23.98 HD Footage won’t mix on 29.97 Timeline

[Floh Peters]

[Jim Wiseman] “My 23.98 HD Footage won’t drop into a 29.97 1080i timeline that also contains 29.97 footage. I have narrowed this down to the audio not being accepted by the 29.97 1080i timeline, for when I strip the audio off of the 23.967 ProResHQ clip it goes into the 29.97 timeline fine. I then tried doing an “Import to the Media Standard and Codec” of just the audio that was brought in at 23.98, and it was also brought into a 29.97 timeline fine. Does this mean that the video and audio have to be matched to the intended output rate during import as well, and cannot be just dropped into a 23.967 or 29.97 timeline after the fact as one can with Final Cut and have the audio not be rejected?”

Currently Media 100 can mix different video standards (Frame rates and resolutions) in a timeline, but unfortunately not different audio standards. So you either have to convert your audio, or bring in clips only with one standard.

[Jim Wiseman] “s the video media fast imported or is it also recompressed into a new ProResHQ file when one does it this way?”

If you use the “Import into selected Codec/Standard” the app does a re-compression of both video and audio into the current format. New media files get created for both video and audio.

[Jim Wiseman] “Just tried doing an “Import to the Media Standard and Codec” with video and audio ProResHQ 23.967 footage, and it still won’t go into the 29.97 1080i timeline.”
This does work if your format choice in the import window is 29.97 1080i. At least it should. If not, maybe this is a bug? What does your imported clip in the bin report as framerate/resolution?

[Jim Wiseman]

After rechecking my work from late last night, when I “Imported to Media Standard and Codec” into 29.97 it did work on a 29.97 timeline, both audio and video. When set to 23.98, it didn’t, of course. My problem is that I want to edit at 23.98 progressive, the native format of all of my EX-1 and Nikon D7000 H.264 footage. Also because it will look better on the internet and general progressive delivery. I want the 29.97 for conversion to DVD and cable/broadcast. I have been doing my reviews and and selections in Premiere, where it isn’t necessary to convert everything to ProRes first. I then exported the selects (just 20 clips so far as a test) as ProRes HQ 23.98 1080p. Am hoping to use this material to do the final in M100 Suite 2.1, as I prefer editing in M100 and find it to be more stable. But now I find I can’t get M100 to allow the material into a 29.97 timeline without converting all of the material to 29.97 1080i. In order to proceed I may have to do the edit, in FCP where I can easily move between standards. Any ideas on how I could simplify this other than Media 100 accepting standards I am using (hopefully in the future?)? Is there any way to get 29.97 1080i out of this footage without reconversion of all the video, perhaps just the audio (with sync)?

BTW, I have two AJA systems, one 2010 MacPro with Media 100 Suite 2.1, FCP 7, and Premiere 5.0 and 5.5. One can only run FCP 7 with AJA as it is an AJA ioHD on a new MBP 17. Could use ioHD as a FCP recorder or FCP feeder. I can do lossless dubs incuding conversions between the two via SDI. This was going to be a potential part of my workflow. Thanks for reading all this.

Jim Wiseman
Sony PMW-EX1,Pana AJ-D810 DVCPro, DVX-100, Nikon D7000, Final Cut Studio 2 and 3, Media 100 Suite 2.0.2, Premiere Pro 5.0 and 5.5, AJA ioHD, AJA Kona LHi, Avid MC, Hexacore MacPro 3.33 Ghz 24Gb RAM 120GB SSD, Macbook Pro 17″ 2011 2.2 Ghz Quadcore i7 8Gb SSD, G5 Quadcore PCIe

[Jim Wiseman]

Floh, assuming that I do my edit in Media 100 in ProResHQ at 23.98 1080p, is there a way to get Media 100 Suite 2.1 to play out that timeline at 1080i 29.97 via AJA LHi hardware? I would be recording from one AJA system to another, as I described. Could I do a conversion on the audio only? I would think there would be sync problems. I suppose I could do a software conversion to 1080i 29.97, but I have always heard that AJA hardware was better. Another option would be to XML out of Media 100 to FCP 7 and drop it in a 1080i 29.97 timeline. There will not be a lot of effects or strangeness going on as it is a documentary. Any opinions would be welcome.

Jim Wiseman
Sony PMW-EX1,Pana AJ-D810 DVCPro, DVX-100, Nikon D7000, Final Cut Studio 2 and 3, Media 100 Suite 2.0.2, Premiere Pro 5.0 and 5.5, AJA ioHD, AJA Kona LHi, Avid MC, Hexacore MacPro 3.33 Ghz 24Gb RAM 120GB SSD, Macbook Pro 17″ 2011 2.2 Ghz Quadcore i7 8Gb SSD, G5 Quadcore PCIe

[Floh Peters]

[Jim Wiseman] ” In order to proceed I may have to do the edit, in FCP where I can easily move between standards. Any ideas on how I could simplify this other than Media 100 accepting standards I am using (hopefully in the future?)? Is there any way to get 29.97 1080i out of this footage without reconversion of all the video, perhaps just the audio (with sync)? “

Seriously, the frame rate conversion in FCP is terrible; it just does some regular frame additions or removal, which does not give you a smooth result. If you would want to go to 29.97 from 23.98 in FCP you probably should do that with Compressor (or maybe with Cinema Tools, not sure if this deals with 23.98 footage, though).

Or you can downconvert from 23.98 HD to 29.97 SD on the outputs of the Kona cards, both in Media 100 as well as in FCP. So my recommendation would be to edit in Media100 in 23.98 and output via SDI (or Component or Composite) to SD29.97 in case a 29.97 version is required.

If you want to master to a HD format in 29.97 (what format do you want to master to, btw??), you either could do the transcoding from 23.98 to 29.97 of your finished master in AE or Compressor, or if the quality of FCPs conversion is enough you could also export your master from Media 100 in 23.98 and use the conversion in FCP for play out…

[Jim Wiseman]

Thanks, Floh. Good Information.

Jim Wiseman
Sony PMW-EX1,Pana AJ-D810 DVCPro, DVX-100, Nikon D7000, Final Cut Studio 2 and 3, Media 100 Suite 2.0.2, Premiere Pro 5.0 and 5.5, AJA ioHD, AJA Kona LHi, Avid MC, Hexacore MacPro 3.33 Ghz 24Gb RAM 120GB SSD, Macbook Pro 17″ 2011 2.2 Ghz Quadcore i7 8Gb SSD, G5 Quadcore PCIe