Advice On Shooting For U.S. Audience

A

andybiz_2005

Well-known member
Hi,

I would really appreciate all your helpful advice on something.

I currently reside in a country that uses the PAL standard instead of the NTSC standard. I have a Panasonic DVX102AE (PAL version) that shoots either in :

25P (25 progressive frames/sec)
50i (50 interlaced fields/sec)

I am to shoot a wedding of a couple (using my 102AE PAL camcorder) who will want to view their finnished DVD in the United States & I understand that NTSC is the format for the U.S.

My question is : using my PAL camcorder, which is the best setting to shoot in to prepare the final video to be viewed in the NTSC format. I use Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 as my NLE.

Should I shoot normally in PAL mode & use my NLE to convert from PAL to NTSC? Is this the only solution? Or are there any other alternatives?

Please help me out as the shooting will be on 11th December, very soon. Thank you all very much in advance for your helpful replies.

Warmest Regards,

Andrew
 
We deal with a mix of PAL and NTSC project requests.

The short answer...shoot it normally and then transfer it either before the editing process or after the final product is completed to the PAL or NTSC format required.
 
I have heard (but do not KNOW) that many NTSC DVD players will play PAL also. Maybe it is as simple as getting them to buy a new DVD player....
 
galt said:
I have heard (but do not KNOW) that many NTSC DVD players will play PAL also. Maybe it is as simple as getting them to buy a new DVD player....
Click to expand...

When I first moved to Central America, my DVD player would only play DVD's mastered to "region 1"...which is the United States and Canada. I now have a DVD player that plays all regions...but they can be hard to come by depending on where people live.

Try not to make things any harder on the client than they already are.

Your client has a specific audience/region they want to view this production and there is nothing more frustrating than waiting for a DVD, then putting it in your player and having the machine tell you it can't read the disc. It makes you look bad, plus the client is disappointed, not to mention their chosen audience (family and friends).

I strongly suggest you try your best to deliver the final product in the format your client has requested.

Besides...if they also want a PAL version...you're right there to supply it to them, which might mean a little extra money in your pocket as well!

Making a transfer from PAL to NTSC is not that big of a deal. To save yourself some time, and even a little money, my quick thought is...since you are in a PAL country, it will be easier for you to just transfer the finished product to NTSC instead of tranfering raw footage, then trying to find an NTSC editor in your area to create the finished piece.

Keep the production process as simple as you can make it while keeping your client happy. Imagine their thoughts about you if they go to show the DVD of the the wedding to family and friends in NTSC land and they can't see it! That's a worst case scenario no one wants to have happen! It will work against you in the long run as well.

This client could lead others to your door for future business. Keep them happy and more business follows. Disappoint them and...let's not even think about that!

Best of luck and have fun with the project.
 
I work with mixed NTSC and PAL all the time.

I'd make the project in PAL and render out a PAL master, then fire up your NLE in NTSC mode, load int eh file and it should automatically become NTSC (you will need to render).


..other option is of course (if you are working STRICTLY for the NTSC master, is to do all teh work in a NTSC project in your NLE and then master out directly, but that will most likly cause problems with monitoring (esp if you monitor though firewire) and printing out a master to tape for archive.

- Mikko
 
>I have heard (but do not KNOW) that many NTSC DVD players will play PAL also. Maybe it is as simple as getting them to buy a new DVD player....


Almost all NTSC DVD players ONLY play NTSC. You're much more likely to find PAL DVD players that can handle NTSC.
Forcing people to buy a different DVD player shouldn't be part of a plan. PAL DVD players are hard to come by in the U.S. (not stocked in your typical stores) and most people wouldn't have any idea what you're talking about.
 
in the US: "PAL? what's that?"
in europe: "NTSC.. oh yeah that's why half my DVD's are NEVER THE SAME COLOR! ..but yeah they play fine on my 10 year old TV and VHS VCR.. why?" :cheesy:

- Mikko
 
Hi,

Thank you all for your helpful advice. Well, first off, I have also heard that newer DVD players can play formats from all regions, but I agree that taking the risk of assuming that my client has an all region player would be suicide.

So most of what you're saying is either I can choose to edit a new project in NTSC format BEFORE any uploading of DV video from camera to harddisk happens, or even before editting & final render.

And the other view that you put forward is that I can start a new project in PAL, upload DV video from camera to harddisk, edit it & during the final render, specifically choose to render the DVD in NTSC mode. Is that correct?

I have posted two screen grabs from Adobe Premiere at

http://www.photoworks.com/share/shareLanding.jsp?shareCode=AEB6AE1BF5F&cb=PW

The first pic shows that I can either choose to edit a new project in NTSC or PAL. This would be before any uploading of video from camera to harddisk & editting & rendering happens.

The last pic shows that after uploading my DV video files to harddisk & editting, before the final render, I can still choose to render to DVD in the NTSC mode.

Which in your opinion would produce the better results for NTSC playback? The first option, or the second one? Thank you.

Warmest Regards,

Andrew
 
if you are going direct to DVD from teh timeline, then i'd go PAL first and suffer the quality drop from conversion at when you encode the DVD (so all at once, not twice)

- Mikko
 
Thank you mikkowilson,

Yes, I'll burn direct to DVD from the timeline. Well, since that's what you adviced, then I will follow your way of doing it. Yeah, it's true then that I don't need to waste time rendering twice.

Anyway, for this extra service of so-called converting from PAL to NTSC, I'm charging the couple $100. Do you think I'm charging them too little for this extra service? Should I have charged a bit higher?

Thank you all for your kind help.

Andrew
 
Hi ncje,

Well, as long as the wedding couple are pleased with their once-in-a-lifetime moment captured in moving pictures :) What is most important for my company is ofcourse customer satisfaction & more referrals in the future.
 
Yeah, as part of a special project, $100 is about right. - you wouldn't want to go much higher (As many places will do a format conversion from disc to disc for somewhere about the same if not less (but you are workgin form a master, so teh quality will be higher and they have the eace of mind that it's all beeing done in one place.
Much less and it wouldn't be worth your time.

- Mikko
 
Hi mikkowilson,

Thanks so much for giving such helpful advice. I checked out your personal website a while ago & read all the video awards you accumulated throughout the years. Seems like you have a whole wealth of experience in video & TV broadcasting :) Impressive!

I just started my videography business in early August this year & have done 4-5 wedding videos. Everytime, I learn from the previous shoot/edit & strive to improve on the next one. So it is one massive learning experience for me.

You quoted earlier in your thread : "I'd make the project in PAL and render out a PAL master, then fire up your NLE in NTSC mode, load int eh file and it should automatically become NTSC (you will need to render)."

Is it true that you can render an editted movie in PAL mode to .avi for example & in a completely new project import that rendered .avi movie & render it again, this time in a different format like NTSC & the quality of the video will still remain as good as the original rendering, even though it has been rendered from a previous rendered .avi? Can you re-render the same .avi video numerous times & still retain the orinigal clarity of the very first render? Thanks Mikko.

Andrew
 
Thanks for the complements :)

Nope, unfortunatly EVERY time you render ANYTHING you WILL loose 'quality'.
"to render" means to draw out, make visible, display the result of, etc. It means that you are geneating information. Every time a computer renders somethign it does it base don mathematical rules, and it's just a systematic 'guess' at the output. It can never really add anything to the footage, and as it's changing it it will slightly loose somthing.

As a result, 'Perfect' PAL converted to 'perfect' NTSC will still loose (to estimation) a little in the conversion. The end result of anything is the lowest aulity format in the cahin in each aspect, minus anythgin lost in any conversion, minus the conversion in final display.
For example a PAL DV.avi displayed in Preimier Pro from a NTSC DV timeline on an external tv will result in: the lowest resolution (NTSC) alogn wiht intrerplotation artifacts from PAL, at the lowest framerate (PAL) with the artifacts of time interpolation to NTSC, minus any noice induced by the lines to the monitor, minus any erros such as miss-alaignment on the monitor. To go back to PAL, you wuls get back to pal resolution, but you'd only have the old NTSC resolution (with artifacts from the original conversion) minus th artifacts from the newer conversion.
Eventually you get to the point that there are NO original pixels, and EVERY PIXEL is no more than a mathematical GUESS! Nothing is real.

Because it's digital jsut means that it suffer generation loss form digital processes, not analog proceses and noise, but it's still a generation. It holds up much better, but after many renders you will see the losses as more and more of those 'gueses' in redering are incorrect - the result will always be mathematically on AVERAGE the same to the input, but other than that it's anybody's game.

Garbage in [minus changes] = garbage out. ALWAYS.

- Mikko
 
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