The Kids Are Alright DVD - slow

[Jaffaman]

I've been reading the posts about the restored, and mostly brilliant "The Kids Are Alright" DVD. There appears to be one annoying aspect about it that hasn't been touched on.

Some of the songs and interviews are now 4% slow. It's the same PAL/NTSC problem that caused the 4% speed-up of some clips in the old VHS and laserdisc editions, but in reverse.

Check out "Anyway Anyhow Anywhere", for example. Originally shot at 25fps for UK PAL TV, and now transferred to NTSC at 24fps. The same with the British interviews. Melvyn Bragg doesn't sound that deep in person even today. Somebody in the forum mentioned "A Quick One" from the Rock and Roll Circus sounding slower than the CD. This would be because the Circus was to be a TV special, shot at 25fps. For cinematic release, and now on DVD, it's down to 24fps.

Oddly, though, "Tommy Can You Hear Me" seems to be at the correct pitch, despite being from a PAL videotape, originally. Pitch corrected?

At least the majority of clips are now at the correct speed, for which I'm grateful. Here in PAL-based NZ, the DVD is issued in the NTSC format, so I'm watching it at the same speed as those in the US, Canada and other NTSC countries.

What's strange to me is the fact that all the old VHS copies of the movie were made from a PAL video transfer. This is why even the NTSC VHS and laserdiscs ran 4% fast.

[BrettyD]

Welcome Jaffaman!

Funny you should post this. I just got the DVD on Friday evening, have been watching it and came to the same conclusion that you did. It's a pity.

I was reading the website for TKAA as the reissue was being prepared and I'm sure some mention was made of the PAL frame rate issue. Will have to go look it up again...

Brett

[Phil Elliott]

Welcome!

Tommy Can You Hear Me actually pinches audio from different sources. The VHS uses a unique mix (I'm not 100% certain, but I'm assuming it's a John Entwhistle mix dubbed on later). The DVD however, seems to use the mix from the original Tommy LP. So while in one sense, you are talking about two different soundtracks, in another sense, yes, they corrected the speed :) .

In lifting the sound from other sources, I keep discovering oddities in the sound that bug me. Like when Keith is about to blow up his kit, the film runs ahead of the soundtrack so much, they have had to edit out a huge chunk of the audio to sync up the "BOOOM".

A Quick One does run slow, but the pitch was corrected for the main feature. Watching this segment on disc two gives the game away - same speed, not pitch corrected.

As you've pointed out, Anyway Anyhow Anywhere is running slow, and it would seem they missed this one, as it hasn't been corrected - it sounds ugly.

I have my suspicions about Barbara Ann - is it just me, or do everyone's vocals sound a bit "dark" ?

[reechie]

But wasn't the VHS version actually sped up? That was one of the selling points, what had been cut out of the VHS was restored, and the speeding up of the film that had plagued virtually every video version had been corrected.

MTV ran a complete, correct speed print of the film in the 80's, and re-ran it shortly after Entwistle's death, and it pretty much matches up with what's on the DVD. Perhaps you're just used to the faster version, making the DVD seem slower?

[Vivaldinization]

I think what Phil and others are saying is that the speeding up of some material is directly related to the slowing down of other material, i.e. while some of the stuff on the old VHS ran fast, other material ran at the correct speed. Now that everything is back to the "theatrical" speed, the old PAL material is simply slowed to 24 FPS, instead of either being presented in pure PAL (which would necessitate the use of original sources instead of the film transfers and would complicate matters for those who cannot output/receive PAL signals) or being subjected to a delightful quasi-telecining process to give a field-equivalent of 25-fps in a 24-fps stream (which would still require the use of the original versions). Another option, of course, would be to speed up everything manually, but I get the sense that matching the original theatrical versions was satisfying enough for them.

BTW, Phil, I have to say...the audio-pinching from stock CDs bothers me a great deal. Yeah, I recognize that this was done to make the creation of the mock 5.1 track less of a hassle (was this really necessary to include? And if it was, WHY THE HECK DIDN'T THEY JUST GO BACK TO THE MULTITRACKS? Would it have been that hard?), but I really wish a PCM or Dolby 2.0 track of the original film stereo mix had been included. The occasionally "cuts" in audio are really jarring, for example what seems to be a big edit after the introduction of AQO.

Besides, it's somewhat disenchanting to realize that the professional sound restoration experts who worked on the AQO DVD had access to roughly the same sources we do.

[Ed Bishop]

Disenchanting, perhaps, but not surprising. Check out my Waring-fds thread; that outfit brags about making 'true' 5.1 from mono and stereo sources! :rolleyes: Key line: FDS Labs uses your existing stereo or mono mix to create a genuine 5.1 surround. Come hear the sound clients have been calling "the best out there".

Need I say more? :sigh: With a bill of goods like that being sold, why should anyone want to go back to a vintage movie and make a real 5.1 mix?

Suppose, in that context, we should give credit to Apple/EMI for the true 5.1 that's on the ANTHOLOGY DVD's...and any other project where time and money is invested in true 5.1...


:ed: