converting pal footage to ntsc
 

I have to shoot project in the near future that will require me to shoot in pal and render the final project in the ntsc format. To do this in Vegas, do I simply drop the pal footage on a ntsc timeline or is there more to it. I am in South Africa, which is a pal country, and I have to make dvd's (in Vegas 8 & dvd architect 4.5) which will go to the USA. I need to be sure that the dvd's will be compatible with dvd players in the USA.

I will really appreciate it if those of you who have done this, will share your workflow with me.

Many thanks.

I'm doing a PAL to NTSC encode at the moment.
I just edit as per usual on a PAL timeline then encode to the DVD Architect NTSC template with the birates adjusted as per usual. Most important that you render at Best and in the project specify a De-Interlace method. Blend seems to work the best. It will introduce a slight blurring on fast motion.

The above only applies to 50i footage, if you shot in 25p things get a bit more complicated.

Thanks for your reply Bob. All my projects are 50i at the moment so I will definitely apply your advice. Should I change the project properties to ntsc before rendering?

I read somewhere that pal dvd players can usually play ntsc discs and that ntsc dvd players can't play pal discs. Is this true?

Unfortunately yes.
The NTSC world hasn't caught on to the fact that there are other video standards in the world and that a multi-standards player is a good idea :-(

...well Mike, we're NTSC also in México but almost any DVD player you can buy here, are "multiregion" and PAL players capable.... and some new ones even DivX compatible... when I travel to USA I 'm very impressed that this is not the same !!!

Kind Regards

Good point Enrique.
Let me clarify it by saying Canada and the USA are too (use appropriate curse word here) to acknowledge video standards in the rest of the world.
Most computers can play a PAL DVD and some consumer DVD players can handle PAL but they're still a minority up here :-(

I will be needing to go the other way this summer.
I will be shooting in NTSC but would like to deliver in both NTSC and PAL DVD.

So would editting per usual on a NTSC timeline but rendering to DVD Architect PAL template work?
Any advice on what the bitrate adjusted per usual should be?