Originally posted by: Karyudo
Yes... but that doesn't preclude there being separate master tapes in NTSC and PAL. The side break issue is obvious -- even different PAL LDs from the same master have different side breaks. But different framing in the middle of sides? Different film flaws? Different video flaws? Different frame counts at reel changes? That does not sound consistent with starting from the same master to me.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I don't think you can know to the degree you assume. My empirical evidence suggests PAL and NTSC LDs do not come from the same masters.

There are still many ways this could happen. When they created the "raw" digital master tapes they still needed to be prepared for release separately, and so preparation would be done AFTER that, and I imagine that several releases would have been done independently of one another. Dropping frames implies it's imperfectly put back together while they're preparing the release masters, it doesn't mean they came from a different master source originally. The idea that they fully restored the OT creating a new digital master in 1993 and then didn't use that on the PAL releases is demonstrably incorrect. The framing may still have been somewhat "corrected" for release - this would logically be done AFTER the restoration onto the digital master tapes.