The Fifth Element PAL/NTSC Running Times

[Mick Seymour]

I'm trying to get my head around this.

I have the 1997 NTSC laserdisc of The Fifth Element which has a runtime if 126 minutes. I have it backed up to a DVD ISO on my NAS.

Over the weekend I found the Gaumont PAL DVD in a charity shop for 1€ so I bought it for when the laser player eventually dies. It has a running time of 121 minutes.

Knowning the film quite well we watched the DVD to see if we could spot what had been cut and couldn't so just for laughs I played the DVD on one PC using VLC and the ISO on another using VLC.

Starting both at the start of the first scene of the feature, missing the opening logos which are different, the NTSC version runs very very slightly slower than the PAL version so that after about 7 minutes there is a noticable delay between the two although the scene content is identical. I figured this was not going to be a reliable way to compare the two and stopped the test.

Is this usual between PAL/NTSC? Could it have something to do with 25/30fps differences and the way that's treated?

[Netmask]

Most films (celluloid) are shot at 24fps when they are played back on PAL gear they run at 25fps consequently they are "shorter" by 4% and indeed the voices will be higher in pitch. http://sandbox.slysoft.com/palspeedup/index.html

[Mick Seymour]

Wow! Perfect answer.