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  1. Member Seeker47's Avatar
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    I expect there must be other factors involved, but is there some general formula for figuring running time differences that may be attributable to this ? An example: resolution is comparable, but one source (PAL) comes in at 88 min.s, another (NTSC) edition comes in at 93 min.s. Assuming that neither version has cuts / missing material, could such a discrepancy be solely due to the NTSC vs. PAL difference ? Or are the different timings apt to be far less ?
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  2. Member azmoth's Avatar
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    100 mins NTSC equates to 96 mins at PAL speed. Divide the former by the latter and it is 1.041666.. I suppose you could use this to work out most runtimes, but exceptions occur and blends of video.
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  3. For PAL speedup:
    Code:
    P = N * 24000 / 1001 / 25
    where P = PAL running time, N = NTSC running time.

    But there are many ways of converting so that equation isn't always true.
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  4. Member Seeker47's Avatar
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    Thanks. It gives something to go by, anyway. Had always assumed that a difference of 2-3 min.s was likely to be explainable this way.
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  5. Originally Posted by Seeker47 View Post
    Had always assumed that a difference of 2-3 min.s was likely to be explainable this way.
    It's a possibility. But Releases in different regions are often different cuts of the movie. So you have to check rather than assume.
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  6. Member Seeker47's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by azmoth View Post
    Thanks. I've bookmarked this, should prove useful.

    It's quite a few years now since I visited a PAL-using country, but I recall their having a superior looking res on SD tv, vs. the NTSC that we had. Have not had any chance to make such a comparison for HD or UHD gear. (It makes sense that a time difference largely comes down to the frame rate, but I don't really get where this page says that Blu-Ray is not affected by that.) I do often view PAL sources here, using playback options that can render them. A lot of foreign titles that are out of print or otherwise not available here will be in that format. So it's good not to have that being a barrier to viewing them. It's a lot more convenient than back when you had to employ a PAL VCR or DVD deck + multi-system tv in order to view them.
    When in Las Vegas, don't miss the Pinball Hall of Fame Museum http://www.pinballmuseum.org/ -- with over 150 tables from 6+ decades of this quintessentially American art form.
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  7. Standard definition PAL's 576 active picture lines gives it better vertical resolution than NTSC's 485 lines. PAL's "phase alternating line" chroma gives it more accurate color reproduction, but less color resolution. With film sources sped up to 25 fps the motion is smoother than NTSC's 3:2 pulldown which produces judder.
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  8. Member azmoth's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by Seeker47 View Post
    Originally Posted by azmoth View Post
    Thanks. I've bookmarked this, should prove useful.

    It's quite a few years now since I visited a PAL-using country, but I recall their having a superior looking res on SD tv, vs. the NTSC that we had. Have not had any chance to make such a comparison for HD or UHD gear. (It makes sense that a time difference largely comes down to the frame rate, but I don't really get where this page says that Blu-Ray is not affected by that.) I do often view PAL sources here, using playback options that can render them. A lot of foreign titles that are out of print or otherwise not available here will be in that format. So it's good not to have that being a barrier to viewing them. It's a lot more convenient than back when you had to employ a PAL VCR or DVD deck + multi-system tv in order to view them.
    On the whole PAL DVD has mostly provided the better image for me over the years, but I hated the speed up of the audio, so with a favourite film I'd purchase the NTSC version instead. A few say pitch correction used to be done by major studios regarding DVD, but one cannot be 100% conclusive regarding that.

    Lord of the Rings extended version was said to be pitch corrected but left noticeable audio clicks in one dvd forum I used to be fond of getting info from-forget the name. And the boxset of Lost PAL release has some of the characters sounding a bit chipmunkey compared to the R1 audio. I did compare a few DVD run times/audio pitch/video image etc in the PAL vs NTSc debate e.g Land of The Dead(which I have on blu ray- nice release!)) and I couldn't notice the pitch difference, plus the PAL has the superior image. My hearing is crap anyways these days. Once you get into runtimes or which system is better it would drive you bonkers I think. Thank God for HD!
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    An interesting case was the Beatles A Hard Day's Night movie, the concert at the end was filmed in the projector
    at 25 fps, so the PAL DVD has the concert in perfect pitch, while the rest of the movie, dialogue and songs are sped up.
    Of course, the NTSC DVD has the opposite problem, the concert at the end is slowed down to 23.976 fps
    while the rest of the movie is the correct speed.
    There was an article I read where the NTSC DVD was discussed and that they'd tried pitch correction to the concert,
    but they didn't like so it ended up both slowed and the flatter pitch
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  10. Originally Posted by davexnet View Post
    I read where the NTSC DVD was discussed and that they'd tried pitch correction to the concert,
    but they didn't like so it ended up both slowed and the flatter pitch
    One would think these professionals would know how to apply pulldown (hard or soft) to that section in order to keep the pitch as well as fulfill the other NTSC requirements. They didn't even have to pitch correct it.
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    Originally Posted by manono View Post
    Originally Posted by davexnet View Post
    I read where the NTSC DVD was discussed and that they'd tried pitch correction to the concert,
    but they didn't like so it ended up both slowed and the flatter pitch
    One would think these professionals would know how to apply pulldown (hard or soft) to that section in order to keep the pitch as well as fulfill the other NTSC requirements. They didn't even have to pitch correct it.
    Hi manono -
    Do you mean 25 > 29.97 will pulldown? That would be interesting with the earlier part of the movie
    being standard 3:2 pulldown.
    Unless it was the Blu Ray I was thinking of (it's been a while since I read the story)
    and they were dealing with the progressive images. I don't have it so I can't check unfortunately
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  12. Originally Posted by davexnet View Post
    Do you mean 25 > 29.97 will pulldown?
    Yes. I've never seen soft pulldown for 25->29.97fps on a retail DVD so it would probably be hard pulldown. That's well known and I don't know why they didn't just do that. It would keep the video at the correct speed and the audio in tune without having to stretch it.

    That would be interesting with the earlier part of the movie
    There'd be no need to do anything but a soft 3:2 pulldown with the main movie. Then join the end part with the main movie. It's a simple matter to do. They'd both output interlaced 29.97fps and be perfectly compliant.
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    Originally Posted by manono View Post
    Originally Posted by davexnet View Post
    Do you mean 25 > 29.97 will pulldown?
    Yes. I've never seen soft pulldown for 25->29.97fps on a retail DVD so it would probably be hard pulldown. That's well known and I don't know why they didn't just do that. It would keep the video at the correct speed and the audio in tune without having to stretch it.

    That would be interesting with the earlier part of the movie
    There'd be no need to do anything but a soft 3:2 pulldown with the main movie. Then join the end part with the main movie. It's a simple matter to do. They'd both output interlaced 29.97fps and be perfectly compliant.
    I wonder why it was never considered? Instead all you got was a lot of hand-wringing
    about the audio pitch yes/no.
    Perhaps it's too non-standard for a commercial DVD. Are you aware of it used anywhere commercially?
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  14. Originally Posted by davexnet View Post
    Perhaps it's too non-standard for a commercial DVD. Are you aware of it used anywhere commercially?
    Yes. There are all kinds of retail DVDs created with hard telecine from framerates other than 23.976. Even though DGPulldown can create any kind of legal soft pulldown, as far as I know something like that has never been used on retail DVDs for framerates other than 23.976. Maybe there are a very few DVD players that might have problems and I can't claim to have done a lot of testing myself, but if it's DVD compliant (and if it outputs interlaced 29.97fps at least that part of it is compliant), then DVD players are required to be able to play it. Especially for something like your example.

    However, I've read nonsense from a large media company encoder claiming the only way to convert a PAL source to NTSC DVD without stretching the audio was by field-blending. I could only roll my eyes.
    Last edited by manono; 25th Mar 2021 at 14:58.
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    Well perhaps it's too much of a risk to create non-standard soft pulldown, although AVStoDVD offers it
    for it's progressive PAL to NTSC (it also offers slowdown). Here's the info from the log:
    Code:
    DGPulldown Parameters: "S:\Video\DVD_2_test(short).m2v" -srcfps 25 -destfps 29.97 -inplace -tff
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  16. Member azmoth's Avatar
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    Back in the glory days of avi encoding I was always curious how different software handled and reacted to ntsc vob/mpeg files. After using my ripper of choice and copying the ntsc dvd to a folder and running through avi.NET(with deinterlace option enabled to test but later disabled!) I'd always get the message of 'you are attempting to deinterlace an already ivtc'd source do you wish to proceed?" Never understood that as I'd ripped it 100% for 100% exactly with no ivtc done. Maybe flags were removed? With AutoGK no such warning, just detecting as pure film or hybrid etc and did its job accordingly- pulldown I assume. Avi.NET was never able to handle R1 material correctly, though does a perfect job with PAL. AutoGK managed everything well. Kudos to it and the guys involved back then.
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  17. Member Seeker47's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by davexnet View Post
    Well perhaps it's too much of a risk to create non-standard soft pulldown, although AVStoDVD offers it
    for it's progressive PAL to NTSC (it also offers slowdown). Here's the info from the log:
    Code:
    DGPulldown Parameters: "S:\Video\DVD_2_test(short).m2v" -srcfps 25 -destfps 29.97 -inplace -tff
    I'm glad that AVStoDVD includes that feature, but I've very seldom had any reason to do a conversion . . . ever since years ago when I bought an off-brand DVD player (no longer in service, whose name I've since forgotten) that could ignore region and play PAL. The PAL discs could be ridiculously expensive to buy, if the film was not generally available here in NTSC format, but in the big city there were sometimes rental options. (Most of which shops went away around the time that Blockbuster did. But at one time there were competing chains, as well as one-off outfits. There was a Tower Video on Sunset, to bookend the big Tower Records further west on that street. At the time I moved away in 2010, there was -- and perhaps still is, at least pre-pandemic ? -- a specialty video shop that had rare stuff and PAL titles, a few doors down from the NuArt Theater in West L.A. They might have required a membership, don't recall for sure.) In subsequent years I've had other devices that can handle PAL material, starting with the WD Live streaming player box. It's odd I guess, but no blatant examples of picture or audio / music speed issues from that playback jump out in my memory. Couldn't have been that much of an issue for me then. I have a decent soundbar, but no elaborate home theater setup, though. The one noticeable thing is that when the Oppo BR deck plays back PAL DVD files it goes from VOB to VOB, with a pause "loading" transition between each, rather than going seamless - continuous. Have to test whether that also happens with a PAL BR files structure. It's been quite a while since I put an actual PAL disc in the deck, and the files playback through it (via the USB port) is usually in the form of MKVs, where that would not occur.
    Last edited by Seeker47; 25th Mar 2021 at 10:17.
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