pal tp ntsc

[jimijames]

ok...thanks to all of you have have helped me figure this sh#t out. I think I finally got it accept for one thing. I have a couple of mpeg-1 encoded videos that are PAL. I have learned that they wont play on my stand alone. Is there a way to convert PAL to NTSC, and if so, will there be some lose in quality?
thanks in advance.

[Canada Joe]

I expected dap OLD werewolf to offer some advice by now but mebbe bizzi elsewhere. She would probably tell you that TMPEnc will do the trick but if I were you I'd wait for her advice OR goto her site here and check around.

[dap OLD werewolf]

ok...thanks to all of you have have helped me figure this sh#t out. I think I finally got it accept for one thing. I have a couple of mpeg-1 encoded videos that are PAL. I have learned that they wont play on my stand alone. Is there a way to convert PAL to NTSC, and if so, will there be some lose in quality?
thanks in advance.

I find it hard to believe that they won't play for that reason, and if so it's more likely your tv and not the standalone. Are those the only two PAL video files you have ever gotten? If you have other PAL video files that play on your standalone, then PAL and NTSC isn't the issue, because either they will all play, or else none of them will. Does your stand-alone play other mpeg-1 files? And what is also a possibility is that the mpeg1 is not standard, in other words whoever encoded it did not encode it to vcd standards, and dvd players cannot play so-called xvcd's. Mpegs, as opposed to avi's, have set specifications that must be followed in order for them to be understood by standard stand-alone dvd players:
http://www.rita.lt/video_tools/help/mpeg.htm

Another question that just entered my mind is, did you burn the vcd to cd or dvd? The only way to have a standard old-fasioned standalone dvd player be able to play vcd's (which is what an mpeg1 is if encoded correctly) is if it's burned as video cd on a cd, it won't work to do so on a blank dvd.

But to answer your question, can pal be converted to ntsc? yes, with some difficulty. Will it have quality loss? Hell yes, and vcd (mpeg1) quality is bad enough as it is.

[jimijames]

well, I have converted a total of 3 vcd's to dvd using tmpgenc dvd author (video ts and audio ts). the first one played fine and the other 2 looked drastically skewed on the tv screen. The notion that it might be the tv sounds possible because while the skewed movies are playing, even the menu for the dvd player is skewed. But what confuses me is that the first one played fine. All of them play fine when viewed on my PC. I have considered the idea that maybe my TV isnt equiped to deal with PAL as opposed to my stand alone.

[dap OLD werewolf]

Ok, then it's not a problem with PAL/NTSC. If you had a television which was unable to play PAL the first problem you would see would be in the color, most likely it would play black and white, maybe some color, but the number one difference between PAL and NTSC is in the color system.

You said you converted 3 vcd's to dvd and the first one played fine, was the first one also PAL? If so then you can definitely rule PAL out as the problem.

Also, you mentioned that you used TMPGEnc dvd author. I have to admit that I have never converted vcd to dvd because I think it's a waste of time, considering the quality of a vcd can never be good simply by it's specifications. But I'm not really even sure if you CAN convert a vcd to dvd simply by using DVD Author alone without converting it to mpeg2 first with TMPGenc (though I may be wrong). Svcd would be a different story, that's mpeg2 (just like dvd), but vcd is mpeg1. If you could give me a bit more information as to whether you are sure that your first "vcd" was really a vcd (mpeg1) and not an svcd (mpeg2). If you're not sure (both vcd and svcd have mpg extensions so unless you check the specs you won't know), check it with gspot:
http://www.rita.lt/video_tools/help/gspot.htm
If the first mpg that played fine after conversion is mpeg2 and the other two are mpeg1, it will be clear and you should try following the instructions in our TMPGEnc guide for first making a dvd standard mpeg2 file out of them with TMPGEnc and only after that using TMPGEnc DVD Author to author it. (Though that might be what you did, but it's not clear). If that's not what you did, you might want to try it anyway because the two that didn't work might have been non-standard mpegs.
This guide has instructions for converting avi to mpeg, but if you follow it you will just as easily be able to convert mpeg1 to dvd specification mpeg2 before authoring:
http://www.rita.lt/dap&js_guides/TMPGEn ... (AVItoMPEG)_by_dap&js.zip

You probably know how to use DVD Author as you have already used it, but here's the link to our guide anyway just in case you want that too:
http://www.rita.lt/dap&js_guides/TMPGEn ... dap&js.zip

It would also help if you could explain a bit more about what you mean by "skewed".

[jimijames]

OK I think youve solved my problem. Now that I remember it, I did use tmpgenc plus to convert the mpeg1 to mpeg2 when I made the first dvd. That must be why it worked and the others didnt. I totally forgot about that step when I did the 2 that didnt play. Thanks for your help.

[dap OLD werewolf]

Glad to hear it.