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DVCPROHD Frame Rate Converter not converting…sometimes
We are capturing some Varicam footage that was shot at 59.94 and slowing it down to 23.98 using the DVCPROHD frame rate converter. This has been working fine in the past, however recently, some of the clips are not slowing down after the conversion. The rate is at 23.98 but the duration is about identical and the picture is identical. Some of the clips, however, are converting successfully and look great. We are still working out of Final Cut Pro 5.0.4, so I dont know if there was some bug that got fixed in the upgrade, or something with the new Quicktime versions, but I haven’t found anything reported that says as such. Let me know if anyone has any ideas.
Final Cut Pro 5.0.4
Quicktime 7.04
720p59.94 Varicam footage ingested into FCP with an HD1200 deck through AJA Kona card.
PowerMac G5FYI- Have tried dropping clips into a new project, using different computers, reinstalling converter
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6 Replies
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The best way to work with the frame rate converter is to take all the clips to be converted to the same speed, like 23.98 in your case, and put them all into a new project. Convert them all and then just bring them back.
The converter can be flaky when you use it in a 59.94 project and then start changing the frame rates. No idea why, it just is.
Just create a New Project. Drag all the clips from the current project Browser to the New Project Browser. Convert all the clips. Drag them back to your current Project Browser. Close out the New Project, you don’t need it anymore.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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Walter-
Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. Yeah I had read that a couple places and tried just one or two clips that way, which didnt work. So now per your advice I am taking all the clips together and closing all other projects and just focusing on the conversions at hand. The first one so far has not worked succesfully, so I’ll keep you updated. A couple things that I was wondering whether they might affect it:
1) So any FCP settings in the new project matter?
2) Most of our footage is 23.98, and we capture everything with overlapping handles. So if a clip is overlapping a 23.98 clip on the head, does this affect the conversion, even if the clip successfully captured at 59.94?
3) Does the folder you are saving to matter, as far as keeping the converted media files together with their orignal offspeed clips?
Thanks
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[Bnewell] ”
1) So any FCP settings in the new project matter?”Not that I know of, but it usually defaults to the same project settings as the original one. And you really don’t have to quit out of the original project, you can keep it open.
Not sure on question 2, never had overlapping issues here so I’m not sure.
Folder I save to is always the same as the original captured footage.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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[Bnewell] ”
2) Most of our footage is 23.98, and we capture everything with overlapping handles. So if a clip is overlapping a 23.98 clip on the head, does this affect the conversion, even if the clip successfully captured at 59.94?”I have heard that this can be an issue with DVCProHD. I’ve run into a situation where having colour bars captured as part of the clip will prevent the Frame rate convertor from working properly.
Our camera folks change tapes when shooting offspeed, that way we know which material has been shot that way and needs to be processed.
Cheers
John Christie
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[walter biscardi] “The converter can be flaky when you use it in a 59.94 project and then start changing the frame rates. No idea why, it just is.”
yes the other 3 things to remember
that you need to remove the duplicate frames and create a new file (this keeps your original intact)do not capture bars with your clips – Bars on the varicam are recorded at 1FPS and the frc has issues with that frame rate ( the camera officially only goes to 4 fps without going into the service menus)
DO NOT move the clips after capture – the most consistent results happen when the files are in the root level of the browser
gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows -
Thanks all for all the input. Some of the clips successfully converted when using a new project, and a couple of them actually were 24 footage with the aperture closed way down and was tricking my eyeballing of it as 60. At least, that’s my best guess after succesfully capturing it as 23.98. Would have been nice if they had slated when switching frame rates on the fly, but at least it got solved.
As far as the unresolved question about at 24 clip on the head of a converted 60 clip, I didn’t see any correlation between the clips that were screwing up and the clips that had some regular speed on the head. In fact, some of them that converted succesfully to start had 24 on the head and it didnt affect it. But I’ll probably capture around the clips in the future anyway to eliminate any overlap.
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