What are the legal ramifications of sharing screenplay drafts like this? I'm not asking 'cause I want Switch's post deleted or anything stupid like that; I was actually thinking of popping over to off-topic and starting a "post your favorite scripts" thread. I know at least some of us what frequent this forum like to read scripts, and at least some passing-around has been done in the past, but if it'd cause looks of disapproval, then I won't.

Over the past several weeks, I've worked my way through all six movies on various lazy Sunday afternoons. And I've come to a conclusion.

The only real problem I have with the prequels — the only thing that, in my mind, was just never, ever going to work no matter what — is the fact that Anakin was just appallingly miscast. Twice.

If we had it to do over again, there are plenty of ways to improve the story in major and minor ways. But seriously, those prequels could have had the best scripts ever in the history of scripts, and they still would have suffered because the lead character was played by the wrong actors.

I was just coming here to say what Beldar said. Many of the podcasts I subscribe to (of which there are like six, but whatever) have multiple feeds. Ferinstance, fxguidetv comes in medium and large sizes. Just subscribe to whichever one you'd prefer in iTunes.

If you're gonna go down the road of rendering out (is that what audio people call it?) two separate deliverables for each show, I think it'd probably be best to serve them up via their own feeds. You could have the regular feed, and the "Specially for Non-iPod-Owning Weirdos and People Who Are Generally a Bit Thick" feed.

No it won't.

*puts away robe and wizard hat*

My life isn't interesting enough to have collected five near-death experiences. This one time I was flying home from a business trip and the plane had to abort the landing and circle around for another try. That was interesting. And this one time I had really bad gas.

I patiently await the appearance of a top-five mandate that I can actually fulfill.

Well, there are about a million variables here.

Foremost, Down in Front episodes are sometimes edited for technical reasons; there's virtually no way for Teague to guarantee that the second half of the episode remains in sync with the first half if he has to cut out a technical glitch in the middle. Not saying that had anything to do with your test, but it's a factor on some shows.

Second, not all DiFs are recorded against NTSC DVD sources. Sometimes the guys watch Netflix streams or iTunes downloads. In those cases, too, there's no guarantee that the playback rate precisely matches the NTSC standard timebase. Again, that may not have been a factor in your tests, but it does come up.

Then there's the whole 4.16/4.29 issue. Not knowing exactly how you retimed the podcast, there's not really any guarantee that it was retimed correctly to that degree of precision. As I'm sure you know, when audio needs to be retimed across frame-rate conversions in the pro world, it's done by changing the sample rate of the recorded audio file. For example, if you were out shooting 24p film for NTSC broadcast, you'd set your audio recorder to record 48,048 Hz audio instead of the normal 48,000 Hz. In post, you notify the computer that those files should actually be played back at 48,000 samples per second, which puts them right back in sync with the now-23.976 fps video.

The right way to retime a podcast recording for PAL timing would be to change the sample rate directly. I think DiF episodes go out at 32 KHz and are intended to be in sync with 23.976 fps video. To play back in sync with 25 fps video, you'd change the sample rate from 32,000 Hz to 33,366 Hz. (In fact, it'd be 100,100/3, which is an irrational number, but 33,336 should get you close enough to stay in acceptable sync for way longer than two hours.)

Of course, that's all dependent on the twin assumptions: first, that your DVD is a PAL transfer which has been sped up from the original 24 fps rate to 25 fps; and second, that you're watching it at the correct frame rate of 25 fps. If you've got an NTSC transfer which you're watching on your computer, that correction should not work. And if the transfer you have was done weird, say by frame-interpolation through an Alchemist or Teranex rather than by speed adjustment in the telecine, then that correction once again will not work.

Come to think of it, I wonder what the customary way is of converting NTSC to PAL when the original material was recorded on videotape rather than on film? If you shot on film, you do a separate PAL transfer, just running the film through the scanner faster. But if you originated on videotape (like, say, the last two Star Wars prequels did), you might just run the film through a realtime hardware standards converter for a constant-time digital conversion.

Huh.

Anyway, basically what I'm saying here is get a damn Region 1 DVD. ;-)

Mental picture of Trey with pages stuck all over him … achieved.

I'm so stealing that.

It failed to arouse either my interest or my libido.

What's that you say? I can mix-and-match traits to create my own Eddie?

Link plz.

Shitcock!