PAL DV to digibeta NTSC

M

Mihai Meda

Carbonite Member
Hello!

I have shot this short movie with the DVX100AE PAL version, at 25p. I edited it and finished in a PAL sequence in FCP, and did a rather lousy NTSC conversion (using JES Deinterlacer) for preview in the US (where I study).

The project got accepted in a pretty prestigious festival (Oscar qualifier), and I need to provide them with a DigiBeta NTSC tape. What are the steps that I need to do now?

I figure: go from PAL DV to uncompressed PAL. Can I do this in a satisfactory manner inside FCP? Which is the exact setting, 4:2:2 uncompressed PAL? Just drop the timeline in the new se

OK, once I do this, I figure take this PAL uncompressed movie to a post house where they would transfer (high-quality I hope) to uncompressed NTSC and output on a digibeta NTSC tape.

Is this the best workflow? I would appreciate any advice!

Thanks!

Mihai
 
Unless you find a place that offer conversion with a Snell & Wilcox machine (which I hear is crazy expensive) the quality will not be any better then converting yourself. You can use Compressor 2 to convert PAL DV straight to uncompressed NTSC. This also has the advantage that you can adjust colour and contrast, which can suffer from conversion.
If you don't have Compressor 2, the Nattress plug in (http://nattress.com/) and Canopus Procoder (for Windows) also offer great conversion quality.
Hope this helps
 
25p converts to NTSC just great with my plugin. You can set up your timeline to be NTSC uncompressed 8bit 4:2:2 and convert direct to that. In this case, I think my plugin will out-convert practically anything. It really does a good job of 25p to NTSC.

Graeme
 
Hello Graeme,
does you plug-in alter the speed and use a pulldown or do you blend frames?

On another note, what do you recommend is the best way of shooting with an NTSC DVX when you need to transfer to PAL later?

Sorry for drifting OT ...
 
For 25p to NTSC it's a modified pulldown that keeps the speed very close, only accounting for the 29.97fps of NTSC not being precisely 30.00fps.

For DVX NTSC to PAL, shoot 24p and speed to 25fps in cinema tools, then scale up to PAL dimensions. Works great.

Graeme
 
Graeme,

I will take a look at your plug-in right now!

So I have to copy the sequence to a NEW uncompressed timeline and only then apply the plug-in? (double-render, for the plug-in and for the uncompressed timeline)

And, isn't digibeta 10bit 4:2:2 uncompressed, why should I set up the timeline to 8 bit? Of course you know better Graeme, so I wonder what I am missing.

Thank you!
 
Since FCP5 the plugin doesn't work on sequences. You need to work on a movie file. So make a movie file of your movie, and use that.

Why 8bit - your source footage is 8bit, and won't get any better than that. 10bit is still a bit buggy in FCP.

Graeme
 
OK Graeme,

I agree, the footage is 8bit and it's not going to get better than that. My only concern is that I will output to a digibeta tape (10 bit).

Than I guess I can output a 8bit uncompressed 4:2:2 movie file to a 10bit digibeta tape then, with no problems? It would be good to know (no experience with digibeta for me so far)

Also, I still have FCP 4.5 not 5, I will check your plug-in.

Thanks again.
 
Yes, 8-bit uncompressed will go out to DB just fine. Sure you can render to 10bit if you want, but it won't improve anything really, and just take longer.

Graeme
 
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