I have a .dat-file on my harddrive, that turns up b/w on my tv when burned on a CD with Nero, and played on my DVD-player. The TV does'nt read NTCS, I guess, but the DVD does. I've tried the programs that are suggested here, and others. Some of the will try to make a AVI-file, and I don't have enough free HD-space. Is'nt there a SW that can turn a NTCS-mpeg-file into PAL on the fly? And why not?

:torgeir

-- Torgeir Ølnes (toolnes@online.no), March 08, 2001

Answers

I have to say "WHY" are you going to make an AVI? You can't play that on anything but a computer! This isn't going to help. You can convert the MPeg stream to Pal Or NTSC using Tmpegnc. This will take you about 23hrs for every 1 hr.

here is a great page of reading:

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/officialfaq.html#2.7

Is DVD-Video a worldwide standard? Does it work with NTSC, PAL, and SECAM? The MPEG video on DVD is stored in digital format, but it's formatted for one of two mutually incompatible television systems: 525/60 (NTSC) or 625/50 (PAL/SECAM). There are three differences between discs intended for playback on different systems: picture size and pixel aspect ratio (720x480 vs. 720x576), display frame rate (29.97 vs. 25), and surround audio options (Dolby Digital vs. MPEG audio). (See 3.4 and 3.6 for details.) Therefore, there are two kinds of DVDs: NTSC DVDs and PAL/SECAM DVDs. Video from film is usually encoded at 24 frames/sec but is preformatted for one of the two display rates. Movies formatted for PAL display are usually sped up by 4% at playback, so the audio must be adjusted accordingly before being encoded. All PAL DVD players can play Dolby Digital audio tracks, but not all NTSC players can play MPEG audio tracks. PAL and SECAM share the same scanning format, so discs are the same for both systems. The only difference is that SECAM players output the color signal in the format required by SECAM TVs. Some players only play NTSC discs, some players only play PAL discs, and some play both. All DVD players sold in PAL countries play both. These multi-standard players partially convert NTSC to a 60-Hz PAL (4.43 NTSC) signal. The player uses the PAL 4.43-MHz color subcarrier encoding format but keeps the 525/60 NTSC scanning rate. Most modern PAL TVs can handle this "pseudo-PAL" signal. A few multi-standard PAL players output true 3.58 NTSC from 525/60 NTSC discs, which requires an NTSC TV or a multi-standard TV. Some players have a switch to choose 60-Hz PAL or NTSC output when playing NTSC discs. There are a few standards-converting PAL players that convert from a 525/60 NTSC disc to standard PAL output. Proper standards conversion requires expensive hardware to handle scaling, temporal conversion, and object motion analysis. Because the quality of conversion in DVD players is poor, using 60Hz PAL output with a compatible TV provides a better picture. (Sound is not affected by video conversion.) Most NTSC players can't play PAL discs. A very small number of NTSC players (such as Apex and SMC) can convert 625/50 PAL to NTSC. External converter boxes are also available, such as the Emerson EVC1595 ($350). High-quality converters are available at TenLab. A producer can choose to put 525/60 video on one side of the disc and 625/50 on the other. Most studios put Dolby Digital audio tracks on their PAL discs. There are actually three types of DVD players if you count computers. Most DVD PC software and hardware can play both NTSC and PAL video and both Dolby Digital and MPEG audio. Some PCs can only display the converted video on the computer monitor, but others can output it as a video signal for a TV. Bottom line: NTSC discs (with Dolby Digital audio) play on over 95% of DVD installations worldwide. PAL discs play on very few players outside of PAL countries.

-- thepest (jamesthepest@aol.com), March 12, 2001.