mini dv to pal conversion?

[oceaneer]

Hi guys...

I am in USA, using a US canon mini dv camcorder, and Studio 8 (Newbie with all of this). I want to burn and send a dvd to family in UK that they can play through their tv system (pal). They do not have a computer.

Pinnacle support says their US software cannot do this. Does any one know of a way to get from my mini dv to a pal compatible dvd? I do not yet have a dvd burner as I do not want to buy one if I will not be able to do this myself.

I have seen video transfer companies that say they will do this, but the ones I talked with only do pal to ntsc, and I need to go the other way.

Thanks for any assistance

[Pooh]

Most televsions, certainly ones bought in the last 5 to 7 have no problem coping with ntsc images and play them fine. Similarly most of the VCR's in the UK will play back NTSC tapes. Finally if the DVD player is region free that will play your material also.

I would send them the tape/dvd and let them have a try.

Another thing you could do is send them one of your old region1 movies and see if it plays back OK.

They should be OK

Hope this helps

Pooh ( UK )

[fberger]

DVD Region is not related to the video format. DVD Region is a trick to protect markets from grey imports, commercial DVD producers add to the DVD.
When you create your own DVDs they will be region free. You only need to worry about the video format (NTSC to PAL).
In Europe most electronic devices are multi-standard, not in the US. So your chance of having compatible TV sets in Europe are higher than if your family sent you PAL material to play in the US. However it's not 100% guaranteed, so I recommend you create PAL formatted videos for that reason.

My family is in Switzerland and I create VCD, SVCD and DVDs for them from my NTSC DV camcorder. I use Ulead's software which does the conversion for me, TMPGENC will also convert fine. I don't know about Studio8, but would be surprised if it did not let you do this conversion. With Ulead software, the trick is to create a project in PAL, and then within that project open you DV material in native NTSC. When you're done with your video editing, just create your MPEG files using the PAL template and you should be ok.
You'll need to test your stuff before you send it. I use a Hitachi multistandard TV, connected to a Pioneer 343 multi-standard (not multi-region) DVD player. I usually burn a short video to DVD-RW first, then when I am satisfied with the quality I create the full video on DVD-R.

Fred

[oceaneer]

Thank you both for your replies.

Pooh.. I will try the easy way first and send a NTSC dvd for them to try.

Fred...Apparently the US version of Studio 8 has the pal option disabled, but the European versions have both functioning.

Nick