Hi all, I have finished a Blender tutorial DVD, more details later. A quick question, if the DVD goes to America (I am in UK) will I have to re-make it in ntsc. I used Nero, set on PAL. Ther is a NTSC option.
Also if someone in America is reading this and would be happy to test it for me, please get in touch.
Thanks
I think most PCs are capable of playing PAL as well as NTSC DVD, so there is no need to convert if the DVD is designed to be played on a PC.
not sure about DVD players in north americaâŚ
Well, one selling point is being able to play on a dvd player, if you have a tv near your computer it would be a good way to learn.
American DVD players are NTSC.
I think that may be correct- any Americans out there like to test for me?
You get to keep the DVD or, if you are an experieced user, a free christmas present to give to someone!
Are you still looking for an American to test your DVD?
The answer is âit dependsâ. As Brit living in the US, I made a conscious decision to find players that could handle both PAL and NTSC. I have a couple of Pioneer DVD players that will output whatever the format the disk is encoded in. This causes problems for the one that is plugged into the NTSC-only TV. I have another cheaper asian DVD player which will read PAL or NTSC and automatically convert to NTSC.
The bigger headache is usually the region encoding, which you shouldnât have to worry about.
So the basic answer is âno, you cannot guarantee that all americans will be able to view a PAL DVD on a standalone DVD playerâ. You might want to Google to see if anyone have some stats for how many DVD players are capable of transcoding or are plugged into displays that are PAL aware. Your mileage may vary.
Cheers,
Chris
Youâll have to repurpose the content for NTSC if you want it to look correct. PAL has a pixel aspect ratio of 54:51(pixels are taller than they are wide), while NTSC (a truly assenine format) has a pixel aspect ratio of110:11 (wider than tall). There are a lot of problems associated NTSC and conversionbecause the morons in the broadcast industry here in the States insist on using technology that was developed over half a century ago. 29.976 frames per second / interlaced. The only reason that we even get high def broadcasts here is because the government forced the industry into it. Anyway, this image shows what happens when you view an image at an incorrect pixel aspect ratio. Also, Pal has a higher screen aspect ratio than NTSC (itâs slughtly higher definition so there are scaling issues to deal with also).
If you want you can send it my way for testing. I am in America, and yes you will need NTSC. I bought a DVD set for my wife last year from the UK, and one of the two DVDâs were accidently sent in PAL format. I could see the image and hear the sound, but it looked like the verticle hold setting on the TV was going ape. I recieved an NTSC version a few weeks later and all was resolved.
The problem in conversion is that PAL runs at (correct me if I am wrong) 25fps and NTSC is 29.97fps. There might be a slight difference in frame rate resulting in a slightly âslow motionâ look, but this is only an educated guess. I have never personally done a conversion between the two. The screen resolution is also slightly different (NTSC being slightly larger) so there might be a bit of a âblack lineâ around the screen like in viewing a wide screen movie. Nothing to noticable though.
If you would like send the DVD my way and Iâll test it out for you. PM me and Iâll send you my physical mailing address.
JABayne
