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Notes on converting Building Empire from PAL to NTSC

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As I recall, the main parts of Building Empire were created using a combination of the 2004 PAL DVD and my laserdisc transfer.

Now I know that the audio used on my laserdisc transfer was already pitch-corrected to account for the PAL speedup. That is, even though the audio played at PAL speed, it played at the original - correct - pitch. (I don't know for certain if this is also the case with the 2004 DVD, but I should carry out a quick side-by-side listen to find out).

Anyway, if this audio is resampled down to play at NTSC speed, it will need to be pitch shifted up in order to retain the correct pitch (time stretching).

Alternatively, you could use DGPulldown's 25fps to 29.97fps conversion and leave the audio untouched (which I believe was the method boon used for RtJ).

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Are you sure? I'm listening to it right now, and all the characters sound like chipmunks. It doesn't sound pitch corrected to me.
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I can't be sure about Building Empire because I don't know exactly what Jambe did with the audio sources.

However, the subject of pitch correction was discussed at length around the time my DVDs were released. Citizen first pointed it out to me, and I noticed it when I compared the recording of the ANH mono mix - taken from a PAL TV broadcast and had not been pitch corrected - with the VHS source I used in the laserdisc transfer.
See:
http://www.originaltrilogy.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=9&threadid=1545&STARTPAGE=12
http://www.originaltrilogy.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=9&threadid=2900&STARTPAGE=2

So the parts of Building Empire that are taken from my laserdisc transfer have the correct pitch.

The most reliable way to confirm if the pitch increase is there or not - for those of us who don't have "perfect pitch" - is to carry out a listening test on two samples (I find it's more noticable in music than dialogue).

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