Question about PAL tape-to-film and audio speed

[Frank Kruse]

and the link:

http://www.tcelectronic.com/Default.asp?Id=1122#VP8

[cpi]

Branko - I wrote without rereading! Our clients who care about the change in sound are coming from HiDef-PAL. When they generate their frames as tiffs to be shot to film at their video effects lab - they recalc 25 into 24, and output 24fps. Resulting in film speed. Otherwise, I don't know of any other way but frame-to-frame transfer as you describe.

Frank, the dolby box you mention (Dolby cat. 585 ) you mentioned costs less than 10k euros (I think closer to 8k - for all 8 channels!!!) and provides upto 15% scaling seems to be the best solution. We are still waiting for our dealer to give the exact quote, but I think this box will soon become a standard in european dubbing theaters.

Also, Frank, I didn't find the pitch program in our 6000 (wanted to try your test and compare against purepitch) - was this an addon prog?

-David

[Frank Kruse]

I actually had the re-recording mixer operate the 6000 on the dubbing stage. He tried all sorts of stuff incl. the Orville. I´ll ask him what exact program he used. He was suprised too because he didn´t expect this result.

frank.

[Branko]

Frank,
Sorry to dissagree about your comparison between Serato and "expensive hardware boxes". While I still remember how amazed I was when I heard Serato Pitch'n'Time for the first time, it didn't take long time to discover that it doesn't behave equally with all types of program.
Serato PnT was the first TDM pitch shifter (or time stretcher, the choice is yours) that was capable of transposing a musical harmony without distortion and, compared to sumilar WM or Digi products, really sounded completely different. It's worth mentioning that PnT's phase coherence is rock solid, unlike Digi's.
Unfortunately, when dealing with voice (I mean spoken voice, dialogue) PnT introduces some kind of "roomy" artifacts and if the sound contains some white-noise-like room tone, things get even worse.
If you listen carefully to results produced by PnT and HARMO (that's the name of expensive French box) you'll notice a huge difference. That difference becomes even more obvious when you listen on good monitors.
Once again, I'm not comparing TC or Eventide or Lexicon (although Lexicon had the famous 2400, an excellent time processor!), but HARMO and Serato. And these two are definitely not in the same league.
Branko

[Branko]

Ricardo,
At what stage will you be involved in the project and what kind of material will you work with? I need more elements to try to sort it out...
Branko

[Frank Kruse]

Originally posted by Branko:
Frank,
Sorry to dissagree about your comparison between Serato and "expensive hardware boxes". While I still remember how amazed I was when I heard Serato Pitch'n'Time for the first time, it didn't take long time to discover that it doesn't behave equally with all types of program.
Serato PnT was the first TDM pitch shifter (or time stretcher, the choice is yours) that was capable of transposing a musical harmony without distortion and, compared to sumilar WM or Digi products, really sounded completely different. It's worth mentioning that PnT's phase coherence is rock solid, unlike Digi's.
Unfortunately, when dealing with voice (I mean spoken voice, dialogue) PnT introduces some kind of "roomy" artifacts and if the sound contains some white-noise-like room tone, things get even worse.
If you listen carefully to results produced by PnT and HARMO (that's the name of expensive French box) you'll notice a huge difference. That difference becomes even more obvious when you listen on good monitors.
Once again, I'm not comparing TC or Eventide or Lexicon (although Lexicon had the famous 2400, an excellent time processor!), but HARMO and Serato. And these two are definitely not in the same league.
Branko

Please read my mail.
I never said that PnT is better than HARMO. I was comparing PnT with TC M6000. All I said was, that PnT is by far better than the VP8 program of the M6000.
But an 8 chanel HARMO setup costs about 40000euro I heared...

frank.

[RicardoEscallon]

Hi Branko.

I am the person in charge of the whole audio-post process. I receive the production sound DATs and go all the way to the re-recording stage, Dolby encoding and checking the first copy. As you see, I am absolutely involved.
We are in LatinAmerica (Colombia), where the money doesn't buy much in dollars or euros. That is why the producers decided to shoot in DV PAL and not film. This is a NTSC country, so we are not used to deal with this kind of speed problems that come when you choose the better video quality of PAL. I don't have access to the hardware you discuse with the other guys in this post.

I have two choices:
1. Time stretch the production sound and work from the beginning at "film speed"

2. Work at video PAL speed and time correct everything at the end of the process.

Tape-to-film facilities say they will Dolby encode at the right speed the final audio, but they only talk about Dolby SR. Not Dolby Digital. They don't talk about their speed correction system, so I prefer to take care of the whole process and send the optical sound negative to the laboratory. This way I can ensure the quality of the sound of the film.

What do you recommend?

Thank you,
Ricardo

[Branko]

Ricardo,
As you've mentioned, film budget is a limitation you have to live with. You have to check what's gonna be the editing system for the film - if they want to use something like Avid Xpress or Xpress DV, you're limited to 25 fps.
In my opinion, the best way to have complete control on the whole project is to work at the right speed from the very beginning (this is my opinion only) as I've seen many dissapointed filmmakers watching their film being screened 4.1% slower - they become aware of the new timing and rhytm at the moment nothing can be changed.
To resume, I'd choose option 1. Also, I wouldn't allow anyone "encode" my mix without being able to hear the result. Experimenting with different plugins, you'll find the right tool for most timestretching situations in your production dialogue tracks.
Working at the right speed, you won't need to pitch shift or timestretch your final mix.

Branko