Massacre Survivor - NTSC trickery vs. 3:2 pulldown

[falkor]

Somebody PMd me about an NTSC version of Massacre Survivor, and I wasn't sure at first, but after speaking to Toby we have 2 options:

We can't speed up 23.976 fps to 29.97 fps, otherwise we are talking Crane vs. Chipmunks!

What we can do instead is:

a) Trickery

3:2 pulldown

Once I upload these clips, we are going to have to burn them to DVD to test out what has the least jerky motion. This will also be putting the trickery to it's ultimate test, thereby revealing any potential flaws that might occur with the PAL version--not obvious to the human eye--if we were to go ahead and use that method; more likely we will go with speedup for PAL as voted by you guys, but as for NTSC...?

[prinnysquad]

Falkor,

I really appreciate the attention to detail and professionalism you're investing in this gig.

BUT

Half the time I haven't got the faintest idea what you're talking about!

With this (my ignorance of techy matters) in mind, let me say that I'll be delighted with:

- A PAL dvd

- Those excellent screenshots you posted recently of the final processed images as the actual print.

- The film running at normal speed.

- The quality boxart

- Whatever extras are put on the disc.

Anything else, I'll leave to your judgement!

[tdb]

Let me see if I've got this right:

Since it's the most straight forward and simplest method, you've created a PAL video version (with the 4% speed-up).

So what you're asking now about a NTSC version is, convert the PAL version to NTSC or do it from the telecine?

Film to video conversion is complicated. Wouldn't a 3:2 pulldown from the telecine give us a better NTSC picture than converting the PAL? Am I even asking the right questions?

I know that I've heard plenty of bitching about the crappy PAL to NTSC conversions for Celestial's Shaw discs. So whatever they did, I suggest you don't. There

[falkor]

The idea is: if you've got a multi-region DVD player and multi-region TV or watching on PC then take the PAL version! However, if you want NTSC then it's no problem... just like you judged the aspect ratio, please burn this and watch on your DVD player, and see which clip looks the most fluid. Anyone who does PAL to NTSC is pretty much faced with same problem. I am going to test this now. At least you know we're not using some crappy piece of software or analogue device for changing the frame rate.

VIDEO_TS.zip...

Video 1/Track 1: Trickery

Video 2/Track 2: 3:2 Pulldown

I'm predicting that the 3:2 Pulldown could look jerky when played back on a standalone player, but could be completely wrong.

Film to video conversion is complicated. Wouldn't a 3:2 pulldown from the telecine give us a better NTSC picture than converting the PAL? Am I even asking the right questions?

It wasn't done at the time of transfer, as PAL will be the primary version of the DVD. However, we can perform a 3:2 pulldown by flagging and changing the timecodes on the original video without actually re-encoding it if that makes sense? In essence, with software 3:2 pulldown, you are tricking your NTSC DVD player into playing a PAL source, though the video frame size has already been shaped to 720 x 480 during the restoration stage. Therefore, without sounding too technical, you will be tricking your DVD player more with the 3:2 pulldown than with "Trickery", which supposedly duplicates an extra frame every second at the deinterlacing stage, but I haven't been able to spot any flaws whatsoever. Nevertheless, these techniques are better than average and designed for a modern high standard PAL to NTSC conversion. I just want to make sure you guys are informed at each stage of the process and are happy with the final DVD.

Anything else, I'll leave to your judgement!

We've never put this much effort into a DVD before. Toby and myself have been consulting each other at every stage of the process. We have to be extremely careful with handling and presenting such an important treasure; it's too fragile. Massacre Survivor deserves only the best attention! How would the action choreographers feel if we were only giving 99% effort to their unique creation? Massacre is getting 101% of my committment! Most classics are at the Hong Kong Film Archive like most archaeological treasures are at the British Museum or the Cairo Museum. Massacre is still buried under the sea bed along with antiques from Atlantis... we want it surfacing like the shiny gold of Tutankhamun!

[falkor]

I just tested it with my standalone that does pure NTSC output to my Japanese TV that I use for playing arcade games via supergun. To my surprise, compared to "Trickery" the 3:2 pulldown looks ever-so-slightly smoother, so that's the method to be used for anyone who can't playback PAL.

[Kwok Choi]

Video 1/Track 1: Trickery

Video 2/Track 2: 3:2 Pulldown

I'm predicting that the 3:2 Pulldown could look jerky when played back on a standalone player, but could be completely wrong.

It wasn't done at the time of transfer, as PAL will be the primary version of the DVD. However, we can perform a 3:2 pulldown by flagging and changing the timecodes on the original video without actually re-encoding it if that makes sense? In essence, with software 3:2 pulldown, you are tricking your NTSC DVD player into playing a PAL source, though the video frame size has already been shaped to 720 x 480 during the restoration stage. Therefore, without sounding too technical, you will be tricking your DVD player more with the 3:2 pulldown than with "Trickery", which supposedly duplicates an extra frame every second at the deinterlacing stage, but I haven't been able to spot any flaws whatsoever. Nevertheless, these techniques are better than average and designed for a modern high standard PAL to NTSC conversion. I just want to make sure you guys are informed at each stage of the process and are happy with the final DVD.

In simple terms 3:2 pulldown is the answer to the NTSC problem (please let us not get into specifics as this is an entire seminar).This should be ok with NTSC only systems and also play well without the jerky movements on the majority of UK/Europe/Pal/Ntsc combo systems.