Converting NTSC to PAL (or vice-versa) in AE

These techniques work fine for a scene, but may look bad across scene cuts. From Twixtor 4 you can set where the scene cuts are so that Twixtor does not inappropriatey interpolate across the scene cuts. See the manual for details.

Converting NTSC to PAL using RE:Vision Effects products within After Effects

  1. Import your NTSC interlaced material into After Effects.
  2. Drop your NTSC footage into a 59.94 fps composition.
  3. If you wish, apply FieldsKit Deinterlacer to the 29.97 footage in the 59.94 fcp comp, with its 'Timing Mode' set to '> 2x FPS, 1 Frame per Field'. This will convert your interlaced into progressive material, 1 frame per original FIELD of input.
  4. Drop the 59.94 fps composition into a 50fps NTSC resolution composition. Apply Twixtor. Set Twixtor's Input:Fields to None, Input:Frame Rate to 59.94. Twixtor will get the output frame rate (50 fps) from the composition's settings.
  5. Drop the 50fps NTSC resolution composition into a 50fps PAL sized composition. Apply any additional resizing/cropping as desired.
  6. Drop the 50fps PAL-sized composition into a 25fps PAL-sized composition.
  7. Render out using AE's field rendering set to upper or lower field first rendering, as is appropriate for your project.

Converting PAL to NTSC is the same process, but reversing the frame-per-second and sizing operations.

  1. Import your PAL interlaced material into After Effects.
  2. Drop your PAL footage into a 50 fps composition.
  3. If desired, apply FieldsKit Deinterlacer to the 25 fps footage in the 50 fps comp, with its 'Timing Mode' set to '> 2x FPS, 1 Frame per Field'. This will convert your interlaced into progressive material, 1 frame per original FIELD of input.
  4. Drop the 50 fps composition into a 59.94 fps PAL resolution composition. Apply Twixtor. Set Twixtor's Input:Fields to None, Input:Frame Rate to 50. Twixtor will get the output frame rate (59.94 fps) from the composition's settings.
  5. Drop the 59.94fps PAL resolution composition into a 59.94fps NTSC-sized composition. Apply any additional resizing/cropping as desired.
  6. Drop the 59.94 fps NTSC-sized composition into a 29.97 fps NTSC-sized composition.
  7. Render out using AE's field rendering set to upper or lower field first rendering, as is appropriate for your project.