So... I've discovered something extremely unsettling on a few Blu-rays lately and it doesn't make any sense to me.
The first one was my German copy of SNOWPIERCER. I was working on a sort of "ultimate remux" of sorts with my own newly-translated English subtitles (in both SRT and PGS format) and checking all the sources I have to ascertain which elements to use, and I was alarmed to discover that the German disc has exactly the sort of "PAL speedup" pitch shift you'd expect from an old-fashioned PAL (and thus 25 fps) DVD. However, it's got a framerate of 23.976 fps (24000/1001)! I thought maybe they're done something shonky to do with using audio from a master created for the German DVD or something (Germany being PAL etc.) and moved on with my life. After all, the Korean, American, and French Blu-rays were absolutely fine and had consistently lower pitch than the German audio. Weird anomaly, but no biggie, right?
The thing is though, now, I'm working on another one of my favourite films: NEAR DARK. I have many copies of this one as well: the much maligned US/UK BD, one from Spain, and the most recent one from France, as well as my old 2-disc Anchor Bay DVD copy, which is of course PAL (running at 25 fps, presumably with the associated speedup and resulting heightened pitch). The DVD has a director commentary that isn't on any BD release, so I was going to correct the PAL speedup on that and mux it into the French BD video track when I discovered 2 very confusing things:
This explains why the audio has always felt weird when I've watch the film on Blu-ray. I'm flummoxed, though. What the hell could have caused this?!
Anybody got any ideas?
The first one was my German copy of SNOWPIERCER. I was working on a sort of "ultimate remux" of sorts with my own newly-translated English subtitles (in both SRT and PGS format) and checking all the sources I have to ascertain which elements to use, and I was alarmed to discover that the German disc has exactly the sort of "PAL speedup" pitch shift you'd expect from an old-fashioned PAL (and thus 25 fps) DVD. However, it's got a framerate of 23.976 fps (24000/1001)! I thought maybe they're done something shonky to do with using audio from a master created for the German DVD or something (Germany being PAL etc.) and moved on with my life. After all, the Korean, American, and French Blu-rays were absolutely fine and had consistently lower pitch than the German audio. Weird anomaly, but no biggie, right?
The thing is though, now, I'm working on another one of my favourite films: NEAR DARK. I have many copies of this one as well: the much maligned US/UK BD, one from Spain, and the most recent one from France, as well as my old 2-disc Anchor Bay DVD copy, which is of course PAL (running at 25 fps, presumably with the associated speedup and resulting heightened pitch). The DVD has a director commentary that isn't on any BD release, so I was going to correct the PAL speedup on that and mux it into the French BD video track when I discovered 2 very confusing things:
- The PAL DVD audio was not pitch-shifted upwards, as the music is in the same key as the soundtrack CD
- On the contrary, the DVD audio is actually lower in pitch than all three of the Blu-ray releases, consistent across every audio track on each release. All the BDs have the pitch shifted too high, the same as German Snowpiercer!
This explains why the audio has always felt weird when I've watch the film on Blu-ray. I'm flummoxed, though. What the hell could have caused this?!
Anybody got any ideas?