60i to 24p, Graphics, CinemaTools and DVD Output

[Graeme Nattress]

Can you check a downconvert to SD on a real TV or monitor? If you plug the HDV camera in downconvert mode, into a normal TV, does it look ok?

I’m not up on HDV cameras – does this one do real 24p or fake 24p? If it’s doing fake, removing the pulldown doesn’t help at all. If it’s real pulldown and advanced, I don’t think CT will remove it anyway, but you’d have to check. CT wants the “flags” in the data stream like the DVX provides to be able to remove adv pulldown.

Graeme

– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects and Standards Conversion for FCP

[Sean Oneil]

[KMimsey] “Any tips on finding the A frame? I’ve had a really difficult time with that so far.”

Open the clip in QT Player. QT Player doesn’t deinterlace for you, so you can manually check the first 5 frames to see what the order is.

Doing a reverse pulldown to footage after it’s been edited at 29.97 is an inredibly painful process. Doing each clip individually in CT is what I’ve done before. But there are alternatives.

One is to hire a facility that has a Teranex. These do a good job at this. But it’s very expensive and you will be stuck moving into a high-end HD tape to tape workflow (D5 or HDCam).

Another possiblity is a freeware Mac program called JES Deinterlace, found here:
https://www.xs4all.nl/~jeschot/home.html

It can do a 3:2 removal whilst automatically detecting cadance breaks. It’s actually really cool and it can create a new clip for every cadance break. It’s not a magic bullet solution thought. It will make an occasional mistake. Sometimes you’ll come up a field short. Also, it’s destrictive in the sense that you lose original TC. But it can get 95% of the work done for you.

[Katie Mims]

[Sean ONeil] “Doing a reverse pulldown to footage after it’s been edited at 29.97 is an inredibly painful process. Doing each clip individually in CT is what I’ve done before. But there are alternatives.”

So what would the right way to do this from the beinning be? Edit at a different frame rate? Capture differently?

[Katie Mims]

[Sean ONeil] “Doing a reverse pulldown to footage after it’s been edited at 29.97 is an inredibly painful process. Doing each clip individually in CT is what I’ve done before. But there are alternatives.”

So what would the right way to do this from the beinning be? Edit at a different frame rate? Capture differently?

[Graeme Nattress]

I think, if you want a 23.98fps deliverable, it’s best to shoot in a format where FCP can remove the pulldown on the fly, or, where it never gets recorded with pulldown in the first place so it never needs removal. HDV doubly complicates this as Cinema Tools won’t remove pulldown on HDV. Some HDV cameras record 24p with proper flags so that it’s 3:2 pulldown doesn’t get added by FCP on capture and you get the native 24p.

Graeme

– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects and Standards Conversion for FCP

[Boyd Mccollum]

I think part of the problem is that the V1 workflow isn’t entirely figured out yet (or entirely supported). Not sure how well it would work going through a capture card, but if you capture it the way you did, did the conversion as mentioned in the article you referenced first, then began editing, it would prevent some of the issues you are currently having.

I’d also recommend when you mix media, to have the workflow figured out in advanced and bring everything together with the same framerate and codecs prior to editing.

[Sean Oneil]

[KMimsey] “So what would the right way to do this from the beinning be? Edit at a different frame rate? Capture differently?”

If you shoot at 24fps, you should edit at 24fps whenever possible. Bad cadance causes a lot of problems nowadays. People have LCD televisions and watch clips on the internet. So the idea of cutting 24fps footage at 29.97 is a really bad one nowadays.

But when your source footage is different framerates, this is where things get very tricky.

Ideally you should be able to capture everything at its native framerate. And then you can edit everything on a 29.97 seuqence. Because the 23.98 footage is captured at 23.98, you won’t have any cadance breaks.

The problem is that FCP 5 is not meant for this. When you take ftg captured at 23.98 and put it on a 29.97 timeline, not only do you have to render it, but it doesn’t add new 3:2 pulldown to it. It’s really stupid. Instead it just duplicates frames. This causes a stuttering effect that is noticable during pans and such.

This is why the other fellow in this conversation (Gramme) provides an “Add Pulldown” filter. But despite how great and useful it is, it requires a lot of extra steps.

FCP 6 is designed to mix formats, including different framerates (Avid can’t even do that). So I can only assume they fixed this annoyance. So once you get FCP 6, the workflow should ALWAYS be to remove pulldown from any ftg that has it – regardless of what framerate your delivery is going to be.

With HDV its easy. You just choose the 1080p24 Easy Setup. With SDI formats, it’s a lot trickier. You have to identify the A frame prior to capture inside the Blackmagic System Prefs under the VANC menu (probably similar process with Kona). A properly downconverted Digibeta will have the A frame always starting at the even 00 TC number. I know the big facilities here in LA check for that now during QC sessions. But you can’t rely on it. You should always double-check.

[Sean Oneil]

Just a quick disclaimer. When you remove pulldown using a capture card like a Decklink or Kona, you lose the ability to batch re-capture selections of your footage. It will assume that the in point of every clip is the A frame. Not good. This may or may not have been addressed by Apple, BM or AJA – but as far as I know it hasn’t.

So unless you are capturing at online quality, don’t do it unless you are prepared to re-capture ALL of your source footage. Thanfully with FCP6’s ProRes, the days of capturing at offline quality are hopefully over.

[Graeme Nattress]

Not all HDV though….. Best double check that before you shoot. Some are supported by FCP for this, some not. I think it’s all how the HDV is made – is it recorded as 24p with flags, or is it actually recorded as 29.97fps (24P + 3:2 pulldown).

With SDI / capture card based capture, indeed – got to be really careful. Good that we’re moving to datacentric workflows that avoid such needs for capture.

Be interesting to fully see how FCP handles different frame rates on the timeline. I’ve got the feeling (from the demo on the big screen at NAB) that it’s not 100% completely smooth.

Graeme

– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects and Standards Conversion for FCP

[Katie Mims]

Thank you so much for all the information! I’ve just now started doing projects that use different sources and formats. Previously I’d only done projects that had been single format and originally film transfered to tape. So I’m still trying to wrap my head around HD and mixed formats without having to update to FCP 6. I’m running off an outdated laptop that isn’t worth updating.

Do you have any reading suggestions on HDV, FCP and the Sony HVR-V1U? I love the camera, but it’s annoying that it isn’t supported by FCP (I’ve heard rumors that FCP 6 supports it).