Antony's PAL obsessions

[AntonyF]

Antony\'s PAL obsessions

Okay. So I'm obsessive. And maybe overly sensitive. But I notice things.

For those that don't know, when NTSC (US) TV is converted to PAL (UK, Europe et al) it goes through a speeding up process. About 3 - 4%.

I noticed this when I went to the US, things seemed deeper, but I never knew why for ages. So I did notice before I even knew of this!

Anyway, I got Smallville season one on DVD. In PAL. And it's been driving me mad. Too fast. Particularly the theme, but also the cast sound high pitched. I'd only ever watched NTSC until this point, this is why I'm probably reacting. Plus I have Remy Zero's album, so know the Save Me tune at its proper speed.

Anway, so I gave in and bought the DVDs again, this time in NTSC. Ahhh. Lovely. The right speed.

To prove that I'm not mad, listen to these. Should be interesting for both sides of the pond as it were.

http://www.b5tv.com/bits/smpal.mp3 - PAL
http://www.b5tv.com/bits/smntsc.mp3 - NTSC (what it should be)

And as a final point of interest... mixed! Listen to how they start in sync, but get further apart.

http://www.b5tv.com/bits/smmerge.mp3

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Re: Antony\'s PAL obsessions

I happened to see a B5 "music video" that a German fan put together from PAL tapes last night and Ivanova sounded like one of the Chipmunks to me. It is a relatively small percentage speed up, but amazingly annoying when you hear it. (The "music" portion of the video was fine, coming as it did from a CD, it was just the little dialogue snippets that were off. Oddly it was much more annoying with Ivanova's lines than with either Sheridan's or Delenn's. They didn't sound quite so odd.)

Regards,

Joe

 

[Oatley1]

Re: Antony\'s PAL obsessions

When I first saw the title of this thread, it sort of threw me, because PAL is a brand of dog food here, and I'm thinking 'Antony's obsessing about dog food - this place is just getting plain weird'.

How does the reverse (PAL ---> NTSC) affect shows like Doctor Who in the US? Is it noticably slowed down?

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Re: Antony\'s PAL obsessions

How does the reverse (PAL ---> NTSC) affect shows like Doctor Who in the US? Is it noticably slowed down?

It isn't really a PAL/NTSC thing. The 2% speed increase happens with material that originates on sound film when it is transferred to PAL. The problem is the frame rates of the three systems.

Sync sound film runs through the projector at 24 frames per second. NTSC video runs at 30 fps. Because the video format is signficantly faster, NTSC employs a trick called a 3:2 pull-down, effectively repeating a single video frame from time to time. This keeps the video and tape speeds in sync, but causes some quality problems. PAL video runs at 25 frames per second. That's so close to sound film speed that there's no "room" to fit in a repeated frame anywhere and no other electronically making things "fit" that wouldn't also cause other problems. The simplest way of dealing with the issue is to run the movie projector at 25 frames per second so that the videotape can just record at its own native speed. Naturally this results in the action and the sound being sped up.

Material that originates on video tape doesn't have these problems, because there is no film-to-video transfer stage. PAL to NTSC video transfers can be handled with the same 3:2 pull-down used for film.

Regards,

Joe

 

[AntonyF]

Re: Antony\'s PAL obsessions

Oddly it was much more annoying with Ivanova's lines than with either Sheridan's or Delenn's. They didn't sound quite so odd.)

I find it's more noticable with some voices. In Smallville, it's Lex mostly, Clark and Chloe somewhat. Others, I can't say I notice. It's odd.

Scrubs I've mostly in NTSC... and seeing it on TV here the other day, I swear it not only sounded fast but visually looked too fast too.

Others, like Alias, I change between the two and don't notice much of anything. Maybe because I've watched a lot of PAL and NTSC of each, rather than going from a lot of one suddenly to another.

 

[A_M_Swallow]

Re: Antony\'s PAL obsessions

The person it is most noticeable with is JMS. It could almost be a different person.

 

[Jade Jaguar]

Re: Antony\'s PAL obsessions

I know that they have sound processors that adjust the pitch of voices. They are used when films are sped up, to save time for TV. I wonder why they don't use them for the DVDs and tapes?