Does anyone here have experience in transcoding standard def NTSC footage into PAL MPEG2? I've tried this before, with CS2 and the results were unusable. Has this improved in CS3?

Is there a better way than the media encoder in Premiere Pro CS3? Maybe using After Effects or Encore? Would a two-step method help (ntsc.avi to pal.avi and then pal.avi to pal.mpeg2)?

For a while I navigated away from Adobe and did this with superb results in Procoder but I would love to come back and do everything I need, within one integrated software bundle.

Thanks,

PP can't match the quality of Procoder.

I´m not sure about NTSC---->PAL but I´ve made great PAL---->NTSC conversion in AE

You might try this software:
Atlantis, by Dvfilm.
A while ago, some people here on this forum reported good results with it.

PAL to NTSC Software - DVFilm Atlantis (http://www.dvfilm.com/atlantis/)

Personally I have converted PAL to NTSC with good results in Premiere CS2 and CS3.
Never tried NTSC to PAL yet.

I know all about Atlantis... the last thing I need is more software.

Please read my post again; I am trying to keep the PC running as smoothly as possible by only installing the minimum software I can get by with. I have Procoder and as stated above, it works perfectly fine - I am trying to find out if I can get the same results within CS3.

The answer is no.

The question for John is: what?

The only software I've found that can match or exceed Procoder 3 for format conversion is going the Avisynth/McBob script route. AfterEffects might be able to match it, but to do so would require (for me) quite a bit more mental effort - so I use Procoder 95% of the time.

(John answered Evin's question in the immediately preceeding post).

(Ah, sorry :)