Promo videos a half-step higher than album cuts?

Pretty self-explanatory
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redsfan720
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Promo videos a half-step higher than album cuts?

Post by redsfan720 »

Something that has always perplexed me, and something to which I've yet to find a satisfactory answer:

For all the former utility and current novelty of Costello's collection of promo videos, a handful stick out to me as being especially odd. They are:

Peace, Love and Understanding
Oliver's Army
I Can't Stand Up for Falling Down
High Fidelity
Love for Tender

Each of these songs is in a key a half-step higher than they are on their respective albums. Given I've only seen the videos in two formats—the The Right Spectacle DVD and streaming on YouTube—but those two formats are consistent.

I'll only attach one video as example.

Oliver's Army, a YouTube stream of the album cut that somebody's posted:

Oliver's Army promo video:

You get the idea.

Does anybody know why this is? It's a strange detail I noticed immediately when I first saw these videos, and it's bugged me for some time. Ultimately, it makes no difference. I just wanna know.
Neil.
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Re: Promo videos a half-step higher than album cuts?

Post by Neil. »

Good grief! You're right!

Maybe it's something to do with the telecine of the original videos? Film is 24 frames per second, video is (possibly) 25 (can't remember) - when they transferred the original film to video for the mastering, perhaps they forgot to flick a switch, but nobody noticed? But I guess that would have the effect of slowing it down slightly, rather than pitching it higher.

Actually, I'm as baffled as you are. I can't imagine it was a deliberate thing - but it must be a mastering issue that nobody noticed in 79/80.
sulky lad
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Re: Promo videos a half-step higher than album cuts?

Post by sulky lad »

Funnily enough, I did notice in 1985 when I tried to play along with my Ferguson videostar HiFi video recorder whilst playing "The Man" video but thought it might have been my video that was at fault. perhaps he was trying to sound more like Michael Jackson !!
Last edited by sulky lad on Wed Nov 02, 2011 4:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
redsfan720
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Re: Promo videos a half-step higher than album cuts?

Post by redsfan720 »

Neil. wrote:Good grief! You're right!

Maybe it's something to do with the telecine of the original videos? Film is 24 frames per second, video is (possibly) 25 (can't remember) - when they transferred the original film to video for the mastering, perhaps they forgot to flick a switch, but nobody noticed? But I guess that would have the effect of slowing it down slightly, rather than pitching it higher.

Actually, I'm as baffled as you are. I can't imagine it was a deliberate thing - but it must be a mastering issue that nobody noticed in 79/80.
I thought about that with the frame rate on which the videos were shot and how that may have changed between filming and the delivered final product. And it makes sense. In the Oliver's Army example above, the song is considerably faster, too. For the sake of clarity, I took a moment late in the song (so the tempo would have time to separate itself as considerably different) and a moment that only happened once as to eliminate confusion or ambiguity.

On the Armed Forces album, he says the word "Johannesburg" at ~2:11-2:12. On the promo video (as it is on YouTube and on the DVD), he says it at ~2:06.

So I think you're on to something with the change of frame rate. The fact that the only video that it didn't affect from that time period (1979-80ish) was Accidents Will Happen, which is animated, supports that theory.
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the_platypus
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Re: Promo videos a half-step higher than album cuts?

Post by the_platypus »

Great catch. I never noticed that before.
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pophead2k
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Re: Promo videos a half-step higher than album cuts?

Post by pophead2k »

Right, higher pitch means faster. Maybe the 'powers that be' wanted shorter videos? Very interesting and something I'd never noticed!
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watercamp
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Re: Promo videos a half-step higher than album cuts?

Post by watercamp »

Has anyone compared the videos from the VHS Hits collection?

My guess is that some got changed during the transfer to make The right spectacle dvd master.
johnfoyle
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Re: Promo videos a half-step higher than album cuts?

Post by johnfoyle »

some got changed during the transfer to make The right spectacle dvd master.
Coca Cola logos got blurred out in the You Little Fool video for a start!
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