The PAL speedup cringe - Star Trek TNG demo

[@jadsi]

FINALLY! Someone else who knows the struggle of NTSC and PAL speed mumbo jumbo

[@Dowlphin]

I only look sentimentally into the past of technology where I find beautiful simplicity, otherwise it's "good riddance!" for me. (I wish I could say that to harddisks, for example. ... But cars for example are nuts these days. They are not meant to be computers on wheels. My non-wheeled computer is already giving me enough headache and rage.)

[@Hellfreezer]

I was put off buying UK releases of old shows for a long time because of that. All you have to do fix it is lower the pitch by -4,272%, but keep the frame rate the same. If it's a UK show on a US DVD raise it by the same amount. It's less of a problem with blurays thankfully.

[@Dowlphin]

If you only lower the pitch, you still got the wrong play speed. I wouldn't like that either. It's fine for documentaries or such, but not for material that is supposed to be immersive, to reflect realtime events accurately. Pitch shifting is also not a simple process, so the quality might not be ideal. As for overall speed change quality, the KZbin player is really good, although in certain audio tracks its limitations become audible. MPC-HC seems to have an equally good one, but I cannot get the video to play without stutter. VLC's audio speed change has some minor artifacting, but the video works properly.

[@Hellfreezer]

@@Dowlphin The speed up isn't really notable beyond what it does to the sound pitch. If you play them side by side sure but it's not going to be noticeable otherwise. Also I'm not sure what you mean by "pitch shifting is not a simple process". You take the audio file load it into audacity, lower the pitch -4.272%, export the new file and replace it. There are various ways to replace the audio file.

[@Dowlphin]

@@Hellfreezer I mean it is not algorithmically simple. Lowering pitch is basically lenghtening the waveform (non-destructive - you simply change the playback speed) and compressing it (destructive). The whole point of PAL speedup is that it creates fluid video motion with an unaltered audio waveform. Back then the methods for algorithmic pitch alteration were not good enough for production quality.

[@Hellfreezer]

@@Dowlphin I think there's a miscommunication here. I'm talking about pitch shifting or scaling. That doesn't alter the duration of the audio. That's why it works a a simple fix. It just adjusts it so that it sounds more like it was intended. I'm not talking about back then. I'm talking about a viable method for correcting it for home use now.

[@Dowlphin]

@@Hellfreezer And I told you, it doesn't sound good. I am very meticulous and notice little things. I am someone who knows that correct PAL pixel aspect is not 16:15 but 128:117 and that many high-paid professionals did it wrong.

[@OpticalHaze]

well I can't watch Movies anymore in PAL once you know you know :) goes for Movies on TV or PAL DVD/Laserdisc So if you watch a 2h Movie side by side NTSC vs PAL the PAL one will finish 4m48s earlier then :D

[@Dowlphin]

Yeah, I had to jump through some hoops here in Germany to get DVDs in NTSC. (And then there's dealing with disc drive region setting.) Of course the even bigger point then is the original language. There are few German-dubbed shows/movies that aren't significantly inferior, since the voice actor industry is just much smaller in Germany. Although the upside, if one cares, is that then the vocals aren't sped up anymore, since they're recorded for PAL. Recently I have been looking into versions available of Highway to Heaven, and once again the situation is very frustrating for a perfectionist, since I believe the show deserves archival quality. There is a BluRay version that is higher-res but has screwed up lighting supposed to be an improvement, and it is very weird format-wise because it runs even slower than some original NTSC TV versions, but without pitch drop. - Then add cutting policy to that and various other details and it is such a mess that really dissuases me from spending money on a physical copy, also because I cannot get the detailed info about those that I would need for an educated purchasing decision. The way society runs adds so much hassle and then profits from offering pseudo-solutions.

[@OpticalHaze]

@@Dowlphin I always try to run movies in 23.97 fps even RC1 Dvds to get a cinematic feel. but the conversion isn't always easy as it depends on the mastering if the 3:2 works without cadence breaking

[@Dowlphin]

@@OpticalHaze Oh yeah, I forgot that bit. It almost seems like the BluRay version might be originated from a PAL source because it has NTSC framerate but conversion stutter. Although I don't care for the psychological-nostalgic effect of low framerate. I prefer fludity so much that back then I would use smart deinterlace filters to re-encode interlaced material with double framerate.

[@you-5-iver804]

PAL is better. There I said it. It sounds more dramatic despite its inaccuracies

[@Dowlphin]

Interesting take. Personally I prefer slow style where one can ponder. Well, ponder 4% more in this case, haha. I love the style of Verheuven's Dune for this reason.