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The Question of High Pitched Shows

(July 2013)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
WH
whoiam989
(Apparently, animated shows are almost only thing I can get enough examples from YouTube. Those of live-action shows are hard to find from there, apart from dubbed film trailers. In fact, I remember seeing a clip from Stealth as broadcast on Australian television which had high pitched Sky News sting from 2001, but I can't find it again on YouTube. Anyway, I picked Finnish version of the shows as examples here because... I find them interesting.)


This is the Finnish version of Martha Speaks , as broadcast on the public YLE TV2. Comparing it with the theme in original English version, it is high pitched. This is how Anglophone shows are usually presented in Europe.


Jumping to commercial television, here we have the most interesting and unusual case (for the show, at least.) in Europe, as shown on Nelonen Perhe. This clip from the series one finale of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic proves that they showed all of series one episode in original pitch. (Compare with English version of the same song as seen on American television.) The show was also shown on the flagship Nelonen channel, by the way.

I can call it unusual because the Finnish version is one of two European dubs which retained original pitch for all of series one episodes. (The other is the Slovak version.) Other European dubs either retained original pitch for the first few episodes (Just like how the French version did it with the first 13 episodes. After episode 14, well...) or just went with higher pitch for all episodes (Like how Boomerang Scandinavia dealt with Danish, Norwegian and Swedish dubs.). Apparently, Boomerang UK & Ireland aired original version in higher pitch.


But it sounds like not all the non-Finnish shows on Nelonen are in the original pitch. This intro from Finnish Phineas and Ferb is high pitched from the original intro theme.


Back to YLE, here is the Finnish version of Caillou which surprisingly retains original pitch. (Listen to the theme in English to compare.) You'll never know what will happen, as usual.

The question is, what makes Anglophone shows high pitched in some Eurpoean airings, and what magic some broadcasters are using to retain original pitch?
BA
Bail Moderator
It's all to do with frame rates and formats - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/576i#PAL_speed-up
WH
whoiam989
Bail posted:
It's all to do with frame rates and formats - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/576i#PAL_speed-up

OK. I get it. Then what are the methods broadcasters usually prefer to keep original pitch?
MI
Michael
Having perfect pitch, I notice it a lot with The Big Bang Theory theme. The copies I have on DVD are noticeably lower pitched than those being broadcast by E4.
GM
Gary McEwan
The same can be said with the newer episodes of Family Guy, on FOX and Global the opening titles are the correct pitch, but yet BBC Three seem to up-pitch them.

21 days later

LL
Larry the Loafer
Am I right in saying that people don't bother pitch correcting because they don't expect people to know what the show's supposed to sound like? I used to watch My Wife and Kids a lot, but I came across the originals that had considerably slower title music - for all I knew, it was supposed to be faster.
JB
JasonB
When friends was on E4 it always sounded lower than it did on the DVD's.

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