My major break has come, and I've done a big promotional video for "Macau" to be shown at the Fashion Mall in Las Vegas, USA. The video was done with a DVX100aPAL, at 25P, edited in FCP 4.5 HD with no fields, progressive 4/3 (shot with the two black bars, not streched). The video is done, looks gorgeous (very modest, ain't I?) in PAL and in DVD format (also pal). I'm however, very concerned by the ntsc standard in the USA. I've received the specifications and needs by the Fashion Mall, and they only asked delivery formats, from Beta to Minidv to DVD- they didn't specify Pal or Ntsc.

What should I do? Anyone from Las Vegas that can give me a hand? Anyone knows the Fashion Mall? Are they Pal capable? Anyway I sent my tape to a production studio to make me the pal to Ntsc conversion. However, I'm affraid to lose the 25P (Affraid of lack of knowlege from the house)... Any suggestions? I also have a Powerbook which I'll bring with me to Vegas, just in case something terrible happens...

I'll keep a quicktime movie of the project. It is 4 minutes long, and is 982 mb in size.

All help is appreciated- I don't want my major break spoiled!

Focus Enhancements makes a piece of software that will do standards conversion. You can find it here:
http://www.focusinfo.com/products/firestore/DVConversionSuite/dvcsuite.html

I am not sure how good it is but that should help out. You may also be able to play your DVD to tape. That is, if your DVD was PAL format but plays on an NTSC DVD player, you can probably use the S-Video or even component output and run that into another deck to make your dubs from. In effect, using the DVD player to do the conversion. That might work.

Also take a look at your encoding software. You can probably re-encode it and play that out to tape as well.

Load your QT file into your DVD encoding software and simply pick to have it re-encoded to NTSC. Play that out from a DVD to any NTSC tape decks. Note that this is compressing the video and audio more than once.

Sean McHenry

Focus Enhancements makes a piece of software that will do standards conversion. You can find it here:
http://www.focusinfo.com/products/firestore/DVConversionSuite/dvcsuite.html

I am not sure how good it is but that should help out. You may also be able to play your DVD to tape. That is, if your DVD was PAL format but plays on an NTSC DVD player, you can probably use the S-Video or even component output and run that into another deck to make your dubs from. In effect, using the DVD player to do the conversion. That might work.

Also take a look at your encoding software. You can probably re-encode it and play that out to tape as well.

Load your QT file into your DVD encoding software and simply pick to have it re-encoded to NTSC. Play that out from a DVD to any NTSC tape decks. Note that this is compressing the video and audio more than once.

Sean McHenry

Sean, thanks for the help. I'll see about the ntsc dvd player. As for using toast to convert to ntsc, the program automatically switches to pal when I select ntsc, saying something in the lines of "your dvd settings have been switched to Pal".
I tried exporting in compressor to quicktime ntsc, but the video comes out with motion stutter- it shockes every two seconds or so.
Anyway, thanks for the help. Any other suggestions?