Cable networks are speeding up TV shows to cram in ads

Re:Cable networks are speeding up TV shows to cram in ads by tjoener on Friday August 10, 2018 @04:40AM (#17731645)

Reminds me the first time I watched a european version of lost. Being used to the show so much, I noticed the pitch of the intro sound was different. Then I realized PAL is 25fps vs NTSCs 23.976. I was surprised I could hear the difference at all

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Re:Cable networks are speeding up TV shows to cram in ads by radiowave on Friday August 10, 2018 @08:28AM (#17732652)

It was probably shot on film at 24fps, then a 3:2 frame sequence is applied to convert to 30fps, which is then slowed down to 29.97. This slowdown (known as a "pulldown" in the jargon) causes the drop in pitch of the audio.

(Sometimes things are actually shot at 23.976, so that they can be sequenced straight into 29.97 without needing the pulldown, but I'm not sure how common this is).

The other thing is that when converting to PAL, you have two choices - either apply a very complicated frame squence that I've long since forgotten all the details of, or just speed up the footage from 24fps (or 23.976) to 25fps, causing a raise in pitch.

So it's quite possible that neither of the versions you watched were actually at true speed or pitch - the NTSC version could have been slow and the PAL version could have been fast.

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Re:Cable networks are speeding up TV shows to cram in ads by btbuilder on Friday August 10, 2018 @05:09AM (#17731760)

Pretty sure NTSC standard/transmission is actually 29.97. It was 30Hz when originally released in black and white and then some was dedicated to the color channel.

30fps (b&w NTSC) and 25fps (PAL) are derived from grid AC frequencies of 60Hz (NA) and 50Hz (most other countries). Kept the old-school electronics simple...

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