very good info k8_fan. i've never used Premiere to convert PAL > NTSC. i actually didn't even know Premiere or Vegas could do the conversion. but then, i don't do PAL > NTSC conversions really, after getting a DVD player that handles both formats, so...

btw, YES, there ARE DVD players here in America that will play both formats, but that do NOT do the internal PAL>NTSC conversion - which means the TV set will NOT play the DVD correctly (i know some Pioneer settop DVD players are this way). so your options in that situation are to either buy a new DVD player with a built-in converter, or buy a signal converter. if i were in that situation, i'd just buy a new player because it's roughly the same cost (or even cheaper to get a new player).

i know PAL > NTSC converted video lineages are discouraged, and i agree with that. however, recently, i did do a couple of PAL > NTSC conversions using some very good software, and the result is actually excellent. (of course, the original PAL sources were from DTV, i believe, and looked fantastic to begin with.) i used Canopus ProCoder, and i must say, it does the best job i've ever seen for a PAL > NTSC conversion, and i've used a lot of different programs in the past to try that conversion. ProCoder is also very fast, and very easy to use. and, you don't have to re-encode the audio (which is nice)... you can just convert the video stream, and it will synch up perfectly with the audio stream. as i recall, with a lot of other programs, an audio conversion is needed as well, but not the case with ProCoder.