29.97, 23.98, HD, HDV and MiniDV – all on the same timeline – is this a nightmare?

[JT]

I’m editing a making-of piece, and sort of by its nature, frame rates are all mixed to kingdom come…

The plan is to edit in DVCPRO HD, 720p60, with a timebase at 23.98fps. This is the ideal setting for the format the interviews were shot in, and for the film (shot on Vericam). I’m liking the Panasonic standard up to this point… and so does Final Cut Pro.

But then we throw HDV into the mix, and that’s shot at 29.97fps, and there’s MiniDV at 29.97 as well. Our vital b-roll.

First off, how can we get all these frame rates to work together? As it stands, the 29fps clips really jerk around on the HD timeline.

Secondly, am I missing anything to edit in the higher res? I know I’ll be losing some of the 4:3 DV image, since blowing it up onto 16:9 inherently means cropping… but it still seems worth it, down the road. It also seems that render times are looming on the horizon either way I go.

Thanks.

MacBook Pro 1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo
1.5 GB RAM
Final Cut 5.1

[Shane Ross]

Stop stop stop.

Don’t mix formats in the timeline. You need to convert everthing to one uniform format.

If you plan on editing DVCPRO HD 720p60 (are you sure not 720p24 at 23.98? That is the setting I use) then ALL the other footage should be converted to that format. QT Pro export or capture card, but get yourself to one codec and bypass all the headaches that you will have if you try all three natively in one timeline. Anytime you made the smallest change you’d be rendering again.

Simplify your edit.

Shane

Alokut Productions
http://www.lfhd.net

[JT]

Thanks.

I’m now trying to get QT Pro to output something that works… I selected DVCPro HD 720p60 (since that’s all it’s got, besides i60 or i50), and then selected the frame rate as custom set to 23.98. I must be missing something, because it insists on greying out the quality option, so it’s automatically set to “medium”.

Something else strange is happening – when I import the converted clip into FCP, it doesn’t display the full frame, unless I set the clip’s composite mode to anything besides “Normal”. That stinks, because it then needs to render.

Also, is it just my settings thus far, or do all conversions come out with jerkiness in the end? Does conversion on a capture card give a smoother product?