I'm looking for the best way to convert a PAL progressive Cineform avi to NTSC for DVD. Anyone know of a good step-by-step tutorial. I have AE 7 and Canopus Procoder at my disposal.

Easy. Use HDLink as it can now convert AVIs to AVIs with difference sizes and frame rates. Set the "Rate Change" to "25p to 23.976p" and "Maintain audio pitch" set on, and set resize to "PAL ???" (??? for 4x3 or 16x9 modes.) 23.976p is the mode you use for a 24p progressive NTSC DVD.

One more thing. Set "progressive" as the encoding format, this also instructs the scaling to use progressive math (which looks even better.)

Thanks for the quick reply David. I'll try that.

I successfully transcoded my 25p .avi file to 23.976p, but when I load the file into After Effects the frame rate is interpreted as 23.98. Is this normal? I ask because when I try to convert the file to a progressive 23.976 DVD the render always crashes midway through and notifies me of a denominator overflow problem.

Use HDLink as it can now convert AVIs to AVIs with difference sizes and frame rates.
Do the frame rate conversions use blending or doubling/removing?

Morten,

After Effects shows 23.976 as 23.98 so that is not the issue. Which application crashes with a "denominator overflow", sounds like a bug report for that application (Aspect HD doesn't report that error.)

Earl,

Rate changes from 25 to 23.976p, or 24 to 25 involve no frame blending, only audio pitch correction, so the quality is perfect. This is the type of conversion HDLink is designed to do. Conversion from 30p to 25p (or visa versa) is more complex and that is best with a different type of tool. 60i to 24p/25p can be achieve with pulldown removal and deinterlacing.