transfering to PAL, which format work the best?

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I will be filming some interview at the upcoming "Maui Film Festival" (mauifilmfestival.com) for the italian television and I was wondering which format better translate to PAL.
24p, 30p, or regular interlace?
Mahalo
 
Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

Regular interlaced video has been transferred to PAL for years, so it will have the largest installed base of equipment and transfer houses. 30P will not transfer to PAL well at all.

24P could theoretically provide the best, most filmlike transfer, but only if the place doing the transfer knows how to do it. Unless you're creating the PAL master yourself, I wouldn't gamble on it. If you need to make a PAL version of your footage, you're safest to shoot in 60i.
 
Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

Thank you.
M
 
Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

The advantage of 24P would be (as with 24fps film) that you could just use it WITHOUT transcoding it into PAL (except that you have to uprezz it a little). You just let it play 25P and accept that it is 4% faster. Might sound a little weird when heard in direct comparision; but it is commonly done that way and usually not detectable.
 
Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

All PAL broadcast Hollywood movies are done that way.
 
Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

I heard you say when transfering 24p NTSC to PAL you can just let it run on a PAL deck and it will play and transfer fine, just 4% faster than the normal NTSC which it was shot. Is this correct and is this 24P regular or 24P Advanced setting?
 
Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

oooh! No! Sorry, misunderstanding. Few decks are capable of multi norms, so you often can't play PAL footage on a NTSC deck and vice versa.
What you address by playing 24fps footage in 25fps is the problem of CONVERTING the frame rates. If you actually convert 24fps to 25fps you need to insert a frame which results in a noticeable stuttering when having quick camera movements. Thats why there is such a complicated pull-down system when converting 60i to 50i (you'll have to cut away 10 fields).

The idea is to load the 24fps DV-NTSC-based material into your editing systsem using an NTSC deck, stretch the material to 720x576 pixels (which is DV-PAL) and play it out as 25fps DV-PAL-based footage to a PAL deck (but without inserting frames so having a very smooth motion even with fast camera moves). The only drawback would be, the film is 4% faster which is, as said, not really noticable if you have no comparison.

One question left is, how to make your editing system to interpret a 24fps stream as 25fps (without tampering with the frames). Dunno. Depends on your editing systems. I'd say, in worst case you'd have to export it as an image sequence and just import it again defining it is 25fps. But I bet in FCP there is just a switch you'd have to turn to change the fps-rate.

Hope this helps.
 
Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

I'm certain that in Vegas, if you'd edited a 24P timeline from NTSC material, you could import that file into a PAL project, tell it to play back at 104% speed, and you'd get a frame-accurate PAL video. You could tell the audio to play back with no pitch change, and it might even be acceptable...

I should try that at some point. I have a dual-standard deck and a projector that supports PAL playback, so maybe sometime I'll run that test and see...
 
Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

Ah why oh why must you NTSC people continue to use an inferior standard! You should all come across to the dark side. ;)
Seriously though it seems strange that in this day and age we are still persisting with different formats. There is a noticable difference in quality with NTSC footage played over here, it looks terrible. I don't know if that is just the conversion process or the actual standard of NTSC stuff.
 
Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

It's the conversion, I'm sure. NTSC can look startlingly good, when shot through a high-quality system and displayed on a professional monitor.

HDTV was supposed to have been the grand, unifying, cross-compatible system, except that it appears that PAL countries are thumbing their noses at it... :)
 
Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

Barry, I'd say PAL countries are a little slower and more sceptical about HDTV. But its coming. Its just that over here we have no FCC that forces companies to broadcast a certain percentage in HD (which is not a bad idea from the FCC).
But all production companies I know are now seriuosly considering HD because of international demands. And with dramatically dropping price-tags and loads of entry-level HD solutions (Apple etc), its only a matter of few years that HD will be as widespread in (at least) Europe, Australia and Asia - and PAL and NTSC will finally merge and one day vanish.

At least, this time there is no alternative system over here, so HDTV is the only system to go.

I guess the main problem with HD is: 80% of the consumers ask themselves: Why should I have it?? I have a crappy color TV that takes not even full advantage of SD/PAL... and I know numerous people with a certain, famous SD camera from Panasonic, who think that SD is good enough... ;D
 
Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

In Australia we do have a version of the FCC, the ABA (Australian Broadcasting Authority). And they have implemented rules about digital tv content and have laid down quite a strict time line for things to change. The comercial stations are now using HDTV gear for all their studio and feature stuff and are working towards forcing all submissions to be at least 16:9 if not HD. All analoge broadcasts will cease in 2008 and as far as I know it will be all HDTV from then.
Were slow to take up the new format because we're smart, wait for everyone else to do the hard yards testing, buy gear while it's over priced and then jump in once it's all going smoothly, ahh lazy buggers we are ;D

I have to say it though you yanks just can't seem to follow the rest of the world can you.... NTSC, 120V/60hz, miles, fahrenheit and you even drive on the wrong side of the road! Go figure :P
 
Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

[quote author=JanBee link=board=Events;num=1086391833;start=0#10 date=06/15/04 at 00:16:39]I guess the main problem with HD is: 80% of the consumers ask themselves: Why should I have it?? [/quote]
Actually that's exactly where we're at in America too -- nobody cares about HD, except a very tiny segment of enthusiasts, and the television manufacturers...

(note, I'm not saying HD isn't better, I'm just saying that the average consumer doesn't care and wouldn't pay $10 more for it).
 
Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

I still wonder if 30P on the DVX wouldn't give a good PAL transfer?

You can up the V Detail to the full 480 lines.

It's still recorded at 60i so it would seem that the conversion facility would treat it as 60i and then there would actually be fewer interlace artifacts since most of the frames would be made up from the same image.

Anyone have any thoughts, done any tests?

MR
 
Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

30P will do a horrible job of transferring to PAL.

It's true that the recording is recorded as 60i, but it isn't the same thing -- there are still only 30 motion samples.

24P will do a wonderful conversion to PAL, giving you the full 480 lines of res, and no motion artifacts (just a 4% speedup). And it'll retain the film look.

60i will do a reasonable conversion to PAL 50i, it's been done for decades and there is dedicated hardware to handle it.

30P will do a terrible job converting to PAL, easily the worst of the bunch. 24->25 is a frame-for-frame transfer, but 30->25 invovles dropping five frames every second, and trying to interpolate motion, it's a mess.

For PAL, stick with 24P for progressive, or 60i for interlaced, but forget 30P.
 
Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

Barry, as usual, you're so right! (and that comes from a PAL-guy)
 
Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

yep thats why sometimes you watch a PAL DVD of older movies and the voices are just that little bit higher pitched and the movie is just a little bit shorter :)
 
Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

The three people you meet in hell:

1) the first girl who dumped you
2) Adolf Hitler
3) The guy who invented NTSC
 
Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

Yep! got to agree with that :)

N ever
T he
S ame
C olor
;D
 
Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

Re: transfering to PAL, which format work the best

never twice same color :-)
 
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