I'm watching tv and can't help but notice that the theme tune to the Big Bang theory is about a semitone higher than on my bluray. Weird. I can only guess the tv broadcast is adjusted to fit time restraints or similar. You'd have thought that in this day and age they would have pitch shifted it to match the original. No one in this house cares or is interested but me.

Quote Robin Lemaire:

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No one in this house cares or is interested but me.

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We feel your pain.

On the subject. I like the show but I've always thought the theme sounded a gnat's todger the wrong side of manic.

Perhaps that's why.

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Ohm's Law states, "Your PA isn't as powerful as you think it is".

The real question is: which one is right?

It is quite common that the soundtrack of a film, when watched on TV, will be slightly sharp compared to real life because films are shot at 24 frames per second, but replayed (in europe) at 25 frames per second -- 4% faster! Some broadcasters use a pitch-shifter to correct the sound track pitch, but most don't because few people would notice.

However, the BBT is a TV show and I presume the early series, at least, were shot in Standard Definition at the US standard 29.97 fps rate. So I would assume that the DVD is probably the right pitch, and, since Bluray is normally a 24fps medium when showing high-def progressive images, I imagine that the BluRay version is actually running slightly slower than real life. hence being a semitone flat!

H


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Technical Editor, Sound On Sound

Makes sense. I'd like to propose a unified fps rate, sample rate, bit depth, screen resolution, line level, mic level and all such other variances, simply to make my life easier, and all technicalia more predictable!

I'll let Hugh do the maths.

Quote Robin Lemaire:

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Makes sense. I'd like to propose a unified fps rate, sample rate, bit depth, screen resolution, line level, mic level and all such other variances, simply to make my life easier, and all technicalia more predictable!

I'll let Hugh do the maths.

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Sounds a good plan to me, but have you figured in the flight feathers of a flying pig, and powdered unicorn horn?

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It wasn't me!
(Well, actually, it probably was)

I think it's simpler. The original version is the lower _speed_ version - it's not just pitched up, but sped up as well IIRC (someone get out a stopwatch). The first few seasons broadcast over here have the original slower speed, but somewhere around the 3rd season or so, it gears up a notch.

In the US I am fairly sure that it is consistently the slower version. I was there half a dozen or so times throughout last year - enough for the immigration people to get narky anyway - and I'm sure that each time I heard it, it was slow.

Strangely, I had assumed that it was tied to the speed of the title sequence itself. I know that different areas of the world have different minimum number of frames that are allowable - to stop the old 'blipverts'. I know that Babylon 5 had to be careful and make their blips be compliant across the whole board. I assumed that given the rapid nature of the visuals, and the fact that the music was tied to that, that we have slightly lighter tolerances and are therefore allowed to use the faster version.

Still ... doesn't explain which is the actual speed! But interesting stuff.. Can't someone drop Barenaked Ladies a quick email / tweet and ask??



Personally, I think it sounds better faster / higher.

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Veni, Vidi, Aesculi
(I came, I saw, I conkered)