Question about PAL Speed-Up (1 Viewer)

[Jeannette Walsh]

re the PAL - NTSC conversions, I have a JVC DVD player which does the conversion and all my PAL discs (about 40% of my collection) look as good as the NTSC discs.

 

[Dan Rudolph]

Just to be sure, the HD standard(s) are the same worldwide, right?

 

[Jo_C]

Something I must also mention here...notice the final season of "Little House On The Prairie"'s airings on the Hallmark Channel are too sped up and time compressed. They apparently come from UK PAL masters converted to NTSC.

 

[Gary->dee]

Thank you, John(very indepth knowledge there ) and Enrico for helping to answer my questions!

Now at least I know if and when I make the move to Europe that I can take all my DVDs with me and I won't have to buy everything all over again. Just a good region-free DVD player!

 

[PhilipG]

You also need a TV compatible with the NTSC signal (otherwise you get a bad black and white picture). They are commonplace now, at least in the UK - and Sweden is a lot more advanced than most of Europe wrt new technology so you shouldn't have a problem. BTW there are different varieties of PAL too, but let's not go there.

 

[Yee-Ming]

Can't speak for Europe, but just about all TVs sold here are multi-system, and automatically switch on detecting what the source is. Sometimes, when I forgot what system the disc is, I press the "information" button and it'll tell me if the source is 525p or 625i, which tells me it's NTSC (525 lines progressive), or PAL (625 lines but interlaced, since my player doesn't do PAL progressive). With broadcast TV, it'll literally say "PAL", as well as "Nicam Stereo" or "Mono" as appropriate.

Lovely things, multi-system tellys and multi-system, region-free DVD players

 

[andrew markworthy]

Exactly the same in the UK and has been for the past few years. Same goes for our VHS players and our DVD players are either explicitly advertised as multi-regional or have a very simple hack to make them so.

 

[John Whittle]

Converting PAL to NTSC would result in a slow down since you'd change the 25 Pal to 24 and then do 3-2 like you do with 24 frame film. (when you do it in a profession converter)

It's more likely that Hallmark has used time compression (another evil) that lets you fit a program to a time slot. This is another bad box that came about with digital frame stores but is unrelated to PAL/NTSC.

John

 

[Dan Rudolph]

No, you would transfer at 30 fps and do 5-6 conversion. No speed change necessary.

 

[Will Krupp]

Yeah....I think PAL gets blamed for American Time Compression more often than not. About twenty or so years ago, syndicaters got the bright idea that, instead of editing syndicated television shows to fit more commercial time, they would use this new "wonder" called time compression. The speed up is much faster than 4% (anybody have the specific rate?...I seem to remember an extra three minutes for a 30 min show....8%..?) and far far more noticeable. I don't seem to see it much any more, but shows from the 1970's (making their initial syndication runs in the early 1980's) seem to be affected more than most.

I mostly remember seeing it on some episodes of THE AVENGERS when they made their initial airings on A&E about twelve years back. The episode run was made up from a variety of sources and ran the gamut of quality. They used the old CBS masters (missing the "teaser" and "tag" scenes) for the episodes that ran as part of the CBS late night line-up back in 1980, but also used a few episodes that featured a very obvious time compression (RETURN OF THE CYBERNAUTS sticks in my mind as being almost laughable.)

Again, this is NOT PAL...which I still think is pretty subtle, when handled properly.

 

[WarrenM]

You won't notice it. Only nit-pickers claim to notice it but they really don't. They just need a flaw to pick out. Any regular person will not know the difference between a PAL and NTSC version.

 

[Simon Young]

WarrenM, I laughed out loud when I read your post. How anyone can be so condescending is completely beyond me. The majority of the replies to this thread are informative and perfectly valid opinions. Yours just smacks of trolling, I'm afraid.

To you, and all others with this "opinion", I say this.

PAL speedup exists for all of us that live in Europe and Australia. The majority don't notice it and aren't at all bothered by it, fewer people notice it and aren't bothered by it, and the minority notice it and are bothered by it. Some people can live with it if they don't know the content well, others are turned off by the mere thought of it (an issue almost as close to my heart as OAR, funnily enough). And just because you don't notice it, or are not bothered by it, doesn't mean your "opinion" is right. And it certainly doesn't make you any more "normal" than I. Sheesh.

But I'm sure you knew all of that already, seeing as it's clearly evident from the other replies to this thread.

BTW, just to add more fuel to the fire, if John Williams had intended to write the Star Wars theme in the key of B, rather than B flat, he would have. But he didn't. He wrote it in B flat, which is how I would like to hear it when I watch Star Wars. I apply this logic to whatever I watch, and that's the reason I, personally, prefer NTSC movie transfers over PAL ones. Let me ask everyone this: if a film was released with slightly incorrect colour balance (too much blue, for instance), or incorrect framing (i.e. Back To The Future II), might you not try to seek out a better version of the film on DVD, that more accurately preserves how the film should be watched?

 

[george kaplan]

And think of all the time you'll save! You'll be able to watch Ben-Hur in 10 fewer minutes than those poor slobs watching the non-sped up version!

 

[Will Krupp]

Let me make MY position crystal clear. I mentioned that PAL speed-up is subtle, but I would still take NTSC over PAL when given the option (in terms of speed)

The only time I really notice PAL speedup is during certain sections of THE GREAT DICTATOR, when Paulette Goddard's voice is CLEARLY a higher pitch than it should be.

All this just cause I was curious as to the speed British TV product was filmed..:b

 

[Mark_vdH]

Well worded, Simon.

However, I have never heard of film makers remarking about PAL speed-up harming their movies. And remember, PAL speed-up is not inherent to PAL dvd's. Any film maker could release his movie at the correct speed in PAL countries, although thereby inducing (to most people hardly noticable) ghosting artifacts.

 

[Simon Young]

Well, Peter Jackson specifically requested that the Lord of the Rings DVDs have pitch correction applied in PAL territories. Unfortunately, this resulted in horrible skipping noises in the soundtrack (which, ironically, more people complain about than the PAL speedup).

I'm sure that the majority of directors don't really mind the speedup. The cinema is the only TRUE way to watch a film as intended, projected from 35mm film. After that, DVDs are a good compromise for home viewing, but I hardly think most directors would lose any sleep over PAL speedup. Besides, they probably hardly ever watch their own movies on video.

On a side note, I remember this one time that James Van Der Beek was on a UK TV show promoting Dawson's Creek. They showed a brief clip at the beginning of the interview, and afterwards he commented on how squeaky his voice seemed. He was totally bemused by it, and the interviewer just shrugged it off. Funny stuff.

 

[Harry-N]

PAL speedup just reared its ugly head for me - but not on a video format.

Being a fan of THE PRISONER, I recently acquired the newest set of CD soundtracks (THE PRISONER: FILE 1, 2, amd 3). These feature not only the music used in the series, but selected snippets of dialog as well.

I can only surmise that the reason Patrick McGoohan and all of his co-horts sound like chipmunks is because the CD compilers used PAL DVDs. I have no confirmation of it, but they are perceptably fast compared to what I'm used to here in the States.

If true, it might also confirm that these ITC shows were originally filmed at the 24fps speed for worldwide syndication.

Harry

 

[Rob Gillespie]

Well, thanks for telling me what I'm hearing! You are wrong, by the way.

Listen to the audio CD of any decent film soundtrack - say, Jurassic Park for arguments' sake. Now listen to the same piece of music but from the PAL transfer of the movie itself. Now tell me you hear no difference.

It was exactly this scenario that alerted me to the PAL speedup problem back in the glory days of LaserDisc.

If you don't mind the speed up, that's a different matter. But to say we don't actually hear the difference is just.... well, bullshit really.

 

[Will Krupp]

A-HAAAAAAAAAAAAA!! At last, maybe I am getting closer to the answer for my original question! Yipppeeeeeee!

 

[Doug Bull]

Let's not forget The plus and minus of PAL Vs NTSC.

PAL: + Superior Picture resolution.
- annoying Sound Speedup.

NTSC: + Correct Sound
- Lower Picture Resolution.

When choosing a PAL or NTSC DVD which is more important? Picture or Sound?

Sound is why I go NTSC over PAL most of the time.(especially Music orientated discs)
NTSC can almost look as good as PAL these days with a good Progressive Scan Player or Display unit.


It is mainly because of the bargain bins in stores here in OZ that my PAL DVD collection is as large as it is.