Should I Pal Or Ntsc ?

[macmidiguy]

I have an .avi movie file that plays fine on my Mac. I will be playing this movie using my TV/DVD player but when i dropped it into Toast 10 this message came up:

 

"The TV standard is currently set to NTSC, but all your content is in PAL format. Do you want to write a PAL disc or re-encode all content to NTSC?"

 

The three choices are cancel, reencode to NTSC, Write Pal.

 

We don't want cancel.

 

Do I "Write PAL" ( which is the highlighted choice )?

 

or do I "Reencode to NTSC" ?

 

Not exactly sure what choice to make.

 

Help required please.

[theoldarchiver]

It depends...

 

If NTSC is the tv standard in your country, then prefer NTSC.

If PAL is the tv standard in your country, then prefer PAL.

 

However...

most DVD players sold in (european) PAL countries have no problem with NTSC discs, and most modern tvs in PAL countries have no problem processing an NTSC signal. So using an NTSC DVD disc in PAL countries is usually fine.

 

The reverse is not true. Most tvs in NTSC countries can not process a PAL signal. Only a few DVD players can send an NTSC signal to a tv when playing a PAL disc. Most DVD players sold in NTSC countries will error on PAL discs.

Computer playback of DVD-Video discs is not affected by NTSC/PAL tv standards.

 

If you let Toast convert a video file to the other tv standard for DVD-Video, then it will impact the quality, as the framerate will change. This may show as duplicate frames or omitted frames (25 fps > 29.97 fps / 29.97 fps > 25 fps / 23.976 fps > 25 fps). Some people notice that more easily than others. But I think playback ability / compatibility is key here.

 

The tv standard that Toast defaults to is set in the application preferences.

[macmidiguy]

I live in Canada.

 

So then it's NTSC ?

[theoldarchiver]

Yes, NTSC for Canada.

[Mirinea]

The TV standard is currently set to NTSC, but all your content is in PAL format. Do you want to write a PAL disc or re-encode all content to NTSC?

i get this msg no matter what avi i am trying to burn to dvd... i can not figure out for the life of me why .avi's from many different sources all say they are encoded in pal. makes no sense... so i am constantly having to wait for the reencoding process to get the dvd's to play.

[macmidiguy]

i get this msg no matter what avi i am trying to burn to dvd... i can not figure out for the life of me why .avi's from many different sources all say they are encoded in pal. makes no sense... so i am constantly having to wait for the reencoding process to get the dvd's to play.

 

Thanks for sharing that information because i thought i was the only one with the problem/question.

 

The .avi's i download come from my searching for old and new movies using VUZE and so i suspect the majority of those are created in countries where PAL is the standard video format.

 

And so like yourself i wait for Toast to re-encode to NTSC. That's when i farm out that job to a legacy Mac since the process plus burning take a extraordinary long time.

[tsantee]

Thanks for sharing that information because i thought i was the only one with the problem/question.

 

The .avi's i download come from my searching for old and new movies using VUZE and so i suspect the majority of those are created in countries where PAL is the standard video format.

 

And so like yourself i wait for Toast to re-encode to NTSC. That's when i farm out that job to a legacy Mac since the process plus burning take a extraordinary long time.

It sounds like you are satisfied with your solution. If this was a problem for you there are some DVD players (I believe Philips) that can play both NTSC and PAL DVDs so they do the conversion behind-the-scenes during play back.

[Mirinea]

It sounds like you are satisfied with your solution. If this was a problem for you there are some DVD players (I believe Philips) that can play both NTSC and PAL DVDs so they do the conversion behind-the-scenes during play back.

 

personally im not to thrilled with it, and the place i am getting most of my movies from should not be in pal format, any idea how to find out if your dvd player will play both formats (other than a test dvd lol) but what i want to know is why i am always having to rencode things that should not be in pal format to begin with....

[tsantee]

personally im not to thrilled with it, and the place i am getting most of my movies from should not be in pal format, any idea how to find out if your dvd player will play both formats (other than a test dvd lol) but what i want to know is why i am always having to rencode things that should not be in pal format to begin with....

There is going to be reencoding regardless of the source AVI being NTSC or PAL. This is because the AVI is not in MPEG 2 format which is required for a video DVD. Still, you are better off starting with an NTSC video because transcoding from one to the other requires changing the frame rate and rescaling the video's height and width. That makes more work for the encoder and also increases the chance of it not looking as good.

 

You can Google for a description of the difference between PAL and NTSC. An important difference is the frame rate. That's usually the quickest way to note the difference. When you add the video to Toast it will describe whether it is 25 fps (PAL) or 24 or 30 fps (NTSC).

 

Your existing DVD player is very unlikely to be capable of playing PAL. There are only a few players that have that capability. Strangely, if you were in a PAL area your DVD player would likely be able to play NTSC as well.

 

Another option to avoid reencoding is to make DivX discs for playing in a DivX-capable DVD player. Check your DVD players manual to see if it supports DivX playback. Many AVI videos are in DivX format which means you can burn them as Data discs to CDs for playing on those players. Of course, your player still needs it to be NTSC.

 

Your Mac doesn't care if it is NTSC or PAL for playing on its display. This means you can also connect your Mac to a TV and your Mac will play the PAL video through to the TV. In that case you don't need to bother with Toast at all.

[macmidiguy]

It sounds like you are satisfied with your solution.

 

Not really only because it's a huge pain in the studio and so have to live with the way it has to be done. At the same time glad that Toast 10 can convert from .avi to VIDO_TS.

 

I have tried using ffmegX but it takes just as long. Although ffmegX can add ready made subtitle files because i don't know how to do that with Toast.

 

Many thanks for the clarification/information tsantee.