NTSC and PAL Discrepancies in Proshow

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NTSC and PAL Discrepancies in Proshow

Postby nsd3 » Fri Aug 16, 2013 5:25 am

I recently created a slide show which was a mixture of slides and video clips, and the end result was extremely poor, as the video portions of the slide show were jerky and stuttering in motion.

When I delved into it, the answer became apparent, and it’s a major failing of the product which I hope Photodex correct in their next release.

Let me explain. I’m a UK user of ProShow Gold, hence everything over here is the PAL TV system. That in itself is not a problem, but it becomes one when you import video into PSG. My slide show comprised of 25fps high definition video. I found, after importing video into PSG, that the program adds additional frames natively to the video to bring the video up to 30fps. In other words, the internal engine of PSG will only work with 30fps video, so everything it imports is modified to the 30fps frame rate. (I confirmed this with Photodex technical support.) Effectively, PSG adds 5 additional frames per second, by repeating 1 in every five frames of the imported video. The result, when the slide show is rendered out at 30fps is terrible. Render it out at 25fps for showing on a PAL TV and the result is horrendous. In the latter scenario, PSG removes 1 in six frames from the video, but there’s no guarantee the frames removed are the same duplicates it originally added in. In fact the chances of that happening are quite small.

In pursuit of a better quality video, I tried using proprietary programs to increase the frame rate of my original video to 30fps before importing into PSG, but even they left me with unacceptable results.

So for all you NTSC users, shooting at 30fps, you have no problem, for everyone else, this is a real issue. There are only three solutions to this. First, have PSG handle PAL video as 25fps internally. As long as you render the final slide show at 25fps all is well. Second, convince the camcorder manufacturers of this world not to slavishly follow the PAL/SECAM/NTSC regions of the world, and allow the user to choose the frame rate they shoot at. After all at high definition, the frame rate is less of a problem, modern TVs and Blu-ray players handle all the frame rates and resolutions. Or third, but a camcorder from a NTSC region.

I'm hoping Photodex sit up and take note.

.
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Re: NTSC and PAL Discrepancies in Proshow

Postby gpsmikey » Fri Aug 16, 2013 6:26 am

Along the same lines, another issue I have run into - video from many DSLR and P&S cameras seems to be 720p24 - so it doesn't matter if you are NTSC or PAL ... it doesn't match either :evil:

I just ran into this issue trying to create a video (in Vegas Movie Studio) where I take output from Producer (which is 720p30) and mix it with video from a Nikon CoolPix P7100 which is 720p24. Multiple frame rates seem to confuse lots of things. You can create a custom video file preset in Producer (not sure about Gold) that allows you to specify a different frame rate.

mikey
You can't have too many gadgets or too much disk space !!
mikey (PSP6, Photoshop CS6, Vegas Pro 14, Acid 7, BluffTitler, Nikon D300s, D810)
Lots of PIC and Arduino microprocessor stuff too !!

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Re: NTSC and PAL Discrepancies in Proshow

Postby nsd3 » Fri Aug 23, 2013 5:48 am

Yes you can create a custom video preset in Gold, but that's on the output side, and by then the damage is done. What's really needed is for ProShow Gold/Producer to have a setting for working with different video frame rates at input - not just accept whatever is thrown at it and then transcode to 30 fps. Allow the user to work at their chosen frame rate. Something I'm sure from a development point of view shouldn't be a big deal.

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