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2K Phantom .cine timecode variance
Having instructed to receive unpacked cine files for the latest shoot there is now a large timecode discrepancy between Final Cut Pro (not X) and Mac Resolve 8.2
We transcoded the 2K .cine files for edit to Pro Res 422 1920 x 1080 23.98 and all went smooth.
The break down is between the .cine in the Resolve and the transcodes/edl/xml. After I noticed that I was getting nowhere with my xmls in conform I grabbed a few clips to sort it out.
I opened a 2K .cine file in Resolve, opened the same 2K .cine file in Quicktime Player 7 Pro as well as the corresponding transcoded ProRes in Quicktime Player. I dont run FCP on my system.
All of the clips had the same duration and start frame and all 3 had different timecodes by a long margin. Hours 14,13 and 9 respectively, with differing minutes, seconds and frames. I rolled all three clips in 2 secs 17 frames to get sticks and they all tracked so no drift. Other clip tests revealed that there was no offset to be had. Each clip had a new variance.
I am considering a frame count edit at this point but wanted to share my findings. Could it be the 2K .cine files wreaking havoc on 3 different programs running them at 23.98 1920×1080? Of course we use Phantom for overcrank and then slow or speed up in post. That would explain some but not all of my 3 variances.
Thanks guys, good thing is I have until Monday to sort out two :15s before the :30s come later in the week.
Dave Pickett
Colorist
Jam Edit – Atlanta
http://www.jamedit.com
http://www.davepickett.com -
3 Replies
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Dave,
One thing you could try is to modify the timecode in the FCP sequence to match the timecode your seeing in the .cine files. Basically, it would go something like this:
For each shot used in the edit, you find a match frame (a slate, presumably) between your .cine files and the transcodes used in the edit. The FCP editor then selects each clip in the timeline and uses the modify>timecode command to make the slate frame timecode match the timecode you’re seeing on the same frame. Once this is done for each shot in the timeline (if several shots are sub clips from one master clip, he should only have to do it for the master clip) the exported EDL or XML should reference the new timecode — the timecode you have in the .cine files. Though I haven’t used this technique to fix the exact problem you’re having, I have used it for similar issues. So I can’t guarantee that it will work, but it should.If I can help you or your editor further via email or a conference call, I’d be glad to do it. I’m pretty sure I owe you one…
Chris Tomberlin
Outpost Pictures
205-822-4060 -
Phantom .cine files don’t actually have timecode. Some programs – including Assimilate Scratch, Gluetools’ PhantomCine software, and others – use the time stamp of the file (i.e., the creation time) as a time code start frame and calculate from there, but it’s not a universal convention. I don’t really know what Resolve does as I haven’t really had to deal with Phantom footage on Resolve recently, but your problem could easily happen depending on how each piece of software involved “creates” time code for these files. This would almost definitely be the case if you were opening copies of the file that are now on different drives with different creation times.
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Chris I inverted your solution after reading Mike’s comments about the lack of a master camera timecode. We transcoded the .cine to 4444 Pro Res so I could conform the spots. Then I modified the .cine files timecode in Resolve to match the transcodes and everything clicked. I was planning on using the transcodes to grade from but it was green screen intensive so I went back to .cine with better results.
Still not an elegant way to handle Phantom files but at least for this job we preserved the quality and delivered on time.
Thanks to you both for your ideas.
Dave Pickett
Colorist
Jam Edit – Atlanta
http://www.jamedit.com
http://www.davepickett.com
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