Converting NTSC into PAL?

[The Borgified Corpse]

(Mods, feel free to move this thread if I'm in the wrong forum.)

I'm a an intependent filmmaker living in the U.S. I recently completed a short film called Professor Hu Hires a Temp. We shot it at 24fps and have made some DVD screeners to send to film festivals throughout the U.S. However, I have recently discovered an Austrian comedy film festival that I think would be perfect for our films. Unfortunately, they only accept PAL DVDs. My technical guy says that he doesn't think we can make the conversion. He doesn't know how and he doesn't know what it would look like when we're done.

Does anyone here know anything about converting NTSC DVDs into PAL DVDs? How does that affect the picture?

 

[Chindogu]

How did you make your NTSC DVDs?

NTSC Video is at 29.97fps, so you've already done a conversion from 24fps once. Making a PAL (25fps) DVD should be just as easy as switching some of the output settings in whatever program (FinalCut;Avid;Vegas?) you are using.

Or you could just bring one of your NTSC DVDs to a Video House and have it converted.

 

[Small White Car]

How did you make your NTSC DVDs?

Exactly. Unless you're using really terrible DVD software, it should be able to do it. I just checked iDVD (the consumer version of DVD Studio Pro) and even it can do PAL. So the DVD part shouldn't be that hard.

The conversion of the video itself might be tricky, but it shouldn't be impossible. Do you know what editing software he's using?

 

[Chess Piece Face]

What they said. Just shoot your video out from your master copy in final cut or whatever to PAL instead of NTSC. You might want to rethink your "technical guy" while you're at it, too.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

You might want to rethink your "technical guy" while you're at it, too.

Heresy! Other than this most recent PAL issue, he's been an absolute wizard and has given all of my movies a professional finish that no one else I know can even approach. Plus, he does it free. Of course, that's part of the issue. He didn't say it's impossible to do it. Just that he wasn't sure it would be worth it. Hopefully, I can convince him otherwise.