30P to PAL - Hopeless???

[Edgar Pitts]

Greetings. I have a project that was aquired in 30P. We now need to convert this into a PAL DVD format. I know that 24P converts much better. What are the best solutions (hardware or software) for this conversion? Any suggestions would be most helpful.

Edgar

[donatello b]

drop it in the your NLE TL ..... 30p might look slightly better if you render out as PAL interlace (vs. PAL progressive ) ... do a test ...

[Hans von Sonntag]

Apple Color is very good conversion tool. We used it for converting PAL 25p to NTSC 29.97 very successfully. Also Color does a very good job in down converting 1080p to 576i/p or 486i/p. For down converts we use the Nattress plugin Smart Deinterlacer which does a great job. Strongly recommended.

Hans

[Graeme Nattress]

Hans, I'm not sure how you get Color to do a timebase conversion that doesn't involve speeding up or slowing down the video or dropping or duplicating frames as FCP does?

I've also had good luck with the Smart Deinterlacer for the conversions you mention, and a mix of Smart Deinterlacer, Noise Reduction and Sharpen for uprezzing to 1080.

Graeme

[Edgar Pitts]

So, Smart Deinterlacer will let me directly go from 1080 30p to 50i? Thanks.

Edgar

[Graeme Nattress]

Nope, deinterlacing takes you from 50i to 25p or 60i to 30p, not the other way around. You can try my standards converter in FCP for 30p to 50i - might look ok, might not.

Graeme

[Edgar Pitts]

Thanks Graeme. We are currently editing in Cineform AVI on Adobe. Is there a preferred format that converts better than others?

Edgar

[Graeme Nattress]

Never tried that on FCP. What does Adobe do for the conversion? What about After Effects, and I think Canopus do a PC standards converter you could try.

Graeme

[Edgar Pitts]

Thanks. Would you recommend going straight from 30p to 50i or something like 30p -> 60i -> 24p -> 50i?

[Bruce Allen]

Edgar, go from 30p -> 50i.

You want to render interlaced and you almost certainly want to frame blend (unless the whole thing depends on a sequence of hard cuts which need to stay looking "hard").

You might want to do the whole morphing time remap thing. Eg ReVision ReTimer, Shake's optical flow time remap, After Effects 7.0+'s timewarp effect (set to pixel motion), optical flow in Apple Compressor, or Flame's nice one where you can edit the little vectors.

Beware that sometimes this screws up badly. So you should leave the whole thing to render over night with and without morphing, and cut between the renders in your editing program depending on which one works best in which section. If you were really feeling crazy, you could probably render using different time remappers too.

Not sure where Apple Color fits in this.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[Anders Holck]

One third option is to gear down the 30p to 25p. This definitely gives the smoothest and most artifact free conversion. But of course the pace might be to slow for your project.

In premiere import the 30p master file, and select it.
Choose: File > Interpret Footage, set Frame Rate to 25p, and click OK. Then edit the clip into a 25p/50i sequence.

Also be aware that almost all PAL dvd players and televisions will play a 525/60i DVD just fine.
You might want to skip the FRC and just author a 525/60i DVD with region 2 or no region. That will give the best possible quality.

Ps. If you are using FCP, G standards conversion IS the best option. Optical flow is not really usable...

[Edgar Pitts]

Thanks for the info Anders.

Is it common for people in PAL countries to buy 60i DVDs?

[John K]

Thanks for the info Anders.

Is it common for people in PAL countries to buy 60i DVDs?
It is very common. People buy US releases over the internet when a PAL version is not available, and it's not at all uncommon to get NTSC mastered discs commercially released in PAL regions.

Most PAL-region DVD players give you three video output options: PAL, NTSC and Auto (sometimes called "Multi"). If you set them to PAL or NTSC, the video will always come out as the standard you've selected, while on Auto, the video output standard is determined by whether the disc was originated on 25fps of 30fps. If you have a modern TV set, it should have a similar PAL/NTSC/Auto setting, and if that's also set to Auto, the playback of both PAL and NTSC DVDs should be completely seamless.

The logic behind this is simply that if a DVD was authored as NTSC, it will play back best as NTSC, and the same goes for PAL.

However SOME DVD players don't give you a choice; they're either permanently set to PAL or NTSC, or in the case of some @$#??!!* ass-brained Sony models, permanently set to "auto". People who have an older TV that doesn't have multi-system capability will then find that some discs will play OK and others won't, depending on whether they were mastered at 25fps or 30fps. What really pisses people off is that after paying a premium price for a Sony player they find it won't play all their discs, but the cheap crap no-name DVD player their kid got for $10 and three box tops DOES play them!

And the biggest joke is that Sony, who were one of the biggest pushers for regional coding, owns Columbia Pictures, who are one of the biggest offenders in commercially releasing NTSC-Authored movies in PAL countries. Basically Sony movies will often not play on Sony DVD players, but they'll play on just about any other brand! And the Sony players will also nearly always play non-Sony movies!

[Anders Holck]

The european DVD players do indeed have the switch. But it does not really switch between PAL and NTSC.
It controls the color encoding of the output.
When playing a 525i60 disc, setting it to NTSC will output a real NTSC signal. If set to PAL it will output a 525i60 signal with the color encoding done in PAL. (Phase alternating, and 4.43 MHZ color subcarrier)
This maximizes tv compatability as older PAL only sets can easily show the PAL60 signal.

[Edgar Pitts]

Thanks for the encouraging information.


When playing a 525i60 disc, setting it to NTSC will output a real NTSC signal. If set to PAL it will output a 525i60 signal with the color encoding done in PAL. (Phase alternating, and 4.43 MHZ color subcarrier).

Does the 525i60 playback on PAL look different (noticably) than the NTSC setting?

Edgar

[Anders Holck]

Depends on the connection used and the television.
When using RGB or component over SCART there is no difference between the settings, only the Composite and s-video outputs should show a difference.

[John K]

The european DVD players do indeed have the switch. But it does not really switch between PAL and NTSC.
It controls the color encoding of the output.
When playing a 525i60 disc, setting it to NTSC will output a real NTSC signal. If set to PAL it will output a 525i60 signal with the color encoding done in PAL. (Phase alternating, and 4.43 MHZ color subcarrier)
This maximizes tv compatability as older PAL only sets can easily show the PAL60 signal.
Are you sure about that? I can't speak for the whole PAL world but I've never seen a DVD player that produces PAL60. Every one I've seen produces either real PAL or real NTSC.

Multi-standard VCRs certainly work that way, but I've never seen a DVD player that does that.