Anyone Have "24" the R2 Version? (1 Viewer)

[Simon Young]

Yes Philip, I know. You and I are in complete agreement.

It was the FIRST season of 24 that was mastered from NTSC, not film. The SECOND season has received a proper conversion, and therefore does suffer from speedup.

However, it was the FIRST season that Julian was surely referring to when he said he watched it on BBC and couldn't detect the speedup. And, like I said, he wouldn't have, because (unlike SEASON TWO) it wasn't sped up.

Oh, and Will B - it is possible to correct the pitch, so that the sound is simply faster. The first (and best) way is to process the whole soundtrack digitally, so that every frequency is altered. The second (crappy) way, is to cut out 1/25th of every second of audio, thereby keeping it in synch with the sped-up picture, but without raising the pitch. This method has been used on all PAL releases of Fellowship of the Ring and Magnolia (amongst others). It creates an annoying 'skip' in the audio which is almost as annoying as the speedup itself. It is applied to some TV shows as well, such as X-Files and Smallville[i/], and is very distracting.

 

[Julian Lalor]

As many times as somebody claims there's no appreciable difference!

No one is claiming anything of the sort. What we are claiming is that we don't hear that difference. Is this so hard to understand that it has to be repeated ad nauseum in every single thread which discusses PAL DVDs? As I stated, the solution for those who hear PAL speed up is to not purchase PAL DVDs and not bother to pass comment on them, as this only results in virtually every thread about PAL DVDs being ruined by people who think it is their solemn duty to warn the world of the dreaded PAL speedup when everyone here already knows about it. This thread being an excellent case in point. There has been about 3 responses to the actual question and 10 about how terrible the R2 DVD is because everyone has overdosed on helium!

 

[PhilipG]

Yes, that was a "so there" reply.

However, I suggest you take some of your own advice. If you're sick of this argument, don't go on about it in this thread ad nauseum.

Take 2:

People brought up in PAL terrories should not really notice PAL speed up, unless they were very, very infrequent television viewers

That's your opinion. And it's rubbish (in my own humble opinion, and experience).

 

[John CW]

That's your opinion. And it's rubbish (in my own humble opinion, and experience).

Sorry to add fuel to the fire, but I whole heartedly agree with Julian: I have never ever noticed any speedup effects from watching PAL sources. There have been times when I have sold a old Region 2 DVD (when I lived in England) to get its extra-laden Region 1 counterpart... and not once have I ever noticed any change whatsoever. I've even owned two versions of the same film at some points and have tried to compare picture quality before selling one -- but have never noticed a difference of sound that would bother me (or at all!).

This is watching through a THX calibrated DTS home theater system and from someone who has reviewed DVD's in his spare time.

I'm not exaggerating or lying, this has been my honest and truthful experience after owning about 50 Region 2 DVD's and 40 Region 1 whilst living the UK.

It is clear that some people are affected by this and some REALLY TRULY aren't! It is also clear that to someone who cannot hear the difference that it is as silly as complaining about the 3:2 Pulldown that NTSC suffers from: It's not that bad and very rarely ruins a film for someone.

(I guess to you that hearing someone claiming that can't tell the difference is like listening someone say that anamorphic isn't any clearer! )

I have done a side-by-side comparison of PAL and NTSC sources using samples on my PC and YES, I CAN tell a difference... but only when they're side-by-side and I've listened to them several times!

I consider myself to have good hearing and able to pick out the smallest sound from a large source... BUT! it seems (for some reason) that some people are more sensitive to pitch than others.

Mike-M has to weigh up if this will be a problem for him or not and then make his decision... there is no point going through this "I can hear it" / "I can't!" debate.

I, for one, hopes that he'll try the Region 2 version and that he discovers that he is one of the ones who aren't affected by the speed up, but we will just have to see.

I'd really like to know exactly how many people are truly irritated by PAL speedup, but this isn't the thread to find out!

Good luck Mike, let us know how you get on!

~ Johnny

 

[PhilipG]

John CW,

The line you quoted from me was in reference to that one line above that Julian stated as fact. I wasn't rubbishing anyone's opinion that they don't notice any difference. Just to clarify.

 

[Jonathan Kaye]

Bloody hell! All I did back in Post 3 of this thread was mention that the PAL-speedup should be born in mind when comparing the two DVDs!! I have unleashed a monster...:alien:

Anyway, I'm with PhilipG & Simon Young on this: familiar voices/music just sound wrong when subjected to speedup (the opening note of the Star Wars theme is the most obvious to my ears), and once you've noticed it you can't go back.

People brought up in PAL terrories should not really notice PAL speed up, unless they were very, very infrequent television viewers.

Rubbish. PAL-speedup is a mathematical fact, in exactly the same way as 3:2 pulldown. Some people notice the former's effects (either through familiarity with the source material at the correct speed, or through having "a musical ear"), others do not. Equally, some notice the motion judder caused by 3:2 pulldown and others do not.

Simple as that.

 

[Geoff_D]

Having lived in England all my life I never, ever, noticed speed-up of any kind until I started buying NTSC LDs back in the day. It was simply through familiarity with the PAL material that I noticed what I thought was slow-down on the NTSC material. I wondered "why they slowed it down so much for NTSC?" and only in the last few years have I read up on the subject and found that PAL is sped-up and NTSC is at the correct pitch. And you know what? I don't mind either option. PAL because I've grown up watching my fave movies/actors in that standard and NTSC because it's nice to have the material at the original pitch.

I'm not saying that I don't notice the speed-up, I do sometimes, but it genuinely doesn't bother me. The strange thing is I've noticed the speed-up on some commentaries that I've listened to recently, but not on the films that accompany the commentary! And anyone who says that people should notice it simply because it's there is talking out of their arse. If you've grown up watching PAL transfers of movies and tv shows then surely they sound as they always have done to you! And in such circumstances, unless you have an extremely keen musical ear or are exposed to NTSC material, it's unlikely that you'll ever detect the speed-up. Although it's sure gonna be strange watching Buffy at the correct pitch when I get the upcoming R1 Season Four set!

 

[Julian Lalor]

Someone turn off the helium pumps! Bauer doesn't sound like a girl, more like one of those robots from Star Wars Episode One. Roger, roger!

Even if you hear the speed up it is nowhere near fast enough for the above results to be anywhere near close to an accurate summation of the speed up issue. It's scare mongering and patently false, ragardless of whether you honestly believe it or not.

For the record, I own over 400 NTSC laserdiscs and upwards of 1000 NTSC DVDs. And over 400 PAL ones.

 

[Simon Young]

Of course I was exaggerating, for the sake of underlining how pronounced the difference was for me. Only a fool would have taken what I said at face value! But my point was clear - if you're used to hearing something one way, any other way runs the risk of sounding 'wrong'.

 

[Paul_Stachniak]

Out of curiosity, is there a reversal effect with transferring PAL shows to NTSC?

 

[PhilipG]

Instead, we get the following, frankly idiotic, unnecessary and inflammatory comments as a follow up

[4% slower]Take a chill pill. In fact, take two. Do I really need to quote William Shatner to you? I'm sorry, but you seem to be the only person who's not having fun in this thread.[/4% slower]

 

[Dan Rudolph]

There isn't an NTSC slowdown as NTSC can be encoded for 24 or 30 fps. PAL is always done at 25, IIRC. To transfer PAL material to NTSC, you use 30fps and double every fifth frame.

 

[PhilipG]

Thanks, Dan.

 

[John CW]

There isn't an NTSC slowdown as NTSC can be encoded for 24 or 30 fps. PAL is always done at 25, IIRC. To transfer PAL material to NTSC, you use 30fps and double every fifth frame.

If NTSC could be for 24fps there wouldn't be any such thing as 3:2 pulldown(!)

NTSC is encoded at 29.97 fps, this is doubled to 59.94.

There is a pro's and con's list of NTSC versus PAL here. PAL has 20% more vertical screen resolution for instance.

~ Johnny

 

[Simon Young]

Not true - movies shot at 24fps are almost always stored on NTSC DVD this way. It is the DVD player that converts it to 30fps, by doubling every 3rd field in real-time. If you don't believe me, try ripping a raw MPEG-2 stream from an NTSC DVD. The frame rate will be 24fps. What a progressive scan player effectively does is bypass the 3:2 pulldown process and send the pure 24fps signal to a display device that can handle it (via component cables).

 

[Paul_Stachniak]

Meh loosing some resolution doesn't bother my anymore. Ever since I got my HD TV, and seeing CSI in 1080p, all DVDs just fail to impress.

Further more, I seriously doubt I'm not missing any resolution with old stuff like Monty Python of Fawlty Towers.

 

[John CW]

Not true - movies shot at 24fps are almost always stored on NTSC DVD this way.

Yes, but the actual NTSC standard means that it needs to be changed to 29.97 fps (which is really 59.94 fps) to be displayed on a SDTV. The DVD is just told to repeat certain frames (as opposed to actually storing another copy of the exact same frame) this saves on disc space.

~ Johnny

 

[Simon Young]

I just said the exact same thing. It's stored on the disc at 24fps, and the player does the up-conversion to 29.97fps in real-time. And I think you're a bit confused - it's 59.94 FIELDS per second, not frames. 24fps is actually 48 FIELDS per second. Every third field is repeated twice.