Looking for PAL Conversion Hardware Suggestions

I been doing a lot of format conversion lately and have purchased a world format VHS deck to meet all my VHS conversion needs. However, I would really like to have a good (not to expensive) DA box that may do the same so I can capture PAL or NTSC.

Ideally, the box should be able to accept any format input via RCA/SVHS/MiniDV and pass the signal on in the new format through firewire/RCA/SVHS to my G5 or other device.

Alternately, suggestions for PAL (or multiformat) DVD Recorder would be greatly appreciated.

FYI - A local conversion house says their process is to pass the NTSC signal through a conversion box, and then to a DVD Recorder. I am curious what they would be using.

BTW - I have been using the Nattress plugin, and although it works great, the 10 hrs render for 1 hr source conversion time is brutal!!!. And this is on a G5 Dual 2GHz.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.



Thanks
Gary Sumlak
thumbprints Multimedia Inc.
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
[www.thumbprints.ca]

*** Superior Film Transfers at a Reasonable Price ***

That may be harder to do than you think. Good Quality Standards Converters tend to come in heavy, multi-rack unit packages with lots of fans and cost thousands. Last I checked with some of the houses around town, they stopped offering the lesser quality conversions and standardized on the full motion compensated rock crushers.

Then there's nothing between that and the VHS machine with multi-speed motors and the converter built in.

The Video International people used to make a PAL/NTSC converter that was OK.

You need to remember that stand-alone standards converters that look reasonable also delay the picture two frames. That's how they construct the new frames and tell where the motion is. They keep four fields up in the air at all times. It's usually up to you to put the sound sync back.


And then there's ignore the whole thing and play region free disks on a laptop which usually doesn't care what standard they're in.

Koz

Nattress say they do. See [www.nattress.com]

To build it yourself see
[www.tkk.fi]

10 hours sounds a bit long Gary. Can you give me more info?? BTW, the next update to the plugin should render faster....

Graeme



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

Thanks to everyone for the replies.

Graeme, What kind of info do you need? I do the setup and conversion per your QT video on your site. I do not have any other processes going during the rendering.

Ideally, 2 to 1 render times (more in line with regular rendering) would be preferable, but that kind of jump in performance would be amazing, but really expected.

My system:
Tiger 10.4.2, G5Dual 2GHz, 2.5 GB RAM. FCP4HD.

You should have my registration info, but let me know if you need me to verify.



Thanks
Gary Sumlak
thumbprints Multimedia Inc.
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
[www.thumbprints.ca]

*** Superior Film Transfers at a Reasonable Price ***