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Editing in 24fps vs 29.97
Hello, we shot S16mm and had it scanned through telecine to 29.97 with a 3:2 pulldown. When we looked at the footage and were disappointed that it had been converted from 24fps, we were advised to remove the 3:2 pulldown through Cinema Tools. This generated the following questions:
1) Is Cinema Tools the best application to do this? Does it properly remove the extra frames leaving the original 24 from the film? Is there another program such as After Effects which would do a better job?
2) The video is interlaced–again, what is the best program to deinterlace and should we do this BEFORE we begin working with the footage?
3) If we convert down to 24fps and edit, when we wish to output to a dvd, will we then have to convert it back? Is it better to keep it in 29.97 to preserve the pulldown created by the telecine? Or is there a way to pull 24fps quicktime files into DVD Studio Pro and create a dvd that will play the 24fps footage?
4) Apart from a professional colorist, what would be the best program to do color correction? I have heard that color corr in fcp is not the best as it clips certain colors and results in bad resolution or noise in the final footage.
This is a spec for a reel, so it will be seen on computer screens and television screens, and most likely not printed back out to film.
Thank you for any and all help.
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8 Replies
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Cinema Tools is great for removing pulldown. If you’re still seeing “interlace” after pulldown removal, then something is wrong and you have not set all the settings in CInema Tools correctly. It cannot guess the pulldown order, so you have to tell it precisely what to do.
Yes, it’s best if you keep it at 23.98fps and make a so called 24p DVD. That is the best quality.
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects for FCP
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thanks very much for your reply. I didn’t in fact specify anything for interlacing, just pushed the button. If you have time to give specifics on how to deinterlace in cinematools, would be much obliged.
And because I must sound very dense, I just want to be sure that I output the movie as 24fps then import it to dvd studio pro and tell it the footage runs at 24p…and a regular tv will play it?
Thank you!
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Oops…one more question…
The sound was recorded into a dv recorder at 29.97. If I convert the film footage to 24p in cinematools, how do I sync the sound in fcp (which I assume will not let me make a timeline with both 24 and 30p clips)?
Thanks again
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[Talia Raine] “f you have time to give specifics on how to deinterlace in cinematools, would be much obliged. “
It’s tricky…. You need to set the field order, which would be lower, or even, which would be F2 – F1 in Cinema Tools speak, I think. Then you need to pick from AA, BB etc. To know which is the right one, you’ve got to know the starting point of the pattern of your footage, and you could just guess 5 times and hit the right one, or you can figure it out. I made a free little plugin for FCP that helps you figure it out. It’s in my free section, but it’s tricky to use:
It’s not automatic much…. Play your video 100% square pixels off, in FCP, so that you can see the cadence. Step frame through it until you can really see the interlacing on a frame, apply the plugin. If you hit the automatic guesser, it will tell you what to change the pattern shift control to, to make the pattern match. You should see it now tell you which of the split frames you’re on. You can also just adjust it by hand until it matches. Now you can go back to the first frame and read off what it is to tell CT. You’re looking to make the wwssw (w for whole, s for split) pattern match which what you see in the video, whole frames don’t show any interlacing, split frames do.
Now return to the very first frame of the clip and read off the letters, AA, BB etc. Those are the letters we tell Cinema Tools to remove the pulldown correctly.
Once your clip has had it’s pulldown removed, there is no more cadence!! It has no pulldown – it’s ready to go to 24p DVD.
What I do is export Quicktime Movie, drop that on compressor, drop that into DVD SP 3, and that makes a perfect 23.98fps movie. Never a problem.
Don’t bring a 24p quicktime to DVDSP direct and ask it to compress it as it gets it wrong, and don’t export direct from FCP either.
On playback the DVD player will add the pulldown back in, so it will work on a normal NTSC TV.
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects for FCP
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The sound will sync because the speed of the video doesn’t change upon pulldown removal. Video runs at 29.97fps, and when pulldown is removed it runs at 23.98fps. Make sure when you remove the pulldown the final frame rate of the video is 23.98fps. Make your timeline 23.98fps and all should be fine.
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects for FCP
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So should I change the sound in CT to 23.98?
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No. It’d sound v e r y s l o w if you did that. I think you can use it as is.
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects for FCP
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Hello, Ok, I have the plug in. I step frame through the footage and see that AA and DD have the split frames. So I go back to cinema tools and try to reverse telecine but it only allows me to choose either AB or BB or CC or DD or DA. I have tried a few different times: DD and DA but what happens is I get a 24p with one split frame still left in it. Then I tried “Style 2” and it has D3A1 but the same result. I am so sorry I don’t quite get the instructions to do this…this is a definitely a learning experience.
When I asked the lab who scanned it, he said it was “clean cadence” so it should be easy to remove the pulldown.
Thanks for your help.
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