Converting PAL DVD and slowing it down

[mrogovin]

I have a Region 2 PAL DVD. When I play the film on my computer it runs fast and the audio is pitched higher than it should be (I have seen clips from the film on YouTube and the audio pitch is lower/normal than what I am watching) I assume the difference in speed is the 4% PAL speed up to accommodate the extra frame per second (25 vs 24). VLC Player reports the frame rate as 50fps -- does this make sense to anyone?

In any case, I would like to watch the film at normal speed, with audio at the normal pitch, not sped up. Assuming I successfully rip the DVD on my Mac, can I use software (on the Mac or PC ) not so much to re-encode it and lose the extra frame each second (which would not change the speed at all), but re-encode it and burn it to a new DVD whilst setting the encoder to treat the source AS IF it were 24 fps rather than 25 fps (48 vs 50?) as it burns the DVD at 29.97fps NTSC (3:2) (or just to burn it at 24 (48?) fps). The audio should be similarly slowed down to match the new longer length of the video. Unlike other posts on this forum I actually want the pitch to change so it is not as high. However, I am not sure what the result will be (if the pitch will be natural or if it will have to be further adjusted).

In VLC, I can play it at 90% which adjusts the length (maybe a little too much) but VLC seems to keep the audio pitch as is.

I have the following video software: Mac Fairmount, Handbrake MPEG Streamclip, iMovie 09 and iMovie HD; PC: Handbrake, MPEG Streamclip, Super, Adobe Premier Elements. I have Audacity on both computers. I also have a linux machine, but it is older and slower and I rarely use it (but if the tools are better on it, I could use it).

Thanks for any advice.

[hech54]

There are already countless, endless, almost vomit-inducing discussions on this subject. Please just do a search and read.

[manono]

It's not all that difficult when using a Windows machine, if you don't want at the same time to also convert the menus. AVSToDVD does a PAL to NTSC conversion but I believe it keeps everything the same length/pitch. Maybe someone can correct me if I'm wrong.

To do it properly you demux the video/audio/chapters/subs (if any) using PGCDemux. Slow the audio using eac3to, maybe. Do the resize and framerate slowdown using an AviSynth script fed into an MPEG-2 encoder. Convert the celltimes.txt (the chapters) from PAL 25fps to NTSC 29.97fps. Slow the subs in any one of a number of ways. Apply 3:2 pulldown either during the encoding or afterwards using DGPulldown. Either author without menus using Muxman or author and create menus with something else (something like GUI4DVDAuthor). If all this sounds like gibberish I'd say you're nowhere near ready to do this. The only useful software of the ones you mentioned is Audacity which can perform the audio slowdown, at the same time correcting the pitch.

VLC Player reports the frame rate as 50fps -- does this make sense to anyone?

Your PAL DVD, as is true for almost all PAL DVDs, was encoded as interlaced and VLC bobs such sources.

[Cornucopia]

Or, just reauthor the video using dgpulldown doing the 25 to 24 pulldown adjustment (still need to time expand + pitch adjust the audio separately). I know this works successfully from firsthand experience.

Read those previous threads...

Scott

[manono]

Or, just reauthor the video using dgpulldown doing the 25 to 24 pulldown adjustment. I know this works successfully from firsthand experience.

Eh? 25->24 using DGPulldown? Maybe you mean to say set the length by using DGPulldown for 23.976 (or 24)->29.97fps? Yes, that'll work. But 720x576 in an NTSC DVD?

[mike20021969]

I have a Region 2 PAL DVD. When I play the film on my computer it runs fast and the audio is pitched higher than it should be... In VLC, I can play it at 90% which adjusts the length (maybe a little too much) but VLC seems to keep the audio pitch as is.

For playback only of these sort of DVD's, you should install SlySofts ReClock.

https://forum.slysoft.com/showthread.php?60426-ReClock-1-8-8-4

[hech54]

I have a Region 2 PAL DVD. When I play the film on my computer it runs fast and the audio is pitched higher than it should be... In VLC, I can play it at 90% which adjusts the length (maybe a little too much) but VLC seems to keep the audio pitch as is.

For playback only of these sort of DVD's, you should install SlySofts ReClock.

https://forum.slysoft.com/showthread.php?60426-ReClock-1-8-8-4

Is that going to help if the OP want to burn a DVD?

burn it to a new DVD whilst setting the encoder to treat the source AS IF it were 24 fps rather than 25 fps (48 vs 50?) as it burns the DVD at 29.97fps NTSC (3:2) (or just to burn it at 24 (48?) fps).

[mike20021969]

Is that going to help if the OP want to burn a DVD?

That is why I responded to what I'd quoted.
It'll saves time messing around with adjusting settings within a player.

And anyone just reading this thread who was not aware of ReClock may want to give it a try.

[jman98]

Player reports the frame rate as 50fps -- does this make sense to anyone?

I don't know why VLC does this. It's actually 25fps but it's reporting 50 FIELDS per second when it should be reporting 50 FRAMES per second. VLC seems to have issues correctly reporting the frames if the video is interlaced so it gives you double the value because there are 2 fields per frame for interlaced video.

[mrogovin]

Thanks to all posters. Sorry to have asked an old question. The prior posts I read were not quite what I was looking for; perhaps I missed the ones dealing with my question. I also did not phrase what I wanted to do precisely - I forgot about the reso difference between PAL and NTSC. I am watching the DVD on a PC so even an MPEG or other file format is fine. I am only interested in running the video and audio at the correct speed and pitch, both of which were altered when the DVD was made.

[manono]

... so even an MPEG or other file format is fine. I am only interested in running the video and audio at the correct speed and pitch, both of which were altered when the DVD was made.

Then that's much easier. Cornucopia's method should work, sort of. Demux (PGCDemux), slow the video (run the M2V through DGPulldown set for 23.976->29.97, assuming this is a progressive movie), slow the audio (eac3to), remux (ImagoMPEG-Muxer). Or maybe the Reclock method as suggested by mike20021969 without having to do anything to the video or audio.

[hello_hello]

If you're watching it on a PC you can use ReClock as suggested earlier. It'll let you change the frame rate manually while playing video (and it can automatically do PAL speedup and slowdown). If you check "Enable audio time-stretching" in ReClock's configuration, it'll resample the audio so the pitch doesn't change. With the option unchecked, it just speeds the audio up or slows it down which will change the pitch (which is what you want).

I use my PC as a media player, connected to my TV refreshing at 50Hz. I use ReClock to watch everything at 25fps, but in your case you want to do it the other way around.

Alternative, you could try ripping the DVD using MakeMKV (it just puts the existing video and audio in an MKV). When it's done, you could extract the audio using gMKVExtractGUI and convert it. MeGUI's audio encoder will do 25fps-24fps or 25fps to 23.976fps conversions while re-encoding it and you can choose whether or not it changes the pitch. There's probably a few other audio converter GUI's which will do the same, but none come to mind immediately.
Finally, you'd open the MKV with MKVMergeGUI, deselect the existing audio in the track list, add the new audio, select the video track, change the frame rate to 24fps or 23.976fps (whichever is appropriate) and save that as a new MKV (no video re-encoding involved).