Convert NTSC to PAL

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › Convert NTSC to PAL

Rikkitic

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#284257 10-Apr-2021 08:59

What is the quickest and easiest way to convert NTSC to PAL? I have an old Panasonic DVR with a recording I want to keep. The only way to get it off the DVR is to burn it to a DVD. I did that but couldn’t join the VOB files it made. When I checked them, I discovered that the first one is NTSC 352x240 while the others are all PAL 702x576. I don’t know how this is even possible. It is one recording, made from one source, copied in one action to DVD with the recorder set to PAL. Why the devil would it copy the first segment as NTSC and the rest as PAL? Anyway, how can I convert this without major investment?

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cyril7

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#2690328 10-Apr-2021 09:17

Hi while it is possible unless you some decent gear it's not going to be great.

Modern TVs support both pal and ntsc so why bother.

Cyril

Rikkitic

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#2690332 10-Apr-2021 09:22

The reason I want to do it is because I want to join the files and I can't do that with two different standards. I can't understand why this happened in the first place.

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Oblivian

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#2690351 10-Apr-2021 09:52

Are you copying or authoring. VOBs shouldn't really be joined. They are MPEG containers. Each one if they are separate, is likely a different recording?. (Containing it's own streams and chapter markers)
So you probably need to author the DVD layout manually.

Vlc /other player should be able to open them separately to look at content. But they wont like joined ones.

It's against spec, but in theory if the authoring software has ability to make dynamic title markers, you can mix different formats to their own VOB/titles.

Automated graphical menus may be in a different format (often low res) too

MadEngineer

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#2690354 10-Apr-2021 09:57

It should be a simple matter of drag-dropping rips of both into your favourite video editing software, adding them to the timeline and hitting go.

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Rikkitic

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#2690360 10-Apr-2021 10:03

It's just a straight copy from a single recording on the DVR. I am using Any Video Converter to convert and join the files to a single MP4. I have done this before and it works fine. It won't work here because AVC doesn't like the different file formats. I suppose I could covert each VOB separately to MKV and then convert those to MP4 but I was trying to avoid that.

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Rikkitic

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#2690361 10-Apr-2021 10:04

MadEngineer: It should be a simple matter of drag-dropping rips of both into your favourite video editing software, adding them to the timeline and hitting go.

I didn't want to have to re-render everything but it looks like its going that direction.

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SirHumphreyAppleby

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#2690367 10-Apr-2021 10:29

Rikkitic:

What is the quickest and easiest way to convert NTSC to PAL? I have an old Panasonic DVR with a recording I want to keep. The only way to get it off the DVR is to burn it to a DVD. I did that but couldn’t join the VOB files it made. When I checked them, I discovered that the first one is NTSC 352x240 while the others are all PAL 702x576. I don’t know how this is even possible. It is one recording, made from one source, copied in one action to DVD with the recorder set to PAL. Why the devil would it copy the first segment as NTSC and the rest as PAL? Anyway, how can I convert this without major investment?

What are you using to check the format?

The DVD spec doesn't even allow mixed PAL/NTSC disks, let alone mixed streams. It sounds like it may be a case of the steam being misidentified and possibly corrupt in some way.

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Rikkitic

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#2690370 10-Apr-2021 10:40

SirHumphreyAppleby:

What are you using to check the format?

The DVD spec doesn't even allow mixed PAL/NTSC disks, let alone mixed streams. It sounds like it may be a case of the steam being misidentified and possibly corrupt in some way.

I used media info and different software like VideoRedo and Womble to check the format. I don't know how it is even possible that PAL and NTSC files could end up in the same DVD but that seems to be what happened and that is why I am perplexed. This is some the the DVR did, nothing I contributed to.

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Rikkitic

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#2690676 10-Apr-2021 18:38

Wow. That was an ordeal. I spent a good part of the day trying different things in different ways. Most of the conversions to MP4, either directly or indirectly, refused to play after going through the lengthy conversion process without any errors. What finally worked was using Any Video Converter to convert the first VOB file to PAL mpg, then using it again to convert the converted file plus the other VOBs to MP4. This gave me a single MP4 file that plays correctly. I hope I never have to do this again.

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richms

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#2690697 10-Apr-2021 19:10

Converting them properly is a timeconsiming effort and still has artifacts in the result. Particually if its something that had already been converted into NTSC like many of the rips of english shows are.

I have found most of the software that does it quickly is junk and just does frame repetition or discard which makes for a very juddery playback.

Richard rich.ms

Rikkitic

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#2690706 10-Apr-2021 20:01

Fortunately quality is not a requirement for this, just a playable file.

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