Ntsc Vhs -> Pal60 Vcr -> Dvd

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In PAL countries many VHS VCRs are capable of so-called "NTSC playback on PAL TVs", which means you can put an NTSC cassette in, and it will play properly on newer PAL TV sets that support PAL60. Basically the colour signal gets converted to PAL, but the refresh rate stays at 60 Hz (regular PAL VHS cassettes play back at 50 Hz).

An easy way of creating DVDs from VHS tapes is to use a DVD Recorder. Unfortunately mine (a Panasonic DMR-EH60) supports NTSC and PAL input, but not PAL60. Both my VCRs can play back NTSC, but they don't output native NTSC 3.58: output is PAL60 instead. Because I wasn't pleased with neither a black and white picture nor a squeezed and distorted image, I realized that I had two options:

1. Borrow a VCR with NTSC 3.58 playback
2. PC analogue capture

Well, I took option 2. For those who may stumble across the same problem, here's my short description how I did it:

First I connected the VCR to my PC using a SCART-to-Cinch adaptor cable. Somehow you have to connect the VCR's output to the PC's AV input. There may be other options, like Cinch-to-Cinch, or an S-Video cable; it depends on the VCR used.

In my case the capture was done using MainConcept MPEG Encoder using highest bitrate settings and PAL DVD target format. Ok, you may argue that for best quality I should have captured to MJPEG or HuffYUV AVI, but my way worked well for me. In any case the capture result should be a 720x576 (or 704x576) video - NOT XXXx480! PAL60 has to be captured at 576 rows.

To cut off some garbage at the beginning and at the end of the video I used Cuttermaran. Then I created a D2V project using DGIndex demuxing the audio stream at the same time (regular procedure). An AviSynth script was fed into the Encoder (MainConcept again, this time set to standard PAL DVD settings):
LoadPlugin("C:\...\DGDecode.dll")
MPEG2Source("Q:\Temp\MyVideo.d2v")
SeparateFields()
odd=SelectOdd().BilinearResize(720,240)
evn=SelectEven().BilinearResize(720,240)
Interleave(evn,odd)
Weave()
You have to adjust the paths, of course. Encoder output was a DVD compliant elementary MPEG-2 video stream.

Finally the DVD was authored with the help of DVDlab using the final video stream and the audio stream I demuxed in the DGIndex step.

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Comments are welcome :)

[scharfis_brain]

In my case the capture was done using MainConcept MPEG Encoder using highest bitrate settings and PAL DVD target format. Ok, you may argue that for best quality I should have captured to MJPEG or HuffYUV AVI, but my way worked well for me. In any case the capture result should be a 720x576 (or 704x576) video - NOT XXXx480! PAL60 has to be captured at 576 rows.

Uhm. No.

Always Capture PAL60 like you would capture NTSC.
This means: 7xx*480 Pixels @ 29.97 fps and nothing else.
If you captured with 576 lines you will have destroyed your video.

If you need a 576 lines result you need to do a standards conversion from 480 lines @ 29.97 fps to 576 lines @ 25 fps.
There are lots of threads discussing how to do it and which thing to consider (FILM vs. VIDEO conversions)

But capturing PAL60 directly with 576 lines will not return any convincing result.

btw.: and please don't use that MPEG stuff for capturing if you need to convert it.
Better use a lossless or near to lossless codec.

EDIT: Maybe this helps: http://home.arcor.de/der_karl/NTSC/NTSC.htm
(please do not count on the AVS-script he shows. it is the most simple way to do a conversion. Please don't use it)

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Thank you for your comment, scharfis_brain.

Uhm. No.

Always Capture PAL60 like you would capture NTSC.
This means: 7xx*480 Pixels @ 29.97 fps and nothing else.
If you captured with 576 lines you will have destroyed your video.

If you need a 576 lines result you need to do a standards conversion from 480 lines @ 29.97 fps to 576 lines @ 25 fps.
There are lots of threads discussing how to do it and which thing to consider (FILM vs. VIDEO conversions)

But capturing PAL60 directly with 576 lines will not return any convincing result.
That's what I tried in the first place, because I assumed that PAL60 should have the same vertical resolution as NTSC. But for some reason - be it the Philips chipset set to PAL60 or the MPEG Encoder - it seemed that I got a resolution of 576, not 480 as I expected. The MainConcept MPEG Encoder's capture module argued that it had to scale the video when I set it to 720x480. And it really did: I tried it, and the outcome wasn't pleasing at all (typical resizing artefacts).
Setting it to 720x576 @ 29.97 fps resulted in good quality video with correct interlacing. Maybe the capture module includes some internal scaling when the source is PAL60 - I don't know.
btw.: and please don't use that MPEG stuff for capturing if you need to convert it.
Better use a lossless or near to lossless codec.
As I posted above using MPEG-2 instead of MJPEG or HuffYUV is inferior, but it was good enough for my needs (just half an hour of video to put on a DVD, i.e. enough bitrate to waste). In the "quick and dirty" procedure I didn't use any filtering either. For best quality I wouldn't choose MPEG-2, and I would use filtering, at least to get rid of the noise.
EDIT: Maybe this helps: http://home.arcor.de/der_karl/NTSC/NTSC.htm
(please do not count on the AVS-script he shows. it is the most simple way to do a conversion. Please don't use it)
Thanks for the link; I read Karl's guide, and he writes what I expected. But for some reason I needed 7XXx576, not 7XXx480...

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