24 fps problem

[Shane Ross]

Well, if your footage is 24fps, you can’t lay that back to tape. Tapes don’t run at 24fps, so you will only get garbage.

What you might try is creating a new sequence that is 29.97 and drop your sequence into this, render it, then output it. It won’t play smoothly, as it is doing a poor man’s conversion.

If your final output is to be on tape, you shouldn’t be editing at 24fps. 24fps should only be used if you are printing out to film, or burning a DVD. Tapes run at 30 fps…unless it is HD, which runs at 23.98 fps.

[Martial Bachoffner]

Hello Shane,

The original footage is in 16mm, converted into dvcam, we used the flex file to import into FCP 5. We did the editing in 24 fps. Now, we have to put the editing back to the dvcam. It’s a sony dsr11.

Regards,
Martial

[Shane Ross]

Was the final destination always to be tape? Then you should never have performed the reverse telcine to 24fps.

I work on episodic tv shows shot on 35mm and Super 16mm and then transfered to Digibeta and DVCAM. The DVCAM he use to digitize and work at offline resolution. When we lock picture then we online using the Digibetas. All at 29.97 fps.

If you were going to cut the negative, then a 24fps project might be the way to go, but not necessary. You can cut at 29.97, since the keycode information is all that is needed, and is unaffected if you work at 24fps or 29.97 fps.

[Martial Bachoffner]

[Shane Ross] “If you were going to cut the negative, then a 24fps project might be the way to go, but not necessary. You can cut at 29.97, since the keycode information is all that is needed, and is unaffected if you work at 24fps or 29.97 fps.”

This is exactly what we want to do.

From the dvcam and the flex file, which worflow we should consider?
Open the flex file in Cinema Tools, create a new database with Film Standard 16mm 20 – Video TC Rate 30 NDF (or DF?) – TK Speed 30 ? And after?

An other thing, when we capture the clip in FCP 5 with a 24 fps worflow, we don’t have the keycode information. May be this come from our workflow.

Thanks for your help and to share your experience.
Martial

[Shane Ross]

This is the workflow you need to follow if you are shooting on film, telecined to tape, want to work the tape footage and output to tape yet also be able to produce a negative cut list.

Take the flex file and import it into Cinema Tools. Export a Batch Capture list from CT. Import the batch list into FCP and batch capture. Edit. Export EDL

When you lock picture you then need to use cinema tools to convert the EDL into a Cut list. How to do that I am not exactly sure, for I have not done it. All the shows I work on are just onlined on tape and aired.

[Martial Bachoffner]

Thanks Shane!

Martial

[Sebastian Leda]

If you want to do a negative cut you have to edit at 24 fps. If you edit at 29.97 and export a “cut list” from the file menu in FCP, some of the edits are going to be + or – 1 frame, since at 29.97 you might be cutting in frames that are between two frames of the original 24.

Also, FCP outputs a 3:2 pull down from the timeline that you should be able to see through firewire in real time. Check your settings under the sequence menu, go to settings and check that you have the 2:3:2:3 option. This has been working for me with no problems.

Sebastian Leda
Editor
Digital Post Services