PAL-to-NTSC

Can I hope to do a decent conversion of my DV-PAL project to NTSC, as a .mov file export, using FCP 5.1?
A first attempt was disaster. Some, but not all clips, got black edges left and right. Motion zigging was extreme.
The DV-PAL project has even field dominance, etc. How should the system settings be for this export?

Dennis Couzin
Berlin, Germany

dcouzin for best results you need to use a plugin from natrass called 'standards converter' (or something like that!) its a complex beasty moving from pal to ntsc and backwards and this plugin does a mighty fine job.

[www.nattress.com]



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Thanks Josh and Ben.
Sounds scary. On reflection, even the 25 fps -> 30 fps conversion can't ever come out perfect.
I think this project shall remain a PAL project, and so-called international festivals like DOXA in Vancouver which demand NTSC entries will have to miss it.

Dennis Couzin
Berlin, Germany

It sounds scarier than it is.

You can also achieve a good conversion in compressor but it can take forever to compress!

I would advocate using the Nattress filter as its top quality and doesn't take a lifetime.

However for Compressor

? Import your PAL movie into Compressor

? Advanced Format Conversions > DV NTSC from the settings.

? under the Frame Controls tab, alter your settings to:

Frame Controls: Custom
Resize Filter: Better (Linear Filter)
Output Fields: Bottom First
Deinterlace: Better Motion Adaptive
Adaptive Details: checked
Rate Conversion: Better (Motion Compensated)

Also make sure the frame size is 720x480 NOT 486 as if you try to make a DVD from the an NTSC file with 720x486 you may encounter odd quality issues.

Good luck



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Yeah and Graeme's filters work fine doing PAL to NTSC. Well worth the dollars, especially given that it's about the same as what it would cost here in Aus to have two NTSC dubs done from a PAL master.

Many thanks. I'd never used Compressor before but followed your instructions and it's rolling. Will let you know what emerges in ... 74 hours.

Dennis Couzin
Berlin, Germany

You may find this a useful reference:

[www.macworld.com]

Thanks for the link to Anton Linecker's explanation. So I am using the "traditional method". Surprisingly it is taking about 1 hour to convert 1 minute of PAL footage. My Mac Pro with two 2.66GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeons is half as fast as Linecker's dual-2.5GHz G5.

I'm puzzled by Linecker's description of the Slow-PAL method. If one first converts from 25 fps to ~24 fps (using Cinema Tools) and then converts from ~24 fps to ~20 fps using the 3:2 pulldown method, then how is it that you've lengthened the movie or slowed the sound by 4%? It seems you've preserved time. And how is it that this two-step method is less manipulative to the video frames? The first conversion step from 25 fps to ~24 fps must introduce hiccups.

Has Linecker confused the two-step Slow-PAL method, which does preserve time, with simply using the 3:2 pulldown method on 25 fps material, which results in the 4% longer and slower movie? And who is so tone-deaf not to notice the pitch change? And how to explain how the 80 minute cut seemed to become an 83 minute cut?

Twenty-five years ago, in the optical printing heydey, we did experiments with 3:2 and other pulldown methods and found that introducing a little randomness in the rhythm was the only way to improve the appearance. Digital cinema allows pixel-by-pixel interpolations and extrapolations and I'm for it, and hoping a gem emerges in 67 hours.

Incidentally, is there any way to pause Compressor? Do I dare to do other FCP work at the same time?

Dennis Couzin
Berlin, Germany

Nattress doesn't (unless he's changed it) use motion prediction. Compressor does if you want it. That alone can be the difference between getting the work out the door in time and not.

PAL has really good quality pictures and terrible motion. NTSC is just the opposite, so yes, converting between them is an adventure.

Used correctly, neither process changes the pitch or duration of the show.

When somebody kicks a football in PAL, you get three footballs across the screen as the PAL framerate tries to carry the motion and fails. What Motion Prediction does is try to figure out where the new footballs are going to be in NTSC which is completely capable of showing a good football during the kick.

That's a boatload of calculations. A very large boat. What standards converters did before large computers and what Nattress still does is make picture segments very slightly soft during very rapid motion and hope nobody notices. You have to look really hard to see this trick happening in real life, and most times, the difference simply doesn't matter.

If you have enough money, you buy a hardware converter and do it in real time.

Koz

It's funny that we PAL editors can't see those motion problems. I've heard NTSC editors working in PAL for the first time complain of flickering that goes away after a few days. From this end, we see NTSC as washed out and dulled.

Amazing what the eye gets used to and treats as normal.

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It's funny that we PAL editors can't see those motion problems. I've heard NTSC editors working in PAL for the first time complain of flickering that goes away after a few days. From this end, we see NTSC as washed out and dulled.

Its especially funny cus they all seem to want 24p too which looks even more flickery with high motion.

From my end NTSC looks like a U-Matic signal compared to PAL. The extra lines of resolution and colour definition makes PAL look a lot more professional than the soft Never Twice the Same Color.

Of course with HD its not much of an issue now as both SD PAL and NTSC look like Fisher Price video compared to it.



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We have a high-end Snell and Wilcox standards converter at work and you still get the three footballs BUT... you get them in real time.

<<<It's funny that we PAL editors can't see those motion problems. >>>

Our company used to do actual 24 frame video for the movie cameras. That was serious flicker, but after about a week, I couldn't tell which framerate I was in just by looking.

<<<you get them in real time.>>>

There you go. Worth every dime.

<<<From my end NTSC looks like a U-Matic signal compared to PAL.>>>

That's monitor setup. You can go to the NAB and see matched television monitors displaying both and at first glance, you can't tell much difference. The NTSC one looks courser and the PAL one is fine until somebody moves. There are no color differences.

Does PAL have "Consumer Color?" If you set the average TV set up for colorbar blue and then display natural TV shows, do they all look color oversaturated? Sony actually won an award for color distortion like that, but I think it only happens in NTSC because our color decoders are brittle and easily fooled.

Koz

Oh, and speaking of NSTC, I finally got around to shooting "How NTSC Works."

[www.kozco.com]

I see there's actually a formatting error up there. Who would have guessed? I'll fix it later.

Koz

I heard there were some hue issues with NTSC, and has been affectionately renamed "never the same color" by some broadcast engineers... how true is that? BTW, the PAL color bar doesn't seem to contain pluge of anykind!

PAL is 50 half-fields, 25 frames, per sec. NTSC is 60 half-fields, 30 frames, per sec. The difference isn't insignificant, but no wise so significant as Koz wrote.
Standard motion pictures are 24 frames per sec, each projected twice, 48 Hz. This is well tolerated by most viewers, while some require the 24 frames per sec each projected thrice -- three blade shutter. This is a matter of flicker fusion frequency which differs widely over the population.
There's no more information in the 24 frames each projected thrice than twice. No one ever complains about the motion illusion from 24/sec. You can't see what's wrong with it. However, when shown motion pictures shot at 60 fps and projected at 60 fps the motion illusion is so much improved that the picture breathes reality, for everyone. It's a different, somewhat dangerous, medium that way.
Back to PAL and NTSC. The 50 Hz vs 60 Hz difference does make a flicker difference for some people. It's in the brain-wiring and there's no getting around it. Cut-off for flicker is rather sharp. But the 25 fps vs. 30 fps difference makes just a wee difference to the perceived motion. That brain function works independently and differently.

Dennis Couzin
Berlin, Germany

<<<affectionately renamed "never the same color" by some broadcast engineers>>>

Not at all. It's "Never Twice the Same Color."

Because of the way we send the color management signals out, they can be damaged in transmission as well as in almost every piece of television equipment in the pathway including the TV set itself.

The European engineers looked at that, had a good laugh, designed that particular problem out of their system and then went out and had a pint. The correction is so burned into the system that PAL will revert to black and white before it will show you the wrong colors.

NTSC was the last minute patch job. The system before that was much worse. Another last minute patch job to make the system look a little better was to move that pesky frame rate down a little......


When we have gross errors, flesh tones just go around the rainbow. There is no natural stopping point. I always wondered what would happen if you managed to damage PAL so bad that the colors came up exactly backwards. PAL correction was designed for five nines percent of the expected errors and I don't know that it's ever broken. But still. There is a top end of quantity of damage that PAL will correct.

All irrelevant in digital. Now we have other problems. Anybody else notice cracking audio on some Bill Moyers digital shows?

Koz

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That's monitor setup. You can go to the NAB and see matched television monitors displaying both and at first glance, you can't tell much difference. The NTSC one looks courser and the PAL one is fine until somebody moves. There are no color differences.

Its not so much the colour, I agree on a good setup the colour should stand up well, I really should have made myself clear and said the lines of resolution, courser like a U-matic compared to Beta SP, or Beta SP to Digibeta. I didn't mean it was AS bad! Sorry for the confusion.

I use a Grade 1 SONY CRT, a JVC HD CRT DTV, a Consumer widescreen CRT TV PAL/NTSC switchable and a HD LCD and NTSC just looks much lower res than PAL (which it is).

414720 effective pixels on a PAL Full D1 signal compared to 349920 on an NTSC D1 really shows no matter how good the motion.

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But the 25 fps vs. 30 fps difference makes just a wee difference to the perceived motion.

Especially if you tend to look with your peripheral vision which is more sensitive to changes in luminance and motion.

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All irrelevant in digital. Now we have other problems.

Tell me about it, the insistence of many people to use HDV or really fast whip-pans, or other seriously fast motion on programmes destined for digital broadcast or narrowcast is very annoying. The re-compression in MPEG-2 DVB throws up all kinds of nasty macroblock errors or digital smears.

If only we all had the Japanese broadcast bandwidth to play with!



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PAL and NTSC are broadcast formats, and it's under broadcast where they show their differences. PAL looks in the home, pretty much like it does in the studio on a component feed to your monitor. NTSC does not, and is designed in such a way that in terms of color, it really cannot as there is no system in place to accurately calibrate it, and it drifts. PAL cancels any drift and hence remains locked into perfect colour.

When both "NTSC" and "PAL" are used in a studio environment, over YCbCr, you generally can't see much difference as in that situation color / colour won't drift. It's the act of broadcast that causes NTSC's issues. What you can see is that PAL looks much superior in resolution. The difference in 50hz/60hz is very much more a cultural difference than a technical one.

Graeme

[www.nattress.com] - Plugins for FCP-X

Ben King Wrote:
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Especially if you tend to look with your peripheral vision which is more sensitive to changes in luminance and motion.

Peripheral vision is most sensitive to flicker: the 50 Hz vs 60 Hz matter. This has nothing to do with motion perception: the 25 fps vs 30 fps matter. I failed to make my point, but OK, THANKS TO Ben King, Compressor's running. 30 hrs were lost due to misattempts at pausing it, and now just 50 hrs to go.

Dennis Couzin
Berlin, Germany

> All irrelevant in digital. Now we have other
> problems. Anybody else notice cracking audio on
> some Bill Moyers digital shows?


Downside of digital broadcast is that it might look worse than youtube! Mpg2/4 is it necessarily better than analog? cracking audio? they must have botched the sample rate.. But geez, i sure hate the 25fps-> 30fps difference in countries. Causes lots of problems.

<<<It's the act of broadcast that causes NTSC's issues.>>>

I disagree. It's the act of receiving it. All the serious broadcast engineers I ever saw have a separate television demodulator and broadcast monitor somewhere in the house--usually in the workshop or den--given the presence of a spousal unit.

That picture does look pretty much like it did when it left. Also, at the television transmitter, there is a tap in the transmission line which feeds a tiny bit of the television signal back down for review. That, too, looks just like it left the studio.

That was my question about Consumer Color. NTSC color decoders are very easy to muck with and "improve" the colors, and I was wondering if PAL had this affliction. It doesn't appear so.

I understand even dual-mode television receivers switch this distortion in and out depending on whether you're viewing analog or digital. I have a TV set that I got for free and it has a novel distortion. Everything is aggressively flesh tones or sky blue with an occasional gentle green or purple here and there. It looks OK unless you know or worked on the original show. Then it's shocking how far off it is.


On the other hand, I watch TV now on a Mac Mini with an Elgato EyeTV tuner and I can switch back and forth between the analog and digital versions of the same show. Given good television reception on a standard def show, there is no serious difference.

Koz

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Mpg2/4 is it necessarily better than analog?

As long as the signal is strong for Analogue not by much - and if badly encoded then yes, but for the most part digital will give a good if not better picture at lower signal strengths and the ability to get dolby surround sound instead of just Nicam stereo.

In my house we get a strong signal for both and the analogue picture is better because the MPEG-2 freeview stream we get looks like a bad HDV picture! They really ought to have upped the lower limit on the UK bandwidths for DVB...

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i sure hate the 25fps-> 30fps difference in countries. Causes lots of problems.

Do you know what I hate? nought.point-whatever framerates!

HD - the best chance to get rid of 23.98/29.97/59.94 but no... how dumb.

I also hate Moet et Chandon its acrid tat - give me a bottle or Veuve Cliquot any day!


Anyway back OT...

dcouzin

Any joy on the conversion?



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> HD - the best chance to get rid of
> 23.98/29.97/59.94 but no... how dumb.
>


Luckily the audio is agreed upon. imagine having to juggle all that 23.98/29.97/59.94 fps as well as 47.99khz, 48khz, 44.1khz, 96khz and countless bitrates for broadcast... But yea, i was surprised they didn't agree on a standard across the board rate for fps. 30 would have been good- a round number

lol yeah - I remember the days of the huge hertz list on early Mac OS...

Anyway here is to the demise of point.dot.pointless.legacy.standards!

We can always convert easily backwards - we just need the official bodies to move forward sensibly!



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<<<for the most part digital will give a good if not better picture at lower signal strengths>>>

Everything else being equal. But it's not. I have statistically perfect television reception. I can see Mt. Wilson from the roof with no metal in the way. KCET insists on occasional, brief freezes for no apparent reason (and because of comparing notes at work, everybody gets them) and 7.1 sucks. I had to stop watching "Ugly Betty" in digital land because I couldn't get through a show without a third of it freezing. This kills me because the show is widely considered to be eye candy in digital (CSI Miami is the other one).

I guess it's possible to turn the antenna just slightly and get rid of that, but then I need to go back through all the other channels in LA and make sure I didn't lose any.

Maybe we're going to get that Radio Shack ArcherRotor out of storage and reinstall it.

Koz