[alimunnik]

I own a Sony DCR - HC90 camcorder and a Powerbook with superdrive. Later this year I plan to travel to Kenya and give both devices to my son so that he can make a stab at eking out a living from them. In Kenya they use the PAL format. My camcorder only records in NTSC. Is it possible for iMovie to burn DVD's in the PAL format from NTSC video footage? I know iMovie has the PAL - NTSC option listed in the Preferences but I don't know if it will do the conversion. I don't have any PAL devices so unable to expirement.

[k_munic]

Hi alimunnik,

the "internal" conversion uses the Quicktime engine, which is for PAL<<>>NTSC not that good…
try this free tool:
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/13069

conversion means allways los of quality… besides, that NTSC has a "smaller" resolution than PAL, therefor it has a higher fps… (30 vs 25). and a different color scheme. and… well. best results are done with specific, professional hardware-converters - VERY epansive

and:
many/most/all european DVD standalones are able to playback NTSC DVDs…– for quality reasons it is better to stay in one format.
a Mac is able to palyback both standards… no trouble at all.

[alimunnik]

Thank you for your good advice. I shall leave it to my son to find the best way forward. After all, Kenyans are infinitely resourceful.
p.s. I suspect we have a common ancestor, I was born in Amsterdam but was led to believe that my ancestors came from Russia with Peter the Great during his stay in Holland to learn about large-scale land drainge (St. Petersburg, like Amsterdam is built on very swampy ground) and shipbuilding.