Topic: DVD: differences in length

[dpurple1]

Hi there. I'm new to this forum - I didn't know that there was a forum until now to be honest. I watched the Brokeback-movie for the fifth time this afternoon (on dvd at home) and it still brings me to tears in the last ten minutes. The scenes when Ennis visits Jack's parents + very last scene at trailer with shirt are phenomenal - simply brilliant. I absolutely love this movie. Now, here's my Q: recently I bought a US-collectors edition 2-dvd set from 2007 through eBay. I already had a dutch limited version 2-dvd set (I live in Amsterdam), which I bought back in 2005 the first day it came out. However, the newly US-one had 8 collectible postcards and some new extras on the second disc. Also, I discovered that the US-version is longer in length: it lasts 135 minutes, while the old version only lasts for 128 minutes. Can anybody tell me the differences -are there extra scenes added or are some scenes maybe longer? I'm sorry if this been asked before.....         

[rdx]

Thank you & welcome dpurple1!   (Utoo)

There are no extra or extended scenes; too bad!

Once upon time... Now, there are/were some geopolitics here..

In short:

The differences in length come from the fact that there are/were different (colour) television systems in the world and the frames-per-second rate varies --> some sort of transfer is needed.

Film is (always) 24 frames per second (fps), the European television/video/DVD system PAL is 25 fps and the North American television/video/DVD system NTSC is 30 fps:


These television systems and technologies are decades old; see here.

Film to PAL is done in a very simple way: the film is just 'speeded' up, i.e. the 1^st second of transfer: the 25^th frame in PAL is the 1^st frame of film's 2^nd second. A better explanation here. The sound is also 'pitched' up in film to PAL transfer unless taken care of somehow.

Film to NTSC is done in a more complex way called 2:3 pulldown: see here. The frame structure is compromised but the length is retained. This pulldown causes some judder visible during slow, steady camera movements, especially horizontal panning.

So, both ways of transfer have their pros and cons but we are used to the cons and our eyes/ears don't see/hear anything 'different' after a while. Movies on television, VHS and DVD have always been like this.

[Also notice that every frame is divided into two fields in PAL and NTSC...]

So, movies on PAL DVD's are 4 % shorter than on film or NTSC DVD's. BBM is some 129 min on PAL and some 134 min on film and NTSC.

[There is/was also SECAM; the French and the Russians needed to have something of their own... ]

The world is finally getting rid of some old politics: Blu-ray is 24 fps everywhere (unless intentionally wanted otherwise...).

[The engineer goes now to sauna... ]

[dpurple1]

So, basically what you're saying is that the European-mix runs faster. But I'm still a bit confused: will this really make up for the 7 missing minutes in a film of just over 2 hours?

[rdx]

 
Dat klopt. Could you please check the length of the film on your Dutch DVD? I cannot imagine that the Dutch DVD is cut (censored) somehow. Actually none of the released DVD's is cut as far as I know.

All the PAL DVD's I have run some 129 min. The Dutch one is yet to be bought..

[dpurple1]

Those were my thoughts exactly - if one set wouldn't be censored it would the dutch one I reckon. I mean, we weren't all that shocked by Brokeback Mountain - for (most of) us, it's just a love story - and a beautiful one at that. Anyway, I checked both versions this afternoon and the dutch one stops exactly at 2 hours, 8 minutes and 55 seconds while the US one runs 2 hours and almost 15 minutes.