DVD burning question

[Luis Ortega]

I had a movie shot in ntsc format that I edited in FCP and wanted to burn to a DVD to send to a friend in the US. I am in the UK.
When I inserted a DVD-R blank disk into iDVD and started preparing the project, it warned that I was about to burn an ntsc project onto a pal dvd.
It allowed me to continue and burned it, but I am wondering if the disk will play in my friend's DVD player?
I thought that blank DVD disks were universal. Heck, the warranty info on the DVD box comes in over a dozen languages and they are not all from pal countries.
What's going on with this warning?
Is it OK to ignore it and just where does one buy ntsc DVD blank disks if you are in a pal country?
I don't have an ntsc dvd player here to test whether it works or not before sending it.
I never had this problem when using Windows and Nero Vision Express to burn my DVDs with ntsc material.
Thanks for any advice.

 

[TechnoPagan]

NTSC has nothing to do with the actual blank disc. Your DVD should play fine for your friend.

More info than you probably need

 

[NAG]

How are you burning the DVD? It sounds more like the program you're using to burn is trying to burn your ntsc project as pal.

 

[logana]

If your friend is going to watch it on his computer then it wont matter whether it is NTSC or PAL.

However you have a choice as to which format to burn the disc to - and yes blank discs are not formatted to a TV standard. FCP must be defaulting to PAL so that is why you are getting the warning.

If your friend wants to watch the dvd on a stand alone player he may have problems. Have a look through the FCP preferences and I am sure you will be able to set to NTSC which would be the safest option for you.

 

[Luis Ortega]

How are you burning the DVD? It sounds more like the program you're using to burn is trying to burn your ntsc project as pal.

I exported the FCP timeline as a quicktime mov file and used iDVD to create the dvd.
When I started the FCP project I set it up as ntsc dv and imported the ntsc footage into that.

 

[NAG]

Ah, well when you exported it to an mov the FCP NTSC setting was lost. You'll have to go into the project properties in iMovie and set it as NTSC again. How to do this varies with the version of iMovie.

You should just be able to import the mov file directly into iDVD without using iMovie though. (Directly from FCP, actually)

 

[Luis Ortega]

Ah, well when you exported it to an mov the FCP NTSC setting was lost. You'll have to go into the project properties in iMovie and set it as NTSC again. How to do this varies with the version of iMovie.

You should just be able to import the mov file directly into iDVD without using iMovie though. (Directly from FCP, actually)

I'm not using iMovie at all.
Are you saying that I can just import the FCP timeline or the FCP project file into iDVD without having to export it first as a standalone quicktime mov?
By the way, the standalone quicktime mov properties identify it as an ntsc file so I don't think that it was changed or the settings lost.