23.98 psf .MOV to 29.97 NTSC tape

[john01]

Ouch

I just got some HD footage, composite of CG and blueback which I have to put onto betacam tape. It's going on squeeze and letterbox.

The original ratio is 1920*1080p at 23.98 psf, the card says the material is 30 seconds long.

I found that when I imported it into FCP to export it to tape I'm lacking a couple of frames. I'm working in NTSC here, 29.97 fps, drop frame, SD.

It's not a huge problem this time round, I can tack a couple of frames of still on the CI at the end.

However I've a feeling we'll be running into these kinds of issues more and more as formats for production and performance diversify.

So has anyone any idea where my frames have gone ? Did they disappear into the interlace, drop off in the drop frame, or did the guys at the other end just diddle me out of a couple of frames for a giggle to rub in the fact we are still in the stone age this end ?

For the record, I did a rough version from a taped version first, and replacing the tape footage with the data footage I find the CI starts in the same place.

Any ideas on the best way to deal with these various frame rates.

[sleepytom]

it's genrally best to set the FCP project format to the same as the source footage and then to export to NTSC via compressor - this should sort out the framerates automagically. If you need to use FCP to export to DVtape then you should first do the edit in an HD project - export to .dv file via compressor and then dump the dv file to tape from a new FCP project with dv settings.

[john01]

thankyou sir

any idea why the sound starts a couple of frames earlier than the footage

does the sound tend to drift too ?

[sleepytom]

AFAIK FCP is rubbish at dealing with multiple framerates - sound drift is a common problem because the interleve is lost when framerate converting so unless the software is really trying to handle multiple frame rates then it is likely to go wrong. As i understand it FCP is not a multiformat editor so the best bet is to use compressor to change video formats rather than FCP.

[deepvisual]

to be honest.
I'd pass this one on to a dub house.
You'll get no thanks for making a less than perfect copy and you'll be a sitting target.

[sleepytom]

yeah a facilites house will do a better job of it than a domestic computer can manage.

[john01]

Originally Posted by deepvisual

to be honest.
I'd pass this one on to a dub house.
You'll get no thanks for making a less than perfect copy and you'll be a sitting target.

Normally we would but for the time being this will be going on a web site so it's not such an issue. It will used at events at some point in the future and the way we treat it then will depend on budget.

I usually do the offlines then we outsource for the online, I already recommended we do this outside in order to ensure best quality, but right now the end product doesn't justify that expense, in the meantime I'd like to do the best job I can given the limitations.

The material was made in the US, they do a lot of very nice stuff. I sometimes get the job of seeing how we can adapt it to Japan. Last year I had the fun job of seeing what we could do with material made for this system.

JFK

JFK

The material we had was shot with 5 cameras mounted in a circle on top of a car, brilliant effect. However here they wanted to show it on a single large wide screen display at a couple of airports. I was quite pleased with what we managed given the impossibility of putting 5 wide screens onto one in any meaningful way. Was the first time in quite a while I actually got excited by my day job.

[john01]

Thanks for the advice, I will soldier on for now but make a recommendation we should outsource if budget allows.

[sleepytom]

if it's for the web then i'd just keep it at 24fps and not worry about frame rate conversion. It will look a LOT bettter if you go with the original progressive frames rather than converting to NTSC interlace and then deinterlacing and compressing again for the web.

Make the FCP project settings match the source footage and then use compressor to directly export to the webformat at the original frame rate. this will look enormously better than going via an ntsc stage.

[john01]

That's what I did, initially I was trying to avoid making different versions for tape & web, there are three movies so two means six, and with minor changes it becomes easy to make careless mistakes.

The client is insisting on a version on Digital Betacam, won't be dissuaded. I made a super big WMV version at the same frame rate, trying to persuade them they are better off using this at any events.

It was made more of a headache by the fact I only have half an HD set up, when we upgraded I decided not to get a tape deck until there was a clear industry standard format in the same way Betacam SP has been bog standard for offline. Which hasn't happened.

Also discovered that the "uncompressed" HD footage was "uncompressed" in a codec which FCP doesn't support, although QT does. So I had to export it from QT once anyway.

All in all quite interesting in a masochistic sort of a way.

Thanks again for the advice.