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Blackmagic 4:4:4 on FCP to work with ProTools HD
Guys,
I need help on this one really badly. We have an FCP setup and we consider getting a Blackmagic 4:4:4 for our film project. What worries me though is the AV sync issue between FCP and ProTools HD. Do you think installing a Decklink will cure this concern of mine?
We’ve edited a feature film in SD (at 30fps) on an FCP for offline and are farming out DI on a Discreet Inferno/Flame (i think). We sent out a 30fps EDL to the DI Post Facility and they’ve done a good job converting it to 24fps for the final output to film.
We have been Audio Posting on a ProTools HD system at 29.976fps and forsee that we may have AV Sync issues when we finally lay it back onto the 24fps material. Just to alleviate this, we asked the DI Post Facility to send us a 30fps copy of the final conformed DI and continue audio posting by digitising the betacam copy using ProTool’s MediaStation. There’s a lot resynching to be done, but I think it’s the best move forward.
Any suggestions on how installing a BlackMagic on my FCP can help this scenario?
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6 Replies
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How would that help?
I think you need a protools synch I/O to get your clock at 24fps.
Do you have a synch I/O box?
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Borjis,
Hey, thanks for replying.
As a matter of fact, yes they do have a Sync I/O. I’m not very keen on having to work with Quicktime on ProTools as it gives me a very small frame to work on when dubbing or doing sound fx. But does Decklink have a solution for this too? I mean, is there a card/board that I can connect to ProTools to playback quicktime on a reference monitor?
Going back to my original post, will there be an advantage to installing a Blackmagic 4:4:4 to my existing FCP system if I were to work with ProTools? I know Avid with a Mojo will interface better, but my budget is kinda limited so I went on to consider Blackmagic. I just don’t know how it would affect AV lock for a long form Film Project which will finish on a DI.
Thanks in advance guys!
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boy, you are asking good questions. You can lock a Blackmagic (or anybody elses hi end capture card) to 23.98 or 24p, but the big question is – “WILL a DIGI Sync I/O lock to tri level sync (or a non standard frame rate).
It says that it supports “industry standard pull up/pull downn rates for film and video”. This is not an BMD question but a Digi question.
stolen from the Digi website –
re-digitize the audio in Pro Tools while set to pull up, then disengage pull up and the audio will then play slower (i.e. pulled down) and should sync with a QuickTime movie at video speed. Do all post work that way, and then use pull-up to bring the audio back up to film speed when outputting the audio.Also, remember the the “Pull-up” and “Pulldown” settings in the Pro Tools Session Setup window refer to sample rate, and ARE ONLY VALID WHEN A SYNC I/O, USD, OR A VSD IS CONFIGURED in the system. Engaging pull-up and pulldown without having one of these sync boxes connected only changes the ruler location in the Edit Window, but DOES NOT actually pull up or down the sample rate.
Bob Zelin
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The synch I/O we have is configurable to 24p.
not sure if it will take tri-synch though my gut says it would.
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Get yourself a cheap firewire DV converter, and have PT play out straight QT NTSC video to the firewire port. Think of it this way: your audio is at 48KHz, meaning 48000 samples a second. It doesn’t matter how many frames of picture that is. At 30 f/s, an NTSC machine will get it, and so will a 24 f/s box. That is, if you make al of your transfers FILE(!) based, which is the way to go.
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This is the process we went through, please comment if there’d be any problem areas:
1. Shot 24fps 35mm film and recorded live audio on a 30fps non-drop DAT recorder.
2. Did Telecine transfer of Film material to 30 fps betacam tapes
3. Recorded into FCP without using Edge Code information from Film Transfer Log
4. Sent quiktime video and OMFI audio to ProTools (initially without a Sync I/O)
5. Installed a Sync I/O and added a declink device to do monitoring of the QT file on a plasma wide-screen TV.
6. 30fps Video seems to Sync and we continued with dubbing, vo, sfx and foley.
7. Simultaneously, an Online Post House using a Discreet Smoke, conformed the 30fps video output to the original Film Material by manually matching start and end frames provided in the EDL. A Reference betacam tape of the offline output was also provided.
8. 60% into the Audio editing, Online Post house provided a 30fps copy of the conformed material and is digitized for use in the pre-mix.
9. When the ProTools editor finishes his 30fps project, we will then convert it to 24fps, record it to 35 mm magnetic tape and expects it to lock on to the conformed online 24fps video which was recorded back to film using a Celco Film Recorder.
10. Note that this is a Digital Intermediate project and the only time video and audio will be married is after both video and audio have been recorded to film and magnetic tape.My questions now are:
1. Will there be a problem with Sync because of not having a timebase/house sync right from the beginning?
2. Will the conversion from 30fps to 24fps work, considering that I was referenceing to a QT file (sent out through a Decklink) which seems to run in sync with a Sync I/O enabled ProTools system?
3. If there’d be a problem to this workflow, how can I correct it now that we’re almost 80% into the project already.Cheers!
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