Lang Thompson
http://members.aol.com/wlt4/index.htm wrote:
 
>I've been told that many PAL to NTSC transfers lose three to four
>minutes for a feature film because they're not done properly.  The
>reason given was that PAL runs at 25 fps and NTSC at 24 but that the
>extra frame isn't dropped each second.  Now unless i'm misunderstanding
>something (and the person explaining this couldn't elaborate) that
>means the films would actually run *longer* in NTSC because the same
>number of frames are being shown at a slightly slower rate.  Can
>anybody explain what's going on here?
 
Feature films transferred to PAL are usually run at the "wrong" speed of
25fps. Thus a film originally running 100 minutes would run 96 minutes. If
this tape was dubbed to NTSC it would still run 96 minutes. The problem lies
in the original  "incorrect" transfer to PAL.
A PAL to NTSC conversion (or vice versa)  will have a  one to one
relationship duration wise.
 
In the UK, we are now seeing some feature films originally transferred to
tape at 24fps(NTSC) then standards converted to PAL. So we now get and
"extra" bonus of seeing (and hearing) these movies at the "correct" speed
(but sometimes with motion artefacts).
 
Tony Saffrey
BBCtv
London
 
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