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1080/50i to 1080/59.94i – “cheapest way”?
Searching for opinions…
I have an HDCAM master of a spot (:90) that was given to me as 1080/50i. I would like to make a new HDCAM of this spot as 1080/59.94i. I’ve got FCP6 with a V4HD and Compressor and that’s it – no access to hardware conversion. What’s the best way with the limited tool set I’ve got? Obviously I’ve got to capture the spot to FCP at ProRes/1080/50i and re-output. The way I see it, I can:
– Conform via Cinema Tools to 23.976 and pitch-shift audio to match (+4.3%), then output (with V4HD adding pulldown to get to 29.97)
– Use Compressor to standards-convert 25fps to 29.97, using “best” retiming controls
This is pretty much all I’ve come up with so far. The Compressor conversion is taking about 2hr20min – which is OK with me. I hope it looks good. I am testing a workflow, not trying to please a client, so I’m just looking for opinions…
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4 Replies
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Being that its only a short spot, you have the luxury of trying both ways..
As for conforming with Cinema Tools…. this only works correctly if your material was 23.98. If it really was 60i, your motion might not look right.
There is also the $99 plugin from Nattress (https://www.nattress.com).
I have found that Compressor does a nice job with this if you get all the settings right. With some material “Better” yields better results than “Best”.
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[Mark Spano] “- Conform via Cinema Tools to 23.976 and pitch-shift audio to match (+4.3%), then output (with V4HD adding pulldown to get to 29.97) “
That’s the best way, but this effects the timing of the program. Adding one frame every second, so you are now 3 seconds long…90 to 93 seconds.
Compressor does a great job, just takes a while. I have done both, and when timing isn’t critical, I just conform and do the pulldown thing. But timing was critical once, so I had to use Compressor on a 48 in show, and that took 61 hours.
Shane
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OK, if I am going with an idea that the timing doesn’t matter and want to go the conform route, do I have to deinterlace the 50i original first to get to 25p? It seems when I’m looking at the conformed and pulldown-added 29.97fps of this (1080/59.94i on a broadcast monitor) it looks fantastic except for some faster motion shots where it starts to look jumpy (kind of like field-order reversal error). I originally made a copy of my 50i capture and conformed straight from that in Cinema Tools to 23.976 – what did I miss with the process of conforming the 50 fields -> 23.976 frames?
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After doing a bunch more testing with deinterlacing and straight standards conversion (25->29.97) I have found the following results:
-Not deinterlacing before conforming looks great but can sometimes exhibit field order errors when looking at faster motion material (or an SD downconvert)
-Deinterlacing before conforming looks great and can be done very efficiently with JES. Since you’re going to 24p anyway, I think this is a step that should be done no matter what. Compressor’s deinterlacer is great too, but factor in lots of time.
-Straight conversion from 25->29.97 using Compressor looks best when the process is chained. Deinterlace as one transcode, then chain into Retiming as a separate transcode. Super smooth, keeps the video look. I have noticed however some minor artifacting on graphics at full white. Must investigate further. FYI, this process took my 2×2.66GHz Dual Core about 4.5 HOURS to do a :90 clip (with quickcluster enabled).
I assume that none of these software processes comes close to true hardware conversion. In a pinch, I’ll take JES’s deinterlacing and Compressor’s retiming.
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