PAL HD Video converted to NTSC HD Video

[d121]

Plan to convert PAL HD video (both 1440x1080i and 1920x1080i) to NTSC HD video.

Could you advise how to do? Currently, I am using Vegas and Premiere CS4.

[Ghitulescu]

Basically it's the same as you would convert PAL SD to NTSC SD. There are at least 3 threads concernig this issue here. Use search for NTSC PAL.

While the current technik status might be an incentive to do this in SD, I doubt that it's still necessary to do this in HDTV era, at least in EU. To my knowledge, all HD TVs sold in EU can natively display 29.97 or 23.976.

[benwaggoner]

Basically it's the same as you would convert PAL SD to NTSC SD. There are at least 3 threads concernig this issue here. Use search for NTSC PAL.

While the current technik status might be an incentive to do this in SD, I doubt that it's still necessary to do this in HDTV era, at least in EU. To my knowledge, all HD TVs sold in EU can natively display 29.97 or 23.976.
That's correct. The PAL HD spec requires 1080i29.97 be supported, and many displays support other "NTSC" modes.

I honestly think we're in the waning days of PAL as a distinct video ecosystem. The HD frame sizes are already the same. And the PAL frame rates don't make much sense for new production. Movie content should be 24p the world 'round (as it is on Blu-ray). And for high-motion content like sports, 60 is better than 50.

For HD broadcasting, we really could have just stopped at 720p60 and 1080p24. It's time to get rid of non-square pixels, interlacing, and PAL frame rates.

[smok3]

nope, simulcasting will continue and for PAL i want either HDp25 or HDp50 as sources, it is time that NTSC dies.
other benefits:
- 50/2=25, so one format can fit another better (60 and 24 don't make any sense and 29.xx/23.976 are total bastards imho) - imagine having sport broadcast in 50p and easy web version in 25p for example...
- 25p is good for cinema and converts directly to pal, no need for any weird slowdowns (edit: cinemas should adapt to play anything in the native fps, movies could be easily made in 50p really)
- even say 720p50 is really heavy to edit, 60p is that much worse.
p.s. bluray will hopefully die as well, so no need to be compatible with that

It's time to get rid of non-square pixels
nope, just define new formats with square defaults, but allow any PAR, i would like to see my production in any shape i want, could be 31:9 for example (that way there is no need for any black borders).

Ben: just try to see above silverlight/ntsc, otherwise you can be one of the reasons for future format suffer.

[benwaggoner]

nope, simulcasting will continue and for PAL i want either HDp25 or HDp50 as sources, it is time that NTSC dies.
But what's better in 25 than 24 and better in 50 than 60?

I don't want movies/entertainment sped up 4%, and I want high motion stuff as smooth as possible.

For legacy content, sure. But in a world where everyone had 1080p displays that coudl do 24/25/50/60, why would anyone choose 25 or 50 anymore?

- 50/2=25, so one format can fit another better (60 and 24 don't make any sense and 29.xx/23.976 are total bastards imho) - imagine having sport broadcast in 50p and easy web version in 25p for example...

Solved by 120 Hz displays.

- 25p is good for cinema and converts directly to pal, no need for any weird slowdowns (edit: cinemas should adapt to play anything in the native fps, movies could be easily made in 50p really)
Yeah, but 99% of 25p content is produced at 24p. Why not just stop speeding it up in post?

- even say 720p50 is really heavy to edit, 60p is that much worse.
That one you made up :). No, not in any material sense. We're talking like three months of Moore's Law.

nope, just define new formats with square defaults, but allow any PAR, i would like to see my production in any shape i want, could be 31:9 for example (that way there is no need for any black borders).
I agree with you on that. I resent every time I have to encode and decode static black rectangles.

Ben: just try to see above silverlight/ntsc, otherwise you can be one of the reasons for future format suffer.
I don't know what Silverlight has to do with NTSC :). It's a web plaform and can play back content of any framerate. We've probably got more installations in PAL countries than NTSC as it is. If the content originates at a PAL frame rate, I do battle making sure it doesn't get standards converted before encode.

I'm just speaking as a grizzled video nerd who never, ever, wants to do another 50/60 conversion again. It's just so crushing to spend so much effort making something so ultimately unsatisfying.

[Ghitulescu]

The good thing is that now the frame sizes are the same. I personally do not mind [too much] for the fps provided the HD chain can play them natively.
It could be a problem for colages or dokus, wherein various sources can be admixed together.

[smok3]

But what's better in 25 than 24 and better in 50 than 60?
50 and 25 are in relation, where 24 and 60 are not, also if you think about simulcasting, then NTSC public is allready ready for weird conversions, so 25->24 should be supersmooth to them

For legacy content, sure. But in a world where everyone had 1080p displays that coudl do 24/25/50/60, why would anyone choose 25 or 50 anymore?
why 24 and 60?

Solved by 120 Hz displays.
whats wrong with 200 Hz?

Yeah, but 99% of 25p content is produced at 24p. Why not just stop speeding it up in post?
huh, 99% of things i do are 25p native (video)

That one you made up . No, not in any material sense. We're talking like three months of Moore's Law.
ok, i cheat a lil here (maybe)

I don't know what Silverlight has to do with NTSC
Nothing really, but if you check web delivery today you can see that there is nothing weird with displaying content at some fixed aspect ratios and with some fixed fps (totally unnecesary, but i guess they get ideas from broadcast industry)

[The_Dukester]

"I honestly think we're in the waning days of PAL as a distinct video ecosystem"

I don't think so - many more countries use PAL over NTSC (something like 3x) and many of those are a long way from HD.

We like the speed up from 24 to 25, we get to finish those rubbish movies in less time than you guys! ;-)

[Ghitulescu]

There is no better or worse, each format has its own advantages, otherwise it would have been not in use.

The movies were initially ran at 16 fps. After a while the 24 fps became the de facto standard.

The 30Hz respectively 25Hz BW systems used the mains as the reference.

With the invention of the colour, the NTSC deviated a bit from 30Hz, but the PAL stayed at 25Hz.

HDTV could have been the unifying technology. It wasn't. For technological reasons I expected 3 standards: 29.97, 24 and 25 as backward compatibility. There are more. JVC and EBU pushed 720p but few TVs can natively display 720p, most new ones can however 1080. Upscaling 720 to 1080 is not difficult, but that's not the point.

HDTV could end the interlaced technology. It didn't, despite the internal processing of the new TVs which is progressive. There are good deinterlacers, that could have been used to deinterlace the archive material (shows, interviews). Nope, the processing task was left to us. 1080i is alive and well.

So, the world remains divided, the needs for standard converters is still acute, on top of these come HDCP and BD, two evolving standards, that make the life of a design engineer a living hell (the compatibility among the gear of the same company is not granted if they belong to different generations).

So, do we need to convert PAL to NTSC? For the time being yes.

What will the furture bring? Well, ... but let's be optimistic, a unifying standard (4k by 300Hz maybe).

[2Bdecided]

Yeah, but 99% of 25p content is produced at 24p.that's not true at all for TV, though it might become true eventually.

No point making 60i or 60p content for legacy PAL countries - the standards conversion is nasty and expensive, and far more people are watching SD than HD.

Cheers,
David.

[kieranrk]

Yeah, but 99% of 25p content is produced at 24p.


You're assuming we only import programmes and films from the US here in Europe and don't make our own :p

It's a lot less than 99% since 25p is becoming the defacto standard for non-live HD content in the UK and I believe on the continent too. I've seen 25p used for things like concerts too.

Unfortunately people like Warner (on behalf of the BBC) keep turning this nice 25p into jerky 30i...

[sneaker_ger]

Germans public television announced that they will be using 720p50 (No 1080p50 in the HDTV standard - this is one of the few times I actually hope they'll start ignoring the standard - although 720 is very nice and we don't have to deal with interlacing that much anymore). We will still have those conversions for a long time. I guess the best would be to make all chains capable of smoothly playing 23.967, 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 50, 60 and maybe also 119,88 and 120 Hz (for hybrid material).

And there are lots of native 25p/50i productions in the PAL countries - the 24->25 speedup is pretty much film and US series only.

[scharfis_brain]

although 720 is very nice and we don't have to deal with interlacing that much anymore
HD productions still are done in 1080i.
so the broadcaster will to the deinterlacing for you.
But I've seen TVs offering a better deinterlacing quality than the broadcasters, so IMO choosing 720p50 for broadcasting is flawed in a world where 1080i productions dominate.

[sneaker_ger]

HD productions still are done in 1080i.

That may be true for most - not all - productions. But I guess it's pretty safe to say that future productions by ARD/ZDF etc. will be progressive. The problem is that other broadcasters might go for 1080i.

But according to this article (http://www.ce-markt.de/CE-Markt-Exklusiv/HDTV-ZDF/hdtv-zdf.html) (German only) many European broadcasters will go for 720p50 and that this format is the recommendation of the European Broadcasting Union.

so the broadcaster will to the deinterlacing for you.

That's indeed sad for those owning top notch deinterlacing equipment or reencode on the PC.

[Ghitulescu]

HD productions still are done in 1080i.

I own a copy of BBC Planet Earth.
It's realeased in 1080i, however during some scenes I've seen another operator shooting the same scene from a different angle.

Well, guess what? It was a JVC 720p profi camera (the model was not seen). I don't think BBC teams used different cameras, just for the fun of making the hell out of the life of the film editors.

[smok3]

16 seconds of googling;
http://www.bbcstudiosandpostproduction.com/postproduction/london/hd_workflow.pdf

from wikipedia
71 cameramen and women filmed in 204 locations in 62 different countries on all seven continents, spending more than 2000 days in the field.

Panasonic VariCam HD cameras were used for land-based footage[14] and Sony HD cameras for aerial sequences.[9] The latter, a distinctive feature of Planet Earth, were shot using a technique borrowed from Hollywood action films. Mark Kelem, the aerial cameraman, had previously worked on Mission: Impossible III and Black Hawk Down. The camera was mounted in a device called a Heligimbal, a gyroscopically-stabilised housing attached to the underside of a helicopter and controlled by joystick from inside the cockpit. The unit was lightweight, enabling lenses with a longer reach to be attached (up to 40x magnification). This enabled him to capture steady images of individual creatures from a height which prevented the noise of the helicopter from disturbing them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_Earth_%28TV_series%29

so basically 1080i can be just a distro format (or maybe it was upsized into post allready, i doubt that thought).

[2Bdecided]

...but Planet Earth was made before suitable 1080-line cameras were available.

All new BBC HD stuff is originated at 1080p25, 1080i50, or on film.

(Though I've heard of some people using 1080p24 for UK TV productions and speeding it up - don't know if it was true).

The EBU recommended 720p, but all UK broadcasters have ignored that recomendation. So much HD is 1080p25 that using 720 would be a straight downgrade.

And 1080 is a bigger number, and bigger numbers sell!

Cheers,
David.

[SeeMoreDigital]

I know a couple of DOP's who do "sub-contract" work for the BBC... Up until recently any high-def work was captured with either Sony, JVC or Canon "720p" camcorders (at various fps speeds)...

[davidcw]

..
The EBU recommended 720p, but all UK broadcasters have ignored that recomendation. So much HD is 1080p25 that using 720 would be a straight downgrade.
And 1080 is a bigger number, and bigger numbers sell!
Cheers,
David.
In NZ we have mainly 720p, with one station using 1080i.
I think 720p was not the best choice.

davidcw

[kieranrk]

The EBU recommended 720p, but all UK broadcasters have ignored that recomendation.

With Freeview I believe they will be doing 720p at 5-8Mbps. I'm guessing that will look awful.

[Lyris]

I agree totally that 50hz HD should never have been allowed to happen. It makes absolutely no sense.

In the days of SD PAL, we could actually claim that this was superior for film content, depending on your point of view (higher resolution and judder-free, but with the film at the wrong speed).

But "PAL", or 50hz HD, is just flat-out inferior to the 60hz counterpart. Films at the wrong speed, lower temporal resolution for video content, and no resolution advantages. As I understand it, Europe kicked and screamed in the early days of HD standardisation in the 80s. When they (we?) finally decided it was a good idea, we should have followed the early lead of the US and Japan and got the whole world onto one system.

FWIW, I was watching some live music awards show on 50hz HDTV here in the UK. It was being broadcast from the US and I imagine it was being converted with one of those Snell & Wilcox machines. The motion judder from the frame rate conversion was pretty obnoxious and every time there was a strobe or flash, the converter assumed that there had been a scene change and stopped interpolating. Judder-o-riffic.

[SeeMoreDigital]

With Freeview I believe they will be doing 720p at 5-8Mbps. I'm guessing that will look awful.I wonder why the "Freeview" (DVB-T) platform would consider adopting a resolution of 1280x720 pixels, when the same channels on "FreeSat (DVB-S) would most likely be 1440x1080 (with 16:9 aspect ratio signalling) :eek:

I agree totally that 50hz HD should never have been allowed to happen. It makes absolutely no sense.Given that not everyone in Europe possess 60Hz capable TV's, it makes sense. If/when that happens you might get your wish!

[sneaker_ger]

One big problem is that having the same framerate for both PAL and HD content makes the simultaneous broadcasting of SD and HD a lot easier. Don't forget that SD will still be around for a while. (Although most if not all currently or recently sold TVs in Europe are capable of doing 60/1.001 fps)

In the days of SD PAL, we could actually claim that this was superior for film content, depending on your point of view (higher resolution and judder-free, but with the film at the wrong speed).

But "PAL", or 50hz HD, is just flat-out inferior to the 60hz counterpart. Films at the wrong speed, lower temporal resolution for video content, and no resolution advantages. As I understand it, Europe kicked and screamed in the early days of HD standardisation in the 80s.

But the judder due to pulldown is still present in 60/1.001 Hz HD. I prefer the judder free 50 Hz over that any time. (But that's just a matter of taste, I guess.)

[kieranrk]

I wonder why the "Freeview" (DVB-T) platform would consider adopting a resolution of 1280x720 pixels, when the same channels on "FreeSat (DVB-S) would most likely be 1440x1080 (with 16:9 aspect ratio signalling)

Lack of bandwidth (Read: Squeezing 4 channels into one DVB-T2 transponder and using bad encoders...)

[Lyris]

Given that not everyone in Europe possess 60Hz capable TV's, it makes sense. If/when that happens you might get your wish!
Every TV in Europe sold with the "HD Ready" or "HD TV" logo has to support both 50 and 60hz. If you're talking about backwards compatibility with ancient 50hz-only SD CRTs, then (imperfect) frame rate conversion is easy enough to do in the decoder anyway, I think.

Most of the 50hz-only CRTs are displays that only have RF tuners and no video inputs anyway, meaning that anyone who wants to hook up an HDTV receiver is out of luck regardless.

One big problem is that having the same framerate for both PAL and HD content makes the simultaneous broadcasting of SD and HD a lot easierThis is probably the best case for 50hz HD that I've heard.

[2Bdecided]

So you switch all PAL countries to 60Hz broadcasting overnight.

Day 1 of the change over - how much content do you have in the new format? Almost none!

And even the 25p content that you do have now takes 4% longer to show as 24p - so all the 1/2 hour programmes are now 31.2 minutes, and the hour long programmes are now 62.4 minutes - plus all the judder free 25p is now horribly juddery 24p-in-60i.

Everything in the archives (which makes up most of the hours outside of the main channels) now has to be standards converted at huge expense (or at very low quality) - and everyone watching on an older TV has to suffer terrible cheap in-the-box standards conversion back to 50i.

And the benefits are what? We can watch 60i content without conversion? Do you know how much 60i>50i content makes it way onto UK TV these days? It's a tiny amount - and it's the trashiest TV there is, so it hardly matters what it looks like.

(USA 24p productions are shown at 25p - the different duration doesn't matter because USA TV has so many more commercials per hour than UK TV that they have to go into a different time slot anyway! Even if they didn't, adding an extra 4% commercials per hour to fill the gap would be easier than dropping them when going the other way around!)

Cheers,
David.

[Ghitulescu]

The only solution to this jungle would be multi-standard gear. In EU these are more or less common, a complete different story in the States, I've heard. I do not mind having 60i, 50i, 24p, 50p and so on if my devices can play them flawlessly.

[benwaggoner]

So you switch all PAL countries to 60Hz broadcasting overnight.
Well, you'd never do that :).

Frame rate conversion is anathema; 25/50Hz originated content should remain so.

But since PAL HD already has 30i support, we're getting to the tipping point where all PAL hardware can NTSC and PAL rates fine.

And since

NTSC displays aren't getting universal PAL support, so NTSC frame rates are the only globally supported options
Film content should be 24p. 25p is a hack
Content that's needs more motion than 24p provides is better in 60 Hz than 50 Hz
Interlaced is intrinsically sinful

Production of new content will coalesce around 24p and 60p frame rates.

So I predict. It'll take a while, though. But I'd be surprised to see much new high-profile content using 25/50 a decade from now. Local news channels and other cost-sensitive stuff of local and transient value will keep on using old equipment well past that of course.

[SeeMoreDigital]

As far as I'm aware, all flat panel TV's fitted with HDMI ports are 50/60Hz capable... :)

So when everybody in the world has TV's with HDMI ports we'll be able to watch what-ever fps speed is broadcast to us....

[2Bdecided]

As far as I'm aware, all flat panel TV's fitted with HDMI ports are 50/60Hz capable... :)Even in the USA?

They have good reason for stopping this - it hinders cheap imports from USA > Europe.

[2Bdecided]

Production of new content will coalesce around 24p and 60p frame rates.I predict you're wrong.

What possible reason could 50Hz "PAL" countries have for producing 60p content for domestic use?

btw, given that modern displays don't flicker, so 50p is just fine, the nominally 20% lower bitrate required for 50p rather than 60p, with virtually no detectable difference in motion fluidity, means that 60p is a disadvantage - higher bitrate or lower quality than 50p!

(I'm not convinced by this argument, but it's one that's often made).

Cheers,
David.