[HELP] - Undoing a Bad 3:2 NTSC to PAL Conversion

[RidgeShark]

I'm trying to convert a bad NTSC to PAL conversion back to 23.976fps. The film was originally given a 3:2 Pulldown Telecine to NTSC, which I have a lower quality interlaced sample of for reference - an inverse telecine on it will give you a decent 23.976fps result. I've tried QTGMC+Srestore on the PAL DVD, but there is something else going on here that will require a different method. It appears the PAL is somehow slowed down. I've tried figuring out a SelectEvery pattern and have so far failed. I was hoping someone much more talented than myself could help me with this. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be a higher quality source available outside of studio walls.

Bad PAL Conversion DVD Source:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aZt1fV5YmtwyAfxPXPKpzlxn7ZUKF_Iq/view?usp=share_link

Lower Quality Recording of Original NTSC (interlaced) for reference:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ueDuU7q9AarazF2_T4ivQZiAjJRK9XTM/view?usp=share_link

[jagabo]

I found QTGMC().SRestore(frate=25) to work fairly well. That's about the best I could do without analyzing and patching frame by frame.

But isn't that one of the Evil Dead films? It should be easy to get a better source.

[RidgeShark]

Thank you for taking a look. SRestore(frate=25) is close but there's still a lot of duplicates. But maybe it could lighten the workload of manually deleting duplicate frames to get the timing right. It makes sense some duplicate frames come through since the PAL appears to be slowed down when compared to the NTSC over the air recording with correct playback speed.

Yes it's part 3 aka Army of Darkness - this is the TV version with unique footage and sound mix not found in the other versions. I would've thought this version would've been given a proper release too, but unfortunately this bad NTSC to PAL conversion has made the rounds in PAL territories (I've checked out German and Australian releases which are the same encode). And then Shout Factory took one of these PAL DVDs, ripped it and then badly converted it back to NTSC for their USA releases - including it as an extra on their 2015 blu-ray set and 2022 4K presentation of the US Theatrical Cut. This version just isn't considered a priority. I've tried to be very thorough in researching releases and to the best of my knowledge this is it.

[jagabo]

Yes, there are still duplicates left after SRestore(frate=25) but I thought that was smoother than SRestore(frate=24 or 23.976). I think it's just too badly damaged to get a perfect automated result. Especially at the start of the clip.

The smoothest looking result is to simply QTGMC() it and leave it at 50 fps. Though that leaves lots of blended frames you don't really notice them at normal playback speed.

[RidgeShark]

Thank you so much for your analysis on this. I didn't want to believe it was too badly damaged but, alas. What's funny is the first few minutes of the PAL runs perfectly at the same speed as the NTSC, but then it gets all wonky. I mainly need two sequences and can patch in the rest of the footage from the other versions. The first 3 shots of this sequence are so slow moving that it's hard to manually select the correct frames from the QTGMC'd while using the IVTC'd NTSC as a guide. But it looks like I will have to try. It's only several thousands of frames.