OK, here's my problem: I'm about to begin mixing a Brazilian movie, shot and edited in Brazil and Argentina. Film speed 24FPS. They're posting it using some software unknown to me and a re ready to deliver the tracks for the mix on DTRS (Hi8) cassettes. The problem is we're going to mix in Europe, PAL... I'll try to describe things the way I understand them, please correct me if I'm wrong. The picture will come on NTSC Beta tapes, I suppose running at film speed -0.1%, probably with some 29.97 Time Code. As a consequence, DTRS tapes will also sync to these tapes, at -0.1% speed. How do I get these tapes to play at correct speed? I thought of digitizing the sound into ProTools, pulling down by -0.1% while recording and playing back with no pulldown. This should get the sound to play back at the correct speed. The picture will be supplied on Beta SP. How can I get these to play back at the correct speed? Is there a way to pull up the picture? My concern is about the printmastering session, where it has to play at correct speed in order to be in sync with the DS10, running at 24fps. As you can see, I'm confused. Help needed. Badly. Branko

hi Branko, so, at what speed was the sound recorded at? 30fps, 48k? Isn't it possible to rent NTSC gear and just stay NTSC throughout the mix? I just did a film that was shot in the UK, and we stayed PAL all the way through printmastering. Since the DATs were at 25, and the camera was at 24, they field-padded the picture during telecine so no pitch-shift/ speed change was needed for the printmaster. The film projector was referenced to 50hz rather than 60, the DMU got PAL black rather than NTSC, and everyone was happy. My point? I'm thinking that, using the "a second is a second" principle, the PAL/NTSC thing may be moot, as once you have the audio in PT at sound/film speed, you can do whatever you want. Sometimes I think we make too much of frame rates, and not enough of actual time. A minute of film is a minute of audio, no matter how many frames you divide the audio into, 25, 30, 29.97. The audio is rarely a 1-to-1 relationship with the film, but I'm starting to digress. Anyway, don't worry, this can be solved no problem, we just need to know where it all started: how was production dialog originally recorded?

PS: on the above-mentioned film, the composer was working in NTSC. To avoid any problems, they simply made NTSC dubs from the PAL Beta SPs, "smearing" 25fps video over 29.97 video with the 25fps window burn. This illustratess the "a second is a second" principle. The only thing that was 29.97 was the video picture itself. So, all the sessions and timecode for scoring could still be at 25, to match the DIA & FX but the vid pix was 29.97 to use NTSC monitors. Did their dubs look good? Not really, but who cared?

cool, we'll figure it out yet! I think this is the SINGLE situation (for me, anyway) where the Min-Sec ruler is invaluable!

hI guys... here is how you deal with this situation- branko- Ok, Assuming you have a 29.97 NTSC picture on Beta SP that you have to post to... A) You wil need to get a PAL conversion made. Any decent Dub house can acomplish this for you. It will create a PAL version of the NTSC Video, with Audio Running at the same speed.... Joe is correct about one second=one second, but even more critical is that 48k = 48k. Therefore, 48K audio in NTSC will be 48K Audio on a PAL conversion, unless a SC takes place. B) At that point, I would Digitize the Audio coming from the PCM-800's into ProTools. Then make a copy of the session (safety) and flip your TC to 25Fr. A bit of a global re-syc and you're there. Mix away with your pAL Picture, running at NTSC Speed audio. C) For PM, there are a couple of scenarios....First would be the Video PM. you use your same 25fr PAL conversion, and you would need a Synchronizer to convert the TC output of PT./Video to a 23.98 Biphase stream. Hte DS-10 is an alnalog deice, so this will not present an issue. Ok, That all being said, what I recommend is actually diffferent... What would be ultimate would be to get a print, and create a 24Fr speed, 25 Fr Count One Lite Telecine. At this point, you would pull your audio .1% up in order to make it "Film Speed". This is where 1sec does NOT equal 1 sec. They are 1.8 NTSC frames apart. However, this method is more "correct". You would then have an easy printmaster to Film at 24Fps. Plus, all your elements created would be at Film Speed, whih makes everything downstream make a lot more sense. Ok, Hope this helps- -Todd A.

Thanks to all of you that contributed to this topic, I think I have enough elements to sort it out. I'll feel free to scream for help again, if things go wrong. Branko