NTSC vs PAL programme times differences?

[Xena]

Hi Can anyone please tell me why and by what exact amount (formula?) there is a time difference between THE SAME program in NTSC to PAL. i.e. Buffy Season 1 DVD in NTSC is 600 mins long. In PAL it is 528 mins long. Both versions "CLAIM" to be uncut...so where is the time difference going? And it's not on the extras on the DVD...in fact the shorter PAL version has more extras! ??? Thanks X

[dog]

the programs are probably exactly the same duration. This could be an error in the documentation? ther is a difference between PAL and NTSC in the way their timecodes are managed in production. NTSC has a frame rate of 29.97 - not 30 frames per second and so the .03 left over begins to add up over some time. production systems can account for this by 'dropping' frames. So this my just be the way the system is reading the timecode.

[tfga]

Often programs like Buffy are shot on film instead of video. NTSC and PAL have two very different ways of converting from film at 24fps. NTSC uses a complex system as it runs at 30fps. PAL only runs 1fps faster than film ie. 25fps, so the simplest way to convert, is to simply speed up the film by 1 frame every second. This is un-noticable to anyone watching it, but can soon add up. 30 mins loss sounds about right to me, but i'm not sure of the formula (don't forget we're talking about 10 hours of content). In short, you are seeing everything, but a bit faster, so you have half an hour more spare time than those yanks :)