PAL to NTSC clean conversion?

Hi, i have a one hour PAL anamorphic documentary here. We're running into tons of problems with PAL to NTSC conversion, and FCP messing up the frame rates turning the NTSC version into chunky motions. I've used Nattress for some clips, but find it way too cumbersome as there's TONS of clips present and not alot of CPU power/time to convert them all individually. Are there any quicker methods? Preferably no cost invovled.

No cost? No. Nattress is your best bet. Graeme might have ideas for batch processing

If you got a slow Mac then just be prepared to wait a long time

Cant understand why you think Nattress is so cumbersome. Just apply the conversion to your clips and go away for the night



Michael Horton
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Hafta open up the clip, apply filter, apply settings, go to browser, drag clip into filter. Repeat 2000 times. Cumbersome

So your 2000 clips arent in the timeline? How did you do this with FCP? We talking a finished movie here ready to convert or what?



Michael Horton
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Oh i understand your question now. No, this is a rough cut here. The conversion filter would be MUCH easier to use with a finished movie . I received the project from an offline editor who was doing it all in PAL (footage is PAL). I'm onlining it.

Just wondering for a future episodes (this episode's ran into too many technical problems, just wanna be done with it). Maybe I should do this:

- Get picture lock ASAP
- export all the footage (without graphics/text/etc...) into a DV PAL anamorphic file
- bring it into FCP, put into a DV NTSC timeline, apply the filter and kick out a DV NTSC version for colour timing
- OMF from the 29.97 NTSC timeline for soundmix

How does that workflow sound? Would there be any sync issues going from the DV PAL file to the 29.97 NTSC timeline?

the absolute best route, i'd say would be to simply finish all the way in PAL.
CC, titles, everything.
out put a QT, then Nattress it.

(congratulations, Graeme, you've become a verb!)

nick

I, she, he, it will have Nattressed.

I agree. Finish everything in one format and make it look as perfect as you can. Then Nattress the heck out of it.

Koz

We'd like to do that, but the problem comes when we want to preview on our monitors during online and colour timing. I'm here in Toronto, only have NTSC equipment over here.

What I tried doing was taking the episdoe's timeline, setting in/out on the entire thing, then exporting it as 1 single Quicktime PAL Movie file (no audio). OMFs were made from the PAL timeline for sound mix. When I imported the QT PAL into a NTSC (drop frame) timeline, the length was 3 seconds longer than the length in the PAL timeline (NTSC = 48:43, PAL = 48:40). I thought I'd do a slight speed up to knock off those extra 3 seconds, but when I went to the speed option it said the clip length (in the NTSC timeline) was 48:40 at 100% constant speed . Maybe I should disregard that number and just increase the speed until the TRT redcues to 48:40 in the timeline? Please advise.

The reason why people in here recommend Graeme Nattress' Standards Conversions filter is that FCP does a crap job on converting PAL-NTSC and vice versa.

Though I agree with others about waiting until the last stage to apply the filter, that suggestion seems to neglect that people may need to view the cuts-in-progress in NTSC -- DVDs or tapes for producers, sound designers, composers, directors to watch at home, etc. Phil will still probably need interim NTSC outputs of his film over the course of post-production.

As to the "drag 2000 times" thing, here's an interesting question for Graeme: Your filter needs to work by applying it, and then dragging the filtered clip from the Browser into the "Image Well" inside the filter settings. If Phil were to apply the Standards Conversion filter to a nested sequence (ie. one of his edits), then drag that sequence from the Browser into the Image Well, will it work?

If that doesn't, then export a PAL movie first, then re-import that into your Browser and a new sequence, and then apply Standards Conversion. One drag, one filter, no hassle.
You wouldn't want to apply the Standards Conversion filter to your actual edit anyway, because then you'd have to get rid of it every time to go back to editing on PAL.

Very good points mentioned. I exported one big quicktime PAL file, imported into NTSC, and applied filter. But due to drop frame (or something else?), the TRT of my NTSC timeline is 3 seconds longer than my PAL timeline. Anybody have any suggestions of knocking off those 3 seconds? Maybe speed it up to fit into the proper TRT of 48:40?

Sound mix is being done through OMFs created from the PAL timeline. Hopefully there won't be any sync issues when I import them into my NTSC timeline for tape output.

Seems that FCP5 is not liking nested out of time sequences at all. Argh Apple!

Graeme



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

I think we've got the length thing sorted now with the new beta of 2.5. I should have this put out into a full release before too long now. Just need a bit more testing!

Graeme



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