[Help] Changing PAL audio speed

[alleycat]

Hi All,

Sorry this is probably a daft question

I'm starting to do some projects using PAL footage and I'm planning on changing them to 23.976 fps as part of the cleanup process. First of all is everything shot at 24/23.976 fps? A lot of these projects are Italian genre movies, some TV movies/miniseries financed by RAI, but still shot on 35mm.

Second I have no idea how to tell whether I need to do pitch correction or not when adjusting the audio. I know some people can tell just by listening but I can't at all, 
most likely because a) I wear a hearing aid so I'm used to things not sounding natural, b) I'm in PAL land and I'm possibly used to things sounding wrong and c) for Italian dubbed audio it's not as if I have an ideal reference to make a comparison against. 

So generally speaking, for a movie taken from PAL VHS or even PAL DVD, is it usually necessary to correct the pitch or not when adjusting the audio to match 23.976 fps? I was planning on doing the conversion with meGUI. 

Thanks all

[Chewtobacca]

So generally speaking, for a movie taken from PAL VHS or even PAL DVD, is it usually necessary to correct the pitch or not when adjusting the audio to match 23.976 fps?

Generally, for a movie, no. Tracks tend to be sped up without pitch correction. Nine times out of ten, slowing them down restores the original pitch. But this is far as generalizations go; outside of this, anything might have happened, and you simply have to use your ears (or someone else's) and knowledge of video and make a judgment.

Some productions are shot on film but edited on video, so I'd be careful with the TV material that you mentioned.
In most PAL countries (including the UK), pitch correction is not applied, but in Spain it often is.
Studios sometimes mess up: reusing old PAL tracks, applying pitch correction unnecessarily (or more than once), etc.

[alleycat]

Thanks Chewtobacca, much appreciated. One of the titles in question is called Treasure Island in Outer Space. It was produced by TV Rai as a 8 hour mini series in Italy, but for the rest of the world it was a 2 hour movie. The project involves the original Italian TV Recording and VHS releases from UK, Germany and Spain. So I'll convert them all without pitch correction and see how they sound, in particular the Spanish VHS. Cheers