• Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy

  Converting 25fps to 24fps

  Posted by Rupert Lloyd on February 14, 2010 at 11:08 pm

  I am working on a film that was shot on the Red. The Red files were then converted to apple pro-res for editing in FCP. There were two shoots a few months apart. For the first shoot they shot at 25fps before changing to 24fps for the second shoot. Since the majority of the footage was shot at 24fps we have been working in a 24fps timeline. In order to save time in the online the producer wants me to convert the 25fps footage we have used to 24fps and rebuild the edit. Does anyone know how I would go about this converting my 25fps material to 24fps and what are the implications for the audio? And what about the EDL?

  The relevant part of the email is below:

  if we continue to edit both speeds in one edit, we have
  to manually at the end adjust. For the image it is a lesser problem thanfor the sound. The soundeditor has suggested to avoid synch problems at the online (and they will occur then) to convert the 25fps material to 24fps and have the soundeditor stretch the sound of that material to 24fps. The original material is then also in 24fps and no adjustments in the online will occur.

  Michael Gissing replied 16 years, 7 months ago 2 Members · 1 Reply
• 1 Reply

• 

  Michael Gissing

  February 15, 2010 at 2:46 am

  Absolutely at all times avoid mixed frame rates but especially mixing 25 with 29.97/23.976/24 combinations. At least with the “NTSC” flavours they can be fixed with minor audio stretch/squeeze of .1%

  But 25-24 is 4.1% so that equates to a significant pitch change of 3/4 semitone. The 25 material can be converted to 24 with compressor using frame controls to simply slow down the footage. This will create new files which will become the master – not the RED 25fps footage so if you were planning on going back to your RED files for print to film etc, that is far more problematic. I don’t know if RED make any software to speed manipulate and create new rd3 files but check the RED web site. Of course if you create new RED files, they will need to be then converted into quicktimes and used to replace the originals. No matter which approach, you shouldn’t replicate the file names so it will be a matter of replacing shots, not trying to reconnect.

  In audio post, the changed clips need to be pitch corrected if they are going to match the 24fps footage. This will be noticeable on dialog but not sync FX. The problem needs to be fixed well before lockoff for both picture and sound post/online. The audio is best fixed in sound post. Hopefully they have either Pitch N Time or MPEX3 to do this properly.

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