Cinema Tools vs. FCP X 1080 60 to 24

[Robin S. kurz]

[Tangier Clarke] “then bring those into to cinema tools for the 24 frame conversion”

Why and how do you even feel you need to do that?

[Tangier Clarke] “or even an FCP X storyline to do the work.”

Importing the clip and setting it to “Automatic Speed” in your project would work out to the exact same as with Cinema Tools.

[Tangier Clarke] “The goal is to put this with a Canon 5D Mark II at 24p.”

Go right ahead. I wouldn’t even bother with the conversion. What for?

[Tangier Clarke] “Compressor is more modern as is FCP X”

No, it’s not. It may have gotten it’s biggest update most recently, but it still uses the exact same tech under the hood. The biggest advantage merely being the option for distributed rendering.

[Tangier Clarke] “Does AV foundation provide any unknown benefit?”

MANY, yes. But both use it, so there’s no getting around it anyway.

– RK

____________________________________________________
Deutsch? Hier gibt es ein umfassendes FCP X Training für dich!

[Tangier Clarke]

Just to clarify. This is a workflow that was posed to me and I too thought that Cinema Tools was an unnecessary step. However I didn’t want to advise against it because of a lack of my own knowledge of using Cinema Tools and sought out you all who may [still] use it and have pertinent information I don’t have and can share. I used to use Cinema Tools a lot way back when, but it’s been a minute (figuratively) and I can’t make a case for using it vs. today’s more modern tools. OF course I can’t say the same for the still awesome MPEG Streamclip.

There was a time where Cinema Tools was significantly better at conversions – better than using FCP 5, 6, and 7 perhaps with DVCPRO HD; essentially the days of flagged frames on tape.

Hope this makes more sense.

Tangier

[Bret Williams]

You keep saying conversions. That would be changing the codec or size. Something that requires some sort of transcoding/rendering. The right term is conforming. In conforming, cinema tools just changes the frame rate of the file for what you’re talking about. FCP X accomplishes the same thing by simply applying the appropriate speed change to match the frame rate to the timeline. I’m pretty sure you could do the same thing in legacy if you wanted to do the basic math. But since legacy couldn’t even do things like apply basic pulldown, I’m not sure anyone really put any faith in bothering. But with progressive 60p in a 24p sequence, putting the speed at 40% should have done the same thing that X is doing.

Now reading your post again, it sounds like you still want the 60p to play at 100% speed. Sure X can do that. It’s just going to skip 36 out of every 60 frames just like any NLE. There’s not really anything you can do to turn 60p into 24p except get rid of the extra frames and hope it looks okay. You’re no lacking frames like if you put 24p in 60p. What you’re going to have is much sharper criper images because the camera’s shutter was twice as fast.

[Tangier Clarke]

Thanks for the info and for the correction. Much appreciated.

Tangier

[Bret Williams]

So are you trying to convert (change frame rate) or conform (speed up / slow down to match sequence frame rate 1:1)?

[Mark Smith]

I have a similar issue as the OP. I have some 59.94 footage that I would like to play as 23.98, in other words slo – mo. Is there a way to conform the 59.94 clips to play all frames at 23.98 to get the slo mo effect?

[Bret Williams]

Robin gave the answer. Set the clip to “automatic speed” in the retiming pull down. That’s it.

And as I said it’ll just calculate the speed to accomplish this 1:1 playback. It’s not really magical or anything. 24/60=.4 so it will set your clip to 40% speed.

[Mark Smith]

yep– got it

[Tangier Clarke]

This is essentially what my GH3 does as well when it’s set to 40% while shooting in 1080p60. Setting it this way causes the camera to switch to 1080p24.

T

Tangier