Really, how to covert PAL DVD to NTSC DVD

This question has been asked again and again but no one has an answer.
I have a PAL DVD but want to convert it to a NTSC DVD withought losing
all the menu features. I want to make an exact copy but convert the
format so we can play it in our home DVD players over here.

I have access to the Adobe family of products. Does Encore take a PAL
DVD, plop it on your hard drive, convert it to NTSC DVD then burn
again?

Surely there is a program that can do this with minimal input and
withought using 10-15 different programs.

 

The problem is that what you're asking for is a fairly
involved process from a technical standpoint. PAL video runs at a
different framerate and different resolution, so in order to make it
into an NTSC disc with all the menus intact, you'd have to extract all
the video, audio, and menu data, convert them all to the new video
specs, then remultiplex it all. In effect, you'd have to reauthor the
entire disc.

I think the easiest solution is to just get one of the many
cheap, region-free Chinese DVD players out there that convert PAL to
NTSC automatically.

 

I had a PAL region 2 DVD and created a region-free disc without
converting it to NTSC. That disc played fine, as is, on my JVC DVD
player, an XV-N40 model that retails for around US$100

<http://www.google.com/froogle?q=XV-N40BK>

The playback quality probably wasn't as good as a professional PAL to
NTSC conversion might be but it was perfectly acceptable on my 36"
monitor.

 

It isn't worth the time and effort.

Just buy a DVD player which is capable of playing PAL and outputting to
NTSC. There are plenty available.
Here's a good starting point.
http://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks

When you find one - just take your PAL DVD to the store and try it out in
one of the display players (which is what I did at Best Buy)

 

I don't think there's an easy way to do this. I'm a little surprised
no one seems to have come up with a single program that does this (or
at least invokes other programs to do it). Here's an approach I've
used that works but is a pain in the butt...

use a bitrate calculator to figure out what bitrate you need for the
video
For (N=1 to maxtitles)
{
use DVDShrink to reauthor a DVD that contains just title N;
use DVD2AVI to extract the .ac3 audio and create a .d2v file;
use Tmpgenc to open .d2v file and produce NTSC MPEG2 files (.m2v);
}
use PowerDVD or other app to take screenshots of menus
use Photoshop to edit the menus, remove highlighing etc...
use DVDLab (or Encore, or ...) to reauthor disk with .m2v, .ac3 and
menu screenshots.

Hell of a lot of work! The only step here which takes any CPU time is
the video conversion by tmpgenc (which is sloooow)

 

You also can do a HEX Dump on the VIDEO TS File on your HD, and them burn it
on DVD

1. DVD Decryptor >>> it will copy the DVD file to your HD
2. Edit the HEX file in Video TS Directory >>>>> See DVDrHelp about this
simple application (Change NTSC for PAL)
3. Burn back the DVD >>>> Nero Recode setup in PAL
and Voila

 

I presume you're talking about editing the IFO files (IFOEdit's a good
choice here) to change PAL to NTSC and to change the pixel dimensions.
I've tried this method with very little success - some DVD players
accept the discs, but most do not. Those that do play, do so somewhat
jerkily.

If you want to make a DVD that will play anywhere, this is not the
method to follow.

BTW the link to the 'patch method' is...
http://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=221928

 

Walther,

Unfortunately you're not going to get a staight answer to this
question. You'll get the following resposes which are either irrelevent
or incorrect:

1 - All dvd players will play all formats (not true)
2 - Use 20 different programs (can be done but difficult)
3 - Change the region encoding of the disk (also not true - region
encoding is only half the problem and the easy half, at that. Pal and
NTSC have different resolutions and framerates which changing region
encoding doesn't change. Region encoding is just an easy way for the
dvd player to know what format the disk is).
4 - It's too hard for any one program to do (this is the most absurd
load of crap that I've been handed. There are programs to do all of the
steps individually - see point 2 above - so why couldn't there be one
that does it all? Of course there could be. The question is has anyone
written one yet?)

The people who answer your questions will all talk down to you with an
oh-so-clever I-know-everything-and-you-don't-know-anything
condescending attitude but what they'll do is spout a load of absolute
tripe.

So I sympathise with you, Walther - I'm looking for that program
myself. It has to exist somewhere (or is in the process of being
created). If I find it I'll let you know (I hope you will reciprocate).
At any rate, don't listen to these morons. You don't need to buy a
multi-region dvd player (and one that just ignores multi-region
encoding won't work anyway).

 

--
..com...

.....Well I do NTSC DVDs with DVD-shrink and they play fine on PAL
systems....I suppose it's a problem when you start out with a PAL and try to
go the other way?
Len

 

Not true. The player looks up the video format from the actual MPEG
streams and their flags - or from some other meta information in the
video title set (VTS). (I do not know which one it is, but anyhow, you
_can_ have PAL or NTSC formatted video on the disc regardless of the
region, and region numbers are _not_ the device which the player uses
for deciding about the correct playback format. You can even have both
PAL and NTSC formatted material on the _same_ disc, even though
commercial discs are not usually made this way.)

 

This is just silly! Saying there ought to be one program to do it all
is analagous to suggesting that Adobe ought to combine Photoshop +
After Effects + Premiere + Encore. The steps of doing DVD conversion
are as distinctive as these Adobe apps.

 

I pop a PAL DVD into my computer, tell my video card to pump the
signal out the S-video cable to my big screen TV (which is NTSC) and
everthing is fine. If the computer can internally manage the signal
with two clicks then port it out the comptuer then DAMN RIGHT it
should be simple to convert since it is doing it already !!!! Did I
mention it takes two mouse clicks to play a PAL in NTSC format?

This excuse of THE MULTI CHANNEL UPSIDE DOWN INVERTED DROP FRAME RATE
OF THE FORMAT FOR THE MULILINGUOUS FORMAT CAN NOT BE CONVERTED TO THE
ASYNCRONOUS bla.....bla.....bla...bla.....

Any simple task can be made complex to the point that people say "dont
bother then". There is obvisouly a demand for this because a Google
search shows people for years asking how to do this. And now that
home computers are fast enough to handle and edit video, the time is
here.

 

Reading a PAL or NTSC MPEG2 and figuring out how to paint it on the
screen is simple, nobody's disputing that. What's not simple is the
process of conversion (see description of what it takes, above). I
seriously doubt there is enough of a market out there to justify the
effort. Since, as several have said above, you can spend $50US to get
an NTSC DVD player that will play PAL discs, who would justify spending
$50 on conversion software? And if that's unjustified, then it implies
that taking the time and effort to write the very complex software to
automate the process is equally unjustified.

 

Which is essentially the same answer as those of us who said
"Buy a $30 DVD player that's multi-region and which can convert PAL to
NTSC." When the computer outputs the PAL signal, it's resizing the
frame to NTSC resolution and converting the framerate to one which is
acceptable by an NTSC monitor. Yes, it's simple to do a quick and
dirty conversion like this, but there are better ways which yield
better results.

Why is it that you assume that a process is easy to do just
because the computer lets you do it in two clicks?

 

Well that makes the suggestion of changing the region coding even more
stupid and pointless then. Thanks for pointing that out (I'm not sure
you're correct - if you are then there's absolutely no reason to have
region coding). As far as PAL and NTSC on the one disk, of course you
can - after all, in the final analysis it's all just ones and zeros.

 

Hey, don't be an ass. My point is that such a program is possible and,
as there seems to be a huge demand for it, it would behoove someone to
create it.

 

There is a _strong reason_ for using regional codes, but that reason has
nothing to do with the PAL/NTSC issues per se [1] - and curiously, it
has even _less_ to do with consumer satisfaction. You might want to read
more about the scheme here:

<http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#1.10>

(Of course the originally envisioned total regional lockout system has
now failed quite miserably, as most of the currently sold players can be
made region free, one way or the other, in the simplest case just by
accessing a hidden service menu or by entering a secret code [or a
special button sequence] on the remote.)

_____

[1] For instance, both Europe and Japan are lumped together under the
same region number (Region 2), yet these areas use different video
standards: Europeans PAL, the Japanese NTSC. In other words, if you buy
a Japanese DVD it will be a Region 2 disc in the NTSC format. If you buy
a European DVD it will be a Region 2 disc in the PAL format: region code
does not dictate the video standard.

Now, if you were to take your Japanese "Region 2" DVD to Europe (or vice
versa) you would be able to play it back just fine provided your DVD
player and TV can cope with the "foreign" tv standard. (Most of the DVD
players sold in Europe are multistandard by design and also most of the
tv sets currently sold in Europe can display 525/60 signals as well as
the regular PAL-style 625/50 signals.)