Shops that do PAL to NTSC.

[Trip Machine]

I know that there is no simple one-click solution to converting PAL DVDs to NTSC DVDs but I was wondering if I send away my wedding DVD to a shop that does the conversion, exactly what are they going to do with the source material? Do they use any super special hardware/software that will preserve the downgrade in resolution or will they crop parts off? Will the frames be "fixed" to look smooth? I noticed lots of jerkiness from changing 25fps to 29.97fps in my trial runs.

I asked the store how they did the process but they said it was a trade secret. Are they using similar methods as most forums users here are doing?

So far I've been using a combination of AVISynth, TMPGEnc and TMPGEnc DVD Author for the video and BeSweet for the audio. If the store is going to hand me a product that might be similar or even inferior to my test copies, then I could save myself a good $100-$150.

So... am I better off doing this thing myself or letting a professional take the reigns and hope that they can do it without cropping, create a smooth picture, correct the stretch in audio, etc. ?


TIA.

[Arky]

In a nutshell, they'll rip and demux all your assets, then convert the elementary streams, probably using software (because unless they are a high-end facility they won't be able to afford a seriously-expensive Snell & Wilcox hardware conversion box).

I suggest you try your conversion using Canopus ProCoder. It will be about the best result for sensible money (and may well be the method that the shop uses, anyway!).


Arky ;o)

[Mobius]

You might try Neodvd, costs about $40. I've had pretty good success with it transcoding from PAL to NTSC. The output is always full screen for some reason, but you can go into ifoedit and change it to widescreen if you need to.