OT: pitch shifted mixes mystery?

Bigger deliverables project. Working in 23.98. Audio specs calling for plus .8% and 1.60% pitch shifted mixes.

Can’t figure out why? They’re english and spanish for North America broadcast and web.

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Don’t do it. Make it the audio house’s problem. Unless you are the audio house?

Ah, no I’m getting these provided by the mix house. I just haven’t ever seen this spec before. Olden times there was pitch shifting for longform when 24 was run 25, but beyond that?

Oh.

Interesting. Never heard of “pre-emptive pitch shifted deliverables.”

Are they overly thorough or are we missing something>?

Only have ever heard of this when converting 23.976 to 24 or 24 to 23.976. Is it being shot back to film? Otherwise, is the spec up to date? Is it something a note donkey sent your way without any attempt to understand it?

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It’s just boring retail commercials… TV and Twitter and Instagram. I’m trying to get my producer to ask the mix house.

I have done thousands, if not tens of thousands of boring commercials for the US market. I have never seen this in a spec with the exception of when it was transfered back to film for theater viewing in the pre-digital cinema age. And the audio company took care of that. I would ask questions before spending any time doing it.

Well my producer basically replied "They don’t say why, and I don’t ask. I don’t ask because it takes two weeks to get an answer out here, and the answer is always “Don’t ask.”

They’re for 24 at 30 or the opposite no? So the picture doesn’t need rate conversion and can be played frame for frame.

There is no 24 or 30 for tv spots. It’s 23.976 or 29.97, both of which play audio at the same rate. There should be no conversions to 24 or 30.

The .80 pitch is 29.97fps (30) playing back frame for frame at 23.98 (24) such that those original 10 secs in 29.97 will be roughly 12.5 seconds in 23.98.

What the 160 is god only knows. The inverse would be 125.13. This kinda shit used to come up all the time doing regional standards conversions fro the US to Europe back in the day. Standard was audio pitching and frame for frame.

No, there should be no pitch correction going from 29.97 to 23.98, or vice-versa. A 30 second spot at 29.97 and at 23.98 is still 30 seconds. (well, actually 29.97 seconds.) We repeat frames or fields in the 23.98 spot or toss frames out of the 29.97 to make the picture fit. The audio doesn’t change. Changing from 23.98 to true 24 or 29.97 to true 30 will make the duration different, and hence the need to pitch the audio, but that is a meaningless task for anything under a minute or so.

You’re not listening, Tim. There are times where you don’t want fielded output or even doubled framed output. You want to play 300 frames back, not at 30 frames in a second but at 24 frames per second without adding or subtracting fields or frames. No 3/2 no frame doubling. That means it will run long. 10seconds will be 12.5. For that you need to pitch the audio.

I have never in my life had to do that.

Which is why you responded like you did–with such fervor. It’s fine. I’m just here to tell you it’s out there… it happens and that’s what it’s about. All good.

Pitch correction across a 20% speed change is huge. I can’t believe it doesn’t sound like a bad R&B song.

It’s all about keeping the picture unmolested. And you’re not wrong regarding the R&B thing…

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If there’s a rule about molesting picture, I’m going away for a looooong time.

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The 1.60% is going to Adstream, Twitter, and Instagram: all classic 23.98. With sync sound too, so no goofy playback framerates.

The .8 goes to Tubi and Fox CTV which is 23.98

I think the idea of a note donkey copy/pasting something out of an old spreadsheet seems most likely at this point. And it’s a bigger name client, so everyone just says “fine, here ya go.”

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@randy Is there an award for the first thread to use the term “note donkey”?

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