PAL DVD -> NTSC DVD alternative conversion way

[vtwin0001]

Well, I converted a PAL DVD to NTSC WITHOUT using an Authoring Program!!!!

It runs like it should, it jjust need minor adjustments so that the menus work well and the subtitles look complete (changing the bmps to 420 and putting them back to a .SUP file...anybody?)

Here, I am going to explain how:

I used this apps for the process

DVDDecrypter
VobEdit
IfoEdit
Main Concept MPEG Encoder
Headac3he

STEP 1: Rip the DVD using DVD Decrypter in File Mode

STEP 2: Use VobEdit to Demux each and every VOB in a different folder; like this C:\My DVD\VIDEO_TS
DO NOT CHECK THE 'DEMUX COMPLETE TITLE SET', instead go ONE BY ONE, if you dont know which Streams to Demux, then goto DVD Decypter and check your dvd by choosing Mode -> IFO I , Stream Processing and look which ones are there (Audio AC3, DTS, Subtitles: English, French, etc. so you can know which ones to choose in VobEdit) like: I have this DVD that has a DTS channel, but I don't know where is the stream, so I check it on the DVD Decrypt app and then choose it: 0x89 (my case), same with subtitles...

STEP 3: Well... since I had only one language on my dvd it was pretty simple to convert, only thing is that the audio was AC3, and since I dont know how to convert AC3 PAL to AC3 NTSC, I just decided to change it to mp2, using Headac3he

Ok..... so, now we have all our VOBs in a separate folder with all their streams inside, now we are going to convert the video and audio

STEP 4: Open Main Concept MPEG Encoder ( I am using this because its FAST) and just choose your video (m2v) and audio (mp2, converted from AC3 with Headac3he) and choose in output format this settings:
MPEG Type: DVD
Video Mode: NTSC
Stream Type: Video and Audio (NOT PROGRAM NOR TRANSPORT)
Audio Mode: Layer 2

Convert the video and audio (for each and every VOB folder you have), this should take about 2 hours or less, depending on how big the dvd is

STEP 5: Open IFOEdit and choose DVDAuthor -> Author DVD
A new window will open:

Video: Choose the outputted file from Concept MPEG Encoder, if its not shown there then choose all files (it has a .mpv extension)

Audio: Choose the outputted file from Concept MPEG Encoder, if its not shown there then choose all files (it has a .mpa extension), cllick once on the audio and choose its language (not necessary, but maybe useful for further reference)

Subpicture: Choose all the .SUP files (demuxed by VOBEdit) and specify a Language for each (please note that I don't know how to make these smaller, so that they can be shown complete on screen, I can only see the first line)

THIS IS DONE FOR EACH OF THE VOB FILES

Now..... choose a Destination Directory (please choose a blank directory)

Press ok and wait

Now, open that directory and delete all files except the .VOB file, and rename it as your source directory (if your source directory was VIDEO_TS then rename it as VIDEO_TS.VOB) and then move it to another folder (this is just to avoid confussion and to let IFOEdit do its job, without rewriting your VOBs)

Do this step again until you have no more VOBs to create

STEP 6: This one is my favorite, and also this is the tricky part

All the information of the menus, track changes, etc. is stored in the .IFO files

So, what we are going to do is take the IFOs from the DVD Folder (the original one) and take ONLY the IFOs, (forget about the .BUP files, they are only Backups of the IFOs) and put them on the folder where the NTSC VOBs are.

Open IFO Edit and open the VIDEO_TS.IFO file and in the overview double click where Video says and change it to NTSC (leave everything else just the way it is (in that window))
Double click Audio to change Audio Attributes, since we changed greately the Audio, from AC3 to mp2, then we have to make some changes, in order to have them right, open the VIDEO_TS.IFO created by IFOEdit saved for further reference and check how it is, and copy it just like it is, to the Audio Attributes of the Original IFO

Do that to all the overview data (VTS_1 Video: MPEG 2 ---> PAL to NTSC, etc.) until theres nothing more in that window to change.

Save it and Open VTS_01_0.IFO or the next .IFO you have, and change it too to NTSC and the Audio to what it is.

Now..... Save it and you are DONE! (well almost)

I don't know how to make the menus to stay put, since the info of the menus are in the VTS_01_0.ifo of my dvd, but are uneditable, any suggestions???

The DVD is playable in NTSC, and when inserted you can even watch the WARNING and the whole other stuff, just the menus are very difficult to reach, no to say inoperable, also the subtitles are not shown correclty due to the screen changes, from 576 to 480 (PAL to NTSC)

This is all I have done, please help me fine tune this so we can have this alternative way to convert PAL dvds to NTSC with menus, etc without having to buy expensive authoring programs.

[Regrett]

I am new to all of this so forgive any trespass if I offend. I have some questions about your process.


Why use VOBedit if DVDdecrypter can demux the video, audio, and subtitle, streams (either by individual vobs or to one big stream) for you?

When a AC3 stream is converted to another format such as WAV or MP2 do you lose the 6 channels?

What do you use to make the subtitles smaller?


Thanks

[vtwin0001]

Well, I didnt know that you could demux by VOB, so I proceeded to demux using VOBEdit

Subtitles:
I cant... I am thinking on maybe the possibility to use SubRip and resize the BMPs to NTSC size (480) and then send it to Scenarist or Maestro, mux it (with or without video, depending on how complicated the thing becomes) and then demux it in order to have a .BUP file

AC3:
Yes, maybe you could lose those channels, however, it is possible then to change it comfortably to NTSC, I have no idea in how to change it without losing quality

Maybe if we use some kind of app that can extract each and every channel alone and then transform every channel to ntsc and then back to AC3
....I mean, anything is possible, I am only thinking of a way to make this easy and fast.

[Regrett]

What goal I would like to get to is the ability to convert to NTSC by having as few proggys to do it all.

So far I can use one program to demux the video and audio, dvd decrypter, for each VOB or make one big one for each stream. Or I can use DVD2AVI and demux just the audio for each VOB.

I use Main Concept to do the framerate conversion either from the demuxed mv2 stream or I can do it straight from the VOB(s).

I then can then use TMpeg Author to remux the converted output of mpg and the untouched ac3 stream to create usable IFO/VOB files.

These have perfect synced audio and the video looks pretty good.

These PALs are usually 25p or 25i then I convert to 29.975 NTSC. I have tried to go down to 23.975 NTSC and I usually had a lot of video speed or banding issues. Then the audio would have to be slowed down and it usually sound like everyone was a chipmunk.



My thing is I need a way to save the subtitles.

If its easy I would save the menu too.

[vtwin0001]

I would love to know who does or can make a proggy that does all the conversion for me, like a 1 click solution

...Can you make a fully functional menu??????

For Subtitles use:

SubRip

STEP 1 Open the vob containing all the subtitles (made with DVD Decypter as a Direct Stram Copy)
STEP 2 Choose in the 'What to do?' window Save As BMP and press START
STEP 3 Create a new directory within the Save BMP window and save it there
STEP 4 Within the conversion, suddenly a window will appear, with the tabs named: Profiles, Cropping, Colors and Positioning; goto Positioning and press Allow BMP position change
It will then appear a 2 coulmn menu; in the one that says 'Left position' leave it as it is, but in the one that says 'Top Position' press the 'Set to:' button and change it to 480 and press 'ok'
You will then see all the subs going thru the screen very fast, until the last one.

Now press the button RIGHT to the one that says VOB and a New Window will appear that says Subtitles; Now press Output format and choose the one you want (I chose DVD Maestros because I have it); Press File, Save As and choose a name and save.
------------------------Only in theory, haven't check this out--------------------------
Now, open DVD Maestro (or your authoring proggy) and import those subs to the app and mux
The resulting vob can then be Demuxed and Muxed again in original .SUP format.... however I just can't see why is this so redunant.......

[gEEkster]

Originally posted by vtwin0001

Subtitles:
I cant... I am thinking on maybe the possibility to use SubRip and resize the BMPs to NTSC size (480) and then send it to Scenarist or Maestro, mux it (with or without video, depending on how complicated the thing becomes) and then demux it in order to have a .BUP file


Have you checked out the DVD Subtitle Tools package?
http://web.quick.cz/FKasparek/Software/DVD/DVDSupTools.htm

They are commandline tools for working with .sup (demuxed DVD subtitle format) files.

DVDSupDecode: converts .sup files to bitmap or text subtitles in MicroDVD format. You can use many different subtitle converter
programs to change these to .srt, .ssa, .sst, .son, etc. formats
if desired.
-------------
DVDSupEncode: encodes text or bitmap subtitles in MicroDVD format
to .sup files (for authoring with IFOEdit).

DVDSupDecode: converts .sup (DVD format) subtitles to bitmap or text subtitles in MicroDVD format.

DVDSupHTML: generates a .html file showing all the details
of .sup files, including optional bitmaps.
-------------

Here's a simple way to convert PAL subtitles to NTSC subtitles:
(which actually resizes the bitmaps instead of simple cropping, like
SubRip does).

1. Demux your .VOBs (DVDDecrypter can do this for you at the same
time as it decrypts), extracting the .sup subtitles for the IDs of interest.

2. Run "DVDSupHTML -pal -bitmap *.sup" to generate .html information
files for your .sup's. Make note of the Alpha() and Palette()
settings. If they are all the same, you can insert these commands
into the DVDSupEncode.ini file in step 5. (under the NTSC profile)
to make life easier.

3. Run "DVDSupDecode -pal -bitmap *.sup" on all your .sup subtitles. This will extract the PAL bitmaps and create MicroDVD .txt files with the timecodes.

4. Resize your bitmaps with DVDMenuStudio from 720x576 or 720x574 to
720x480 or 720x478, respectively.
(Currently DVDSupEncode does not like PhotoShop edited bitmap files
for some reason -- maybe there's a hidden dithering switch I can't find --, so I use DVDMenuStudio instead. It can shrink image size by fractional percentages, unlike Windows' MSPaint program).
I resize the horizontal dimension WITH NO DITHERING to 83.3% of original size.

5. edit the .txt files from step 2. with the new image size from
step 3., setting FrameRate=29.97, and adjusting timecodes if needed.
DVDSupEncode.ini must be installed in the <Documents and Settings>\<username> folder and edited to taste.

6. "DVDSupEncode -p:NTSC -bitmap *.txt"
encodes your new .sup files, ready for IFOEdit authoring.

One of the nicest features of these tools is that the new .sup
files are guaranteed to have all the original DVD color mappings, contrasts, and timecodes (as long as you use the same settings as
found in step 2.)!!! :p

If I could only find a simple commandline program to resize bitmaps, all these steps could be easily automated in a simple .bat file or
script.

Hope this helps!
gs :D

[gEEkster]

Originally posted by vtwin0001
I would love to know who does or can make a proggy that does all the conversion for me, like a 1 click solution

...Can you make a fully functional menu??????



I use NuMenu4U -- a totally awesome program for reauthoring menus.
http://numenu4u.users.btopenworld.com/

Soon the new version of this program will have a simple conversion
option for PAL <-> NTSC (either way conversion), so that will be a
godsend.

In the meantime, I simply set NuMenu4U to stop before DoCCE4U, then
I do a few steps manually (like resize subtitles and still frame MPEGs and recreate .sup files), then start DoCCE4U. After
NuMenu4U is finished processing, I apply some finishing touches manually (like menu button resizing), and I end up with perfect
NTSC menus with all the original buttons, correct colors, etc.

Zeul's new version is completely Scenarist-based, and will take care
of PAL <-> NTSC asset conversion automatically so it will save a lot
of time PLUS open up whole new avenues of flexibility
(i.e. you can make any changes to menu structures you want, including adding new menu options for added languages and subtitles, etc.), so it will rock!!! :D

gs

[vtwin0001]

Well... now actually do something else...

I do a DIF4U and add a script for conversion for CCE, which converts great the film.
Then I subrip by text the subtitles and redo them on Maestro SBT

The menus I do them manually:
Take the vobs with the menus and extract each screen and convert it to NTSC, then I subrip the subpictures of the menus and resize them on DVD Menu Studio, finally I use Scenarist to re-make the whole dvd.

This also works when you want to put 2 dvds in one dvd

[Matthew]

In regards to AC3 audio, you can use Besweet to extract the 6 waves and simultaneously stretch them (25000 to 23976 framerate preset, I'm assuming film content).

Then use Sonic Foundry Soft Encode to encode back to 5.1 AC3. A 2 line batch file will perform both steps. Encoding to 5.1 AC3 is slow though.

I imagine that for DTS you can use besweet+surcode.

As an aside, if the PAL DVD has been pitch corrected, the pitch will be too low and you'll get "slow mo" voices. Whether this will annoy you is another matter =)

[vtwin0001]

Strangely enoguh, I have never had a problem with the audio, I just take the original audio and put it on the new movie, it seems that there is no need to touch the audio.
This was done converting the video from 25 to NTSC 29.97 (using CCE to convert the video).

[Matthew]

If the audio length is the same as the new video stream then you must be adding frames to pad out the stream.

If you are dealing with progressive content (almost all PAL movie DVD are) then you should encode using 23.976 fps in CCE and then run pulldown on the output. The audio will need to be re-encoded like I said.

If you are dealing with interlaced material then I have no idea about the best converison method.

[gEEkster]

Originally posted by vtwin0001
Well... now actually do something else...

I do a DIF4U and add a script for conversion for CCE, which converts great the film.
Then I subrip by text the subtitles and redo them on Maestro SBT

The menus I do them manually:
Take the vobs with the menus and extract each screen and convert it to NTSC, then I subrip the subpictures of the menus and resize them on DVD Menu Studio, finally I use Scenarist to re-make the whole dvd.

This also works when you want to put 2 dvds in one dvd

Yes, I use the same AVS script in both NuMenu4U and in DoItFast4U.
In my previous post / reply I was simply refering to the menu
reauthoring process. Most definitely, the main movie content
is most important and deserves proper care and attention. :)

The AVS script originally came from Xesdeeni's site on standards conversions:
http://www.geocities.com/xesdeeni2001/StandardsConversion/

and from Gunnart's SmoothDeinterlacer site:
http://biphome.spray.se/gunnart/video/AVSPorts/SmoothDeinterlacer

Both places have great ideas and AVS script samples for format
conversion which work wonderfully -- the final output looks
(for all practical purposes) as good as the original!
(i.e. there is very little telecine-like motion artifacts
if you do it correctly)

Here's a copy of the script I use to frameconvert 25 Fps interlaced
PAL content to 29.97 Fps interlaced NTSC (both 4:3 aspect ratios):

AddAudio()
ConvertToYUY2(interlaced=true)
LoadPlugin("<insert path here>\SmoothDeinterlacer.dll")
SmoothDeinterlace(doublerate=true,tff=true,lacethresh=24,staticthresh=35,showlace=false)
LanczosResize(720,480)
ChangeFPS(59.94)
SeparateFields()
SelectEvery(4,0,3)
Weave()

Note: this script (and others like it) don't simply change the
framerate in the output video, they generate all the missing
frames so that BOTH VERSIONS OF THE VIDEO HAVE THE SAME DURATION.
This is in stark contrast to simply feeding the PAL .m2v stream
directly into an encoder and outputing NTSC. In that case,
both PAL and NTSC versions would have the same (or close) number of
frames, but different times...

The AVS script above creates 29.97 Fps interlaced NTSC video from
25 Fps interlaced PAL video.
The exact conversion rate of the AVS script used means that all the
chapter and subtitle TIME positions remain the same,
however FRAME positions will need to be adjusted!
Since the duration of the NTSC and PAL versions are the same,
you can reuse the same audio stream as long as the sampling rate,
bitrate, and format are to your liking.

Using the above script, there is a 1.1988 (29.97/25) factor
increase in the number of NTSC frames over the number of frames in
the original PAL source.
This mainly affects CCE chapter positions:
simply multiply each by 1.1988 to adjust for the correct
NTSC frame. For subtitles in .sst format, only the last field of the
timecode is frame-based (it uses a "H:M:S:f" format), so you could
compensate the last field -- it never will be off by more than a few
frames though --, but then you have to deal with carrys over
into the S:M:H fields. It seems to be more trouble than it's
worth. Having frame-accurate subtitles should only be worth the
effort for BOV effects in main movies and menus.

Most interlaced PAL video is tff, so I set the "tff" flag to true -
it seems to improve the quality instead of letting
SmoothDeinterlace() determine the field order (and I don't need the
dummy SeparateFields() immediately followed by Weave() statements
now).
Besides, automatic PAL detection does not work that well anyway --
I've consistently had the best results when I determine the
PAL video type manually.

I added the various options to SmoothDeinterlace so when NuMenu4U /
DIF4U pauses before DoCCE4U, the most important settings are already
there so I can go back in the generated .avs scripts and tweak them
for various content and apply the right amount of deinterlacing
before encoding.

< The menus I do them manually
I admire your patience! You must be a whiz with Scenarist by now...
:)

[gEEkster]

Originally posted by Matthew
In regards to AC3 audio, you can use Besweet to extract the 6 waves and simultaneously stretch them (25000 to 23976 framerate preset, I'm assuming film content).

Then use Sonic Foundry Soft Encode to encode back to 5.1 AC3. A 2 line batch file will perform both steps. Encoding to 5.1 AC3 is slow though.

I imagine that for DTS you can use besweet+surcode.

As an aside, if the PAL DVD has been pitch corrected, the pitch will be too low and you'll get "slow mo" voices. Whether this will annoy you is another matter =)

Yes, be sure to use Soft Encode or Scenarist's built-in AC3 encoder
to output your final AC3 audio.

DANGER, Will Robinson! DANGER! DANGER!:

Besweet's AC3 encoder plugin (ac3enc.dll) produces .ac3 files which
cause many standalone DVD players to stutter or lockup...
Believe me, I wasted much time figuring out what was causing my
DVDs not to play correctly. It turned out to be Besweet's AC3 encoder.

Here's a thread to read more about this:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=60510

cheers!

[Clown shoes]

Sorry to correct you Geekster, but the problem you are refering to is not being caused by ac3enc, but by the byte size of the ac3. A few brands such as Pioneer cannot handle Intel (Little Endian) byte order, resulting in freezing. They need Motorola (Big Endian) byte order, which is now an option on Besweet on the ac3 tab. I have a Pioneer player and discovered this the hard way. So if you cannot afford an ac3 encoder, Besweet is perfectly capable of doing the job.

Clown Shoes

[gEEkster]

Clown Shoes,
I very much appreciate another explanation as to why I am having
so much difficulty playing Besweet-encoded AC3 files on my
Pioneer standalone DVD player.
I guess I should have done more research rather than accepting the
few criticism posts I read which did not go into detail as to
"why" and "what" the problem truly is, and simply blamed the ac3enc.
I believe that Besweet is a great program, and I fully support open
source and freeware efforts. It's important to learn about a
potential pitfall for DVD compatibility when encoding AC3 files.
I will verify your assertion, but for now I stand corrected.
Thank you so much for the information about AC3 byte ordering! :)

Update (3-19-2004):
Well, I tried re-encoding the AC3 files with ac3enc from the
original .wav files, making sure to use Big-Endian (Motorola) / DVD
byte ordering, and still no luck... The authored DVD still locks up
when starting to play the AC3 audio created by ac3enc.

AC3 files created from the same .wav files using Scenarist's
built-in AC3 encoder worked fine, however, and the DVD played
without stuttering or locking.
Strangely, the AC3 files created by ac3enc had a noticable "click"
in them which occurs at the same time as the DVD player lockup
during playback (about 1.5 seconds into the clip).
The "click" is not present in the Scenarist-created AC3 files.
Maybe this is a dynamic range / overflow issue in ac3enc
which affects playback compatibility on Pioneer units?
I have not tried to play my discs on other models so I don't know.

I can send you sample audio files if you wish to verify this effect.
Maybe there's something strange in my .wav file contents?
I plan to send audio sample to the authors so they can investigate
this further.