PAL-to-NTSC menus

[dansrfe]

How can I convert PAL menus to NTSC menus. I want to have them stilled with audio. I have a vague idea of the process of resizing the menu, subs, and button hotspots but other than that I have no clue on how to use PGCEdit or any other advanced tool to do this. I'm looking for some step-by=step guide. I know how to use photoshop cs4, muxman, and pgcdemux well. I know how to use vobblanker fairly well. I don't know how to use IFOEdit, VOBEdit, and PGCEdit. I do have MenuEdit and know how to use it somewhat. Thanks in advance.

[r0lZ]

Converting a DVD from PAL to NTSC (or vice versa) is a nightmare. Many people have tried, and the conclusion was always that it's almost impossible. There is always someone to tell you that it is better to buy a player that can do the conversion on the fly, and given the low price of the standalone players now, they are probably right.

You will find easily many forum threads (here, at VideoHelp, at DVF and everywhere on the web) with explanations on how to easily convert a DVD. But take care. Usually, they do only a fake, incomplete conversion, and they patch the VOB and IFO files so that the player thinks that the DVD is NTSC, but in fact, it's a mix of NTSC image format with PAL frame rate. However, since you want to convert only still menus, I suppose that these methods could work just fine for you.

IMO, the difficult part is to convert the subpics. As far as I know, there is no tool to resize the subpic stream as a whole, but you can export all subpic frames as BMPs, resize them manually with a paint program, and rebuild the stream. (Use SubRip, Subtitle Creator, DVDSubEdit and tools like that.) For the hotspots, you can use PgcEdit's (File/Menu Buttons & BOVs/Export and Convert PAL <-> NTSC) to convert the original buttons to NTSC, and import them in the final DVD.

Since I have never tried really to convert a DVD, I can't explain the steps. I have participated recently to a discussion on that subject at VideoHelp, here (http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/278458-DVD-Rebuilder-No-PAL-to-NTSC-option-Why). But the conclusion was not what you may expect.

Good luck anyway...

[HFW]

@dansrfe
Since you want to convert only menus (I assumed there is no subs on them) I sugest that you could try NuMenu4u. This soft is not only able to convert from PAL to NTSC, it transcode as well audio (LPCM --> AC3, if your menus are big, etc). IIRC, it uses CCE and others encoders/transcoders to accomplish its job. Good luck.

[dansrfe]

Does a NTSC/PAL player do all of these menu conversions, pulldown conversions, button hotspots, subtitle resizing on-the-fly?

[r0lZ]

Not all players can do it, especially in the direction PAL -> NTSC, but most recent players that can play AVIs can do it, yes. However, you should verify if the player does really a true conversion. For example, my old and expensive Sony (that cannot play AVIs) claims to be able to convert (in my case from NTSC to PAL), but the vertical sync is not good, the image appears somewhat stretched and there is a white line at the top. All recent and cheap players I have can do good conversions. I'm not sure the conversion is well suited for digital TVs, but on my old CRT, I have no problem.

BTW, the player modifies the output signal only. It needs to modify the vertical (and probably the horizontal) sync, and the framerate on the fly. So, it sends a PAL (or NTSC) signal to the TV, but it doesn't need to compute the position of the menu buttons, since the whole image is adapted to the standard.

[dansrfe]

I still wish there was some one click menu conversion where you the user can add his own resized encoded menu if one wants to do it manually for animated menus. There should be some program that can do stills of all menus like VobBlanker does and resize the menus, subs, and move the buttons accordingly. Seems like it would make life easier on a lot of people since this is something that really doesn't deviate in conversion procedure from one disk to the next.

[r0lZ]

There are many difficulties, so writing a program to accomplish that is not so simple, as you have probably understood if you have read the threads at VideoHelp.

But according to HFW, NuMenu4u can do exactly what you want, and more. Honestly, I have never used NuMenu4u, but try it. If it works fine, please tell us.