any software that will convert a PAL DVD to NTSC standard?
Click to expand...

Well, the videohelp.com page at
http://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool...erby=Name&hits=50&convert=&dvdauthorfeatures=
lists all the tools with can convert PAL to NTSC & vice versa. Most of
the tools on the above page are freeware/open source but there are a
few commerical tools on the above page but Videohelp lists wether the
tools are freeware/open software (they use Free software for open
source apps).
 
It's also worth having a look at the "settings / installation" menu of
your DVD player. I'm in Britain, but has an option to display
NTSC-format DVD's and I suspect that the same goes for US machines as
regards PAL DVDs.
Click to expand...

With most of the machines sold here, unfortunately not. We don't
recognize that there's a "rest of the world". "It's not American? Then
who cares?" We do make great gun racks for your pickup truck, though.
 
Worth noting that with most DVD players (and burners too), theres a
limit to the number of times you can change formats. IIRC, generally
after five changes it stays where you put it.
Click to expand...

Region code, John, not format. Changing the region code doesn't
change the format.
 
Al Klein said:
Region code, John, not format. Changing the region code doesn't
change the format.
Click to expand...

Aof course region coding can got past using AnyDVD (o-k I know it's not
freeware but there is freeware version which I can't bring to mind at the
moment but I'm sure knowlegeable poster will know it on here)

:-)

T.W.
 
burris said:
I wonder if the number of changes refers to the regions rather than the
format.
Click to expand...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I always thought they were the same thing.
 
Eugene Esterly III said:
Well, the videohelp.com page at
http://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool...erby=Name&hits=50&convert=&dvdauthorfeatures=
lists all the tools with can convert PAL to NTSC & vice versa. Most of
the tools on the above page are freeware/open source but there are a
few commerical tools on the above page but Videohelp lists wether the
tools are freeware/open software (they use Free software for open
source apps).
Click to expand...

I agree that www.videohelp.com is the best place to go although some of the
tutorials are getting a bit dated.
Best advice is straight from videohelp - if possible use player that plays
PAL DVD's
If this is not possible I would recommend using Super(c) as a conversion
tool as it will open .mpeg or .vob files

http://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=SUPER_1

set the input and output as mpeg-II and audio as mp2
select ffmpeg as the encoder
set the frame rate to 29.97 (PAL is 25)
size 720 x 480 (PAL is 720 x 576)
and (probably) aspect ratio 4:3 although this might need some experiments.

While you are at videohelp might be a good idea to get a bitrate viewer -
mpegvalidator is good.

http://www.videohelp.com/tools?s=38#38

use this to determine the bitrate of the original .mpeg or .vob file and use
a value somewhere near the top of graph it produces.
Super(c) has a setting for bitrate.

If the original is an authored DVD - that is a collection of .ifo, .bup &
..vob files it might be an idea to rip them off the DVD to hdd using
DVDdecrypter to make a single .mpg file from the .vob's, again get it from
videohelp and look at the following for the settings to use;

http://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=224833#dvddecrypterdemultiplex

If the .vob files are small - less than 1GB - ?this is a home video? - don't
bother joining

When the conversion is complete you will need to re-author - sorry can't
help there as I use payware.
 
Andy Mabbett said:
What, again?


You're wrong. Again.
Click to expand...

Many DVD recorders are capable of being set to any region (or no region
at all). Lite-on LVW 5025 and 5045 certainly are (but you won't find it
in the manual). I've set both my 5045s to region-free). You can also set
the 'TV Type' to PAL or NTSC (that IS in the manual). I presume that the
models available in the USA are the same as in the UK.

Also, my cheap £20 Alba DVD65 (player only) claims to be Region 2, but
plays NTSC Region 1 fine. There's even a PAL/NTSC button on the RC. When
playing an NTSC DVD, you can toggle the video output between what
appears to be 'straight off the disc' NTSC (monochrome picture with very
visible 3.57MHz subcarrier 'crawl', and 525-line 4.43MHz PAL. It also
seems to be able to output NTSC when playing a PAL disc.

I also seem to have been successful in using Nero to convert some
625-line PAL DVD recording (Christmas TV programmes) to genuine 525-line
NTSC. And you should be able to go the other way. However, it does take
a long, long time to run the conversion. Is there any freeware which
will do this?

Ian.
--
 
burris wrote:
Click to expand...
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I always thought they were the same thing.
Click to expand...

Region code is a marketing thing - if you have a Region 1 player, you
can't play Region 2 DVDs on it, unless your player allows you to
change the Region code. That has nothing to do with whether the DVD
was done in NTSC, SECAM or any other format.
 
Aof course region coding can got past using AnyDVD (o-k I know it's not
freeware but there is freeware version which I can't bring to mind at the
moment but I'm sure knowlegeable poster will know it on here)
Click to expand...

I use DVD Shrink for most of my rips, and DVDFab Decrypter for the few
that Shrink can't handle.
 
Many DVD recorders are capable of being set to any region (or no region
at all). Lite-on LVW 5025 and 5045 certainly are (but you won't find it
in the manual). I've set both my 5045s to region-free). You can also set
the 'TV Type' to PAL or NTSC (that IS in the manual). I presume that the
models available in the USA are the same as in the UK.
Click to expand...

Usually not.
 
Al said:
Region code is a marketing thing - if you have a Region 1 player, you
can't play Region 2 DVDs on it, unless your player allows you to
change the Region code. That has nothing to do with whether the DVD
was done in NTSC, SECAM or any other format.
Click to expand...

Check out this page:

http://www.video-pro.co.uk/worldtv/

and this one:

http://www.techsono.com/faq/video_format_regions.html

or (worst yet) this one:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/subst/help/dvd-vhs-format-no-links.html/103-8427751-8535805

I think you can see why I'm confused here. However, this page seems to
explain things nicely:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_region_code

So... region 0 is what to look for, or some kind of freeware that
changes a computer's DVD player or burner to region 0.
 
raincoater said:
Hello, John Corliss !


I wonder, do you mean Region codes?
If so, I believe this is different than PAL NTSC etc.
Yours, Raincoater
Click to expand...

I did. Have it straight now. See one of my replies to Al Klein.
 
Al said:
Region code is a marketing thing - if you have a Region 1 player, you
can't play Region 2 DVDs on it, unless your player allows you to
change the Region code. That has nothing to do with whether the DVD
was done in NTSC, SECAM or any other format.
Click to expand...

But even if your DVD player allows you to change region code, if your
player doesn't support PAL, then you won't be able to play PAL DVD's.
This problem isn't too much of a problem on PC because you can rip the
DVD & use tools to convert form PAL to NTSC.

This is a problem which is common on some standalone DVD players. Some
of them allow you to bypass region code but don't support changing PAL
to NTSC so you can't play PAL DVD's. I have an old Samsung DVDN-501
standalone DVD player, the region code can be changed but since the
player only supports NTSC but doesn't support PAL, it is useless to
change the region code on this player.
 
I think you can see why I'm confused here. However, this page seems to
explain things nicely:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_region_code

So... region 0 is what to look for, or some kind of freeware that
changes a computer's DVD player or burner to region 0.
Click to expand...

That means all regions, John, not all formats. As I explained to a
judge in a software case, you can use VHS or Beta to record English or
French - one has nothing to do with the other. (It was a long time
ago - people still had an idea of what "Beta" meant.)
 
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