Suddenly (1954) DVD ADDED

[Brent_Reid]

Title: Suddenly
Country: France
Region: 2
Releasing Studio: Wild Side Video
Case Type: Keep case
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Anamorphic?: No
PAL or NTSC?: PAL
Soundtracks: English Dolby Digital Dolby 2.0 mono
Subtitles (are they optional?): French (yes)
Cuts: (and if you know it, precise run time) None (1:12:27)
Commentaries: None
Extras: None
Notes: None
Easter Eggs: None
Amazon ASIN (UK, French, German, USA releases only): B003F19R50
Source:* DVDBeaver

The DVD comparison has a footnote about some releases being time compressed, but I can't find any evidence to support this. The film runs for just under 77 min (native NTSC/1080p) and just over 72 min PAL. All the DVDs correspond to one or other of these times; isn't it far more likely the "time compressed" ones are PAL-NTSC tranfers or vice versa?

The UK Sanctuary is probably NTSC-PAL. Its note claims "It is indeed native NTSC." But by whom? This is a very old comparison page as a whole.

The US Image looks like a PAL-NTSC transfer.

[Nigel_Badnell]

The UK Sanctuary is probably NTSC-PAL. Its note claims "It is indeed native NTSC." But by whom? This is a very old comparison page as a whole.

It has a very strange interlace pattern, so may have been converted more than once.
It's certainly not NTSC 2:3 pull-down.

[Brent_Reid]

"more than once" - as in NTSC-PAL-NTSC? If so, that's a new one on me and surely an all-time low in shoddy tranfers!

[James-Masaki_Ryan]

Nigel, please finish this thread up. Thanks!

[Nigel_Badnell]

Taken a stab at the comments.

[Brent_Reid]

Hi Nigel, thanks for the editing but as the Image has a PAL running time, surely it's simply a PAL-NTSC transfer? Where does the "time-compressed" theory come from? It's a complicated and very unlikely way to explain something that's standard practice in cost-cutting DVD production.

[Nigel_Badnell]

I don't know what you mean by "time-compressed theory".
"Normal" sequence of events is Film->NTSC or Film->PAL, not Film->PAL->NTSC.
And in the case of Sanctuary, the interlacing does not correspond simply to the PAL->NTSC one:

25fps to 30fps (PAL to NTSC)
----------------------------
2:2:3:2:3 pulldown AA BB CC CD DE EE
PAL 4% speed-up minus 6s per 100min 29.97Hz runrate.

[Brent_Reid]

It may not be best practise, but Film->PAL->NTSC DVD transfers are sadly ubiquitous. Certain US companies have only ever released NTSC DVDs featuring unconverted PAL masters - hundreds of them. That would be the simplest and most obvious explanation for any NTSC disc with PAL running time, as here. But as you've analysed the Sanctuary DVD and found it to have a more complicated origin, surely that just earns it a specific note on its listing, rather than a blanket "time-compressed" page footnote? Ken barnes, who produced the Sanctuary disc, died in 2015, otherwise I'd ask him what happened with it. Now I'm tempted to pick up the Image DVD and check it out!