Audio high pitched when ripping: PAL DVD in PAL region

[BrissyGuy]

G-day everyone,

So I have an issue that's doing my bloody head in....I have researched for months and cant find an answer for it.

Now before i get flamed and told there is already a thread like this on here, I know there is a similar thread on here by Guitar3dt tittle "Audio slightly high pitched in any player..." but his problem seems to be slightly different to mine. Although it is slightly different I have tried everything everyone had suggested and still no go.

So to give you all the run down, I am ripping my TV show collection to MKV then converting to MP4 for smaller size to put on my ext HDD to be viewed on my media player.

The DVD is an Australian PAL store bought DVD of Parks and Recreation (but occurs on any DVD i am ripping as it has done the same on The Office)

I am using MakeMKV V1.9.1 [win(x86-relaese)] to rip the DVD to an MKV then using Handbrake 0.9.9 to convert to MP4, copy protection is bypassed using AnyDVD HD 7.4.0.0.

The issue starts from the beginning at MKV stage, I rip it on MakeMKV and play it on VLC player on my PC and it sounds like they have just sucked in Helium the same occurs when played on my RaspPI and PS3.

The duration is the same so its not sped up, its just a higher pitch.

Now here is the weird thing, the actual episodes have the pitch issue, the extras such as deleted scenes, bloopers, special features etc are ripped perfectly.

I have no idea what to do to stop this, I have tried several other ripping software such as AVS Video Converter 6 and Xilisoft DVD to DIVX Converter 4 and all do the same thing.

I tried remuxing in MKVToolNix, did nothing but make the video go out of sync.

Now although I am ripping from PAL to PAL I even decided to play with FPS rates which did nothing either.

Can anyone help me out here, is there maybe output settings for audio such as Bitrate and Samplerate that's is incorrect?

Or once the high pitch MKV file is ripped can I change Audio Settings in Handbrake to drop the pitch down slightly to make it normal in the MP4 conversion? if that is the case would anyone suggest Samplerate and Bitrate settings to do this? orrrrrr have I totally misunderstood what Samplerate and Bitrate does.

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated, can some one please help

Cheers in advance

[hello_hello]

I've no idea what's causing it but it might pay to upload a sample of one of the MKVs.

[manono]

The issue starts from the beginning at MKV stage, I rip it on MakeMKV and play it on VLC player on my PC and it sounds like they have just sucked in Helium

Are you saying the higher pitched audio is a result of using MakeMKV on the DVD? Impossible, of course, as MakeMKV doesn't reencode anything. Wait...

Now here is the weird thing, the actual episodes have the pitch issue...

So it didn't begin with MakeMKV but with the DVD itself? So you're talking about the usual PAL speedup? The semi-tone higher pitched audio?

Two solutions I know of. One would be to buy the NTSC DVDs. The other would be to convert the audio back to film speed, along with the video. eac3to can do the audio, as can BeSweet or any WAV editor such as Audacity. You'll also have to slow the video to match. I doubt this is anything Handbrake can do. I use AviSynth for such things.

Edit: Yeah, hello_hello is right. A sample might be useful.

[hech54]

The DVD is an Australian PAL store bought DVD of Parks and Recreation (but occurs on any DVD i am ripping as it has done the same on The Office)

It doesn't matter if it is an official PAL DVD, something that was originally created in and for an NTSC environment often sounds a bit mouse-like when played in a PAL environment. For me growing up in America, the worst "PAL voice" is Al Pacino. His voice sounds very different "over here" in Europe on PAL equipment.

[hello_hello]

"Sounds like they have just sucked in helium" seems like it might be something more than PAL speedup, and I'd guess/assume/hope the audio sounds different after ripping than when playing the original DVD, hence there being a problem, but hopefully the OP will upload a sample.

[BrissyGuy]

Thanks for the replies guys....here are my answers to each one of your questions, but before I do, this may further clarify my issue.

When I play the DVD itself, either on my DVDROM or PS3 or DVD player it has normal pitch and everything is played back "perfectly" with no issues. It is once the MKV rip has been made of the DVD, that the MKV file when played back is in a slightly higher (helium sounding) pitch. Also why would it just do it on the actual episode and not on any of the special features?

Hech54 the above may address your comments because I am experiencing a difference between playback of the DVD versus the playback of the MKV file of the same DVD. Therefore I dont believe its an NTSC/PAL issue. Also it only does it on the actual episodes but not the deleted scenes for example.

Manono...you asked, "Are you saying the higher pitched audio is a result of using MakeMKV on the DVD? Impossible, of course, as MakeMKV doesn't reencode anything." No I am not saying that, because the higher pitch occurs after an MKV has been encoded, and AVI/Divx has been encoded or an MP4 has been encoded. What seems to happen is the higher pitch occurs after it has been ripped to any format using any of the mentioned encoding software, but again only episodes and not special features.

The you asked ..."So it didn't begin with MakeMKV but with the DVD itself? So you're talking about the usual PAL speedup? The semi-tone higher pitched audio?" Again no, the DVD itself plays fine without the higher semi-tone higher pitch audio when playing the DVD in a DVD player, which would indicate it isn't an NTSC issue, regardless I did still play around with FPS manipulation which makes no difference.

I cant upload the MKV file because its around 800mb. :/ any freeware where I can snip a small sample for you all? Sorry guys I'm pretty new to ripping :/

[hech54]

Hech54 the above may address your comments because I am experiencing a difference between playback of the DVD versus the playback of the MKV file of the same DVD. Therefore I dont believe its an NTSC/PAL issue. Also it only does it on the actual episodes but not the deleted scenes for example.

It is an NTSC/PAL thing. I grew up in America and now I live in Europe. I deal with it on a daily basis. I dealt with it on a daily basis in America because I was a huge John Farnham fan and the was NO video of Farnham in NTSC (except for one televised show during his LRB days).
It does not surprise me that when you remove the computer drive from the equation, the difference would be more noticeable, but the act of making it an MKV file is not the problem.

[BrissyGuy]

Hech54 - If its NTSC/PAL then why does playing the DVD work fine and the ripped special features such as deleted scenes work fine but the ripped episode play in the semitone high pitch? As i said I am new to this but it doesn't make sense if the DVD and deleted scenes all work fine but the Ripped episode is semitone higher.

By the way Farnham still rocks even though he is an 80's Aussie pop/rock legend

[BrissyGuy]

OK Guys finally got a sample of the rip with the semitone effected rip and a sample of a deleted scene.

The file called - tittle00_Trimmed.mkv is the semitone higher helium pitch effected one which is a snip from a direct episode.

The file called - tittle06_Trimmed.mkv is the normal pitch taken from the same source DVD using the same encoding software but its a deleted scene off DVD.

Hope this helps.

[manono]

The episode was converted to PAL by speeding up both the audio and video. The deleted scene was converted to PAL by field-blending, a method which keeps the length the same and the audio on pitch, but messes up the video quality terribly.

Manono...you asked, "Are you saying the higher pitched audio is a result of using MakeMKV on the DVD? Impossible, of course, as MakeMKV doesn't reencode anything." No I am not saying that, because the higher pitch occurs after an MKV has been encoded

You said you created the MKV with MakeMKV and noticed the higher pitch then. If so, nothing was reencoded. The DVD was put untouched into the MKV container. If you did use MakeMKV on it first, before reencoding it to something else (one can only wonder why the extra step), then you're imagining things because at nowhere along the line was the DVD length changed or the audio's pitch changed.

The DVD audio of the episodes is higher pitched; the MakeMKV MKV has higher pitch; anything else you made so far also has the same higher pitch. They're all speeded up PAL 25fps. The extras were converted differently.

[BrissyGuy]

Hi Manono

The Extras were converted by MakeMKV, I put the disc in selected all the files and pressed start, so unless MakeMKV does something different automatically, from my reckoning nothing different was done to encode the extras.

The 2 files I put on as samples were taken off the same PAL DVD through the same MakeMKV process at the same time, nothing done differently.

The reason why after making the MKV I encode it to MP4 is to reduce the size of the file. But forget that step because it is a semitone higher upon initial encoding to MKV.

Either way the original rip was carried out in the same manner by the same software from the same disc. So would you say it still is being sped up and if so why aren't the extras being sped up too?



Also when I play the DVD the pitch is fine, after the rip to MKV it is higher pitched. So the DVD audio is NOT higher pitch its normal; the MakeMKV MKV has a higher pitch on episodes only. The extras were all ripped in the same manner yet their pitch is not altered. Does that still have to do with PAL 25fps? if so why only the episodes?

[hech54]

By the way Farnham still rocks even though he is an 80's Aussie pop/rock legend

I was in Oz in 2000 for Farnham shows(Man Of The Hour Tour), 7 shows front row thanks to some Oz connections and a famous "Yank" friend.
There were some pissed off Aussies in row two let me tell you. Got to meet John too while I was there.

My wife is packing right now to head to Oz for some Farnham/Olivia shows. I'll pass on Olivia, I'm sitting this one out.

[BrissyGuy]

Thats cool Hech54 I was an 80's teen and lived in a small coastal town so when he came to town for a tour we would all go and always got front row centre. Which was for about 4 shows in total. Was a really great memory of mine as a kid.

But back to my conundrum, I am not sure if I am misunderstanding the whole Pal-NTSC thing but if I have a PAL DVD being ripped on a PAL DVDROM and when extras and episodes are being ripped at the same time with the same software from the same disc and there is a pitch shift in episodes but not extras, am I right in believing that NTSC has little if nothing to do with this? Or have i misunderstood it all?

[hech54]

But back to my conundrum, I am not sure if I am misunderstanding the whole Pal-NTSC thing but if I have a PAL DVD being ripped on a PAL DVDROM and when extras and episodes are being ripped at the same time with the same software from the same disc and there is a pitch shift in episodes but not extras, am I right in believing that NTSC has little if nothing to do with this? Or have i misunderstood it all?

It is all because of NTSC vs. PAL. Your DVDs are PAL, your DVD player is PAL (computer ROMs don't care), but the original TV shows were NTSC. They need to be processed/converted to create a PAL version.....some conversion methods are better than others.....best described here by:

manono
The episode was converted to PAL by speeding up both the audio and video. The deleted scene was converted to PAL by field-blending, a method which keeps the length the same and the audio on pitch, but messes up the video quality terribly.

PLUS....odds are that what you are seeing on your television is neither PAL or NTSC, but a "Quasi" output by the DVD player. Sometimes a quasi signal is better, sometimes you get a better picture if you force your DVD player to convert to PAL "on the fly" as they say BEFORE it hits the television. Some players do this, some do not.
There are many variables in the process(before you buy the DVDs) of converting between video formats that can ruin your viewing experience.
Either way.....count your blessings. You are in a PAL country, it is almost impossible for an American to watch an Aussie-based DVD on their television. As long as the Region Code (number) is taken care of....people in PAL countries can watch anything.

[BrissyGuy]

Ok thanks for the explanation Hech54, I now get what you fellas are talking about, sooooooo knowing this is there an easy fix to the many single MKV files I have to rip (ie 23-26 episodes per season of a show with 9 seasons for eg ) as in I really don't have the time to rip all episodes then convert audio files and reapply them etc. Is there someway of selecting them and encoding/converting them with the pitch being correct?

Oh yeah by the way I am absolutely aware of the blessing we have in Oz with being able to at least play other region coded DVD's without issues, its just the ripping that does my head in LOL.

Is there a Bitrate and Samplerate setting that fixes this? or am I way off in understanding what they do?

[hech54]

There is no easy fix. I've got a project going right now(so far only in my head):
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/370877-Looking-To-Slow-Down-Playback

Long story short. The music used during the filming/lip syncing during the initial video shoot was the wrong speed(too fast).
The music video sounds ridiculous and mouse-like compared to what we have been hearing on the radio for decades.
I'm trying to slow down the video smoothly, but I need the video and original audio to remain in sync(temporarily) so I can
find the correct "key", then replace the music with the original vinyl/CD music.
NOT easy.....and I've been replacing music video audio for YEARS.

[manono]

Either way the original rip was carried out in the same manner by the same software from the same disc. So would you say it still is being sped up...

Yes.

...and if so why aren't the extras being sped up too?

I already explained. They were converted differently. More cheaply. More poorly (except for the audio).

Also when I play the DVD the pitch is fine, after the rip to MKV it is higher pitched.

That's simply not true. Inside the MKV is the exact same audio and video as is in the VOB files of the DVD. They're just in a different package or container.

Does that still have to do with PAL 25fps?

Yes.

if so why only the episodes?

Already explained.

Look, almost everything shot on film and released on PAL DVD or broadcast on your televisions has the same issue. You've been experiencing it your entire life. Maybe you're more aware of it in this instance because you have the 'real' audio with which to compare in the extras so you can hear the differences in how the actors and music sound. Or maybe you're a trained musician and can tell the music is off pitch. This sort of thing can drive musicians crazy.

[BrissyGuy]

Thanks Manono and Hech54, very frustrating and very annoying that I cant correct it easily

[manono]

...very frustrating and very annoying that I cant correct it easily

It doesn't take much knowledge to correct it. If I've done it once I've done it a thousand times. I already mentioned programs that can correct the audio. To slow the video to match it takes a single simple command in AviSynth (after creating a script to open the video in the first place):

AssumeFPS(23.976)#or AssumeFPS("ntsc_film" )

http://avisynth.nl/index.php/AssumeFPS

Yeah, it takes work and there's a bit of a learning curve, but if it really irritates you enough to learn it and do the work, just know that many many people do these kinds of conversions all the time. This sort of thing is usually done to create NTSC DVDs (which will play in your PAL DVD player), but you can also create a PAL DVD running at film speed and with 'good' audio fairly simply.

[BrissyGuy]

Ok Then I will give it a go and keep you all informed on how I go...wish me luck