[bdiguy]

Hey,
I made the mistake of purchasing a Sony DCR-TRV20E over ebay, not knowing what the "E" ment. It's a PAL camera, and I guess virtually useless to me, I think, because I live in the states and we use NTSC. I know a little FCP and iMovie and was wondering if there was a way to convert the PAL signal into NTSC and if it's a big hassle or not. Any help would be great,
Thanks
BDiGuy
bdiproductions@hotmail.com

p.s. If anyone is interested in buying the camera, it's really sweet, and I'd be willing to let it go for a lot less then I bought it for, so as not to have to deal with the hassle of converting and what not. Email me if your interested. Thanks.

[João Lúcio]

I had a similar problem, but at a software level. I'm from Portugal and after installed OS 10.1 I tried iMovie 2 that came with the system. Not knowing it was the NTSC version. I was trying to convert some MOV's to DV stream and then importing them to iMovie, but I got the error that the movie format was incorrect (I was creating PAL DV streams). What I did before I realised I was using the NTSC version of iMovie was importing the streams with iMovie 1 in OS 9 (just to check if it would work and it did, as the movie formats were the same ), then saving the movie project and opening that project with iMovie 2 in OS 10.1. IT WORKED!

So I guess all you have to do is get the PAL version of iMovie, plug your camera to your Mac and import all footage to the PAL iMovie, save the project with that footage and then opening it with the NTSC version of iMovie. OK, you still have the problem of getting the image out of you Mac, but hey... my VCR works with both PAL and NTSC... maybe your does to.

[Chuck_star]

FCP can convert Pal to NTSC very easily. You can even capture PAL as NTSC strait to your HD. If I remember correctly. Images get slightly distorted because resolutions are different. But I'd imagine there'd be a prefference to crop.

Bummer about the "E" I'll have to remember that.

[Wattsy]

There is more to PAL>NTSC conversion than resolution. Don't forget that NTSC runs at a frame rate of 29.97 compared to PAL's 25. A better tool than FCP for making the conversion is After Effects. AE will manage the necessary interpolation of frames much better though don't expect instant results (the rendering will take some time if you are shooting lots of footage). As far as resolution goes you might be better off converting to square pixels first before cropping or dropping your PAL footage into an NTSC composition. Again, AE is the better tool.

Frankly, I think you should forget the hassles of making PAL>NTSC conversions on a regular basis and take whatever hit is involved in obtaining an NTSC camera.