Convert 29.97p to 23.98p

[Shane Ross]

30p to 24p conversion isn’t the best. Even with a Terranex, it’ll look a tad off. Engineer is right, 29.97 would convert a little better. No matter what, you will be losing 6 frames per second…6 frames dropped, so there will be odd skippiness. Compressor will do an OK job…as will Adobe After Effects…AE in a skilled hand will do pretty good.

I know a place in Los Angeles that will do the Terranex for $200/hour. $300 for a 90 min thing…done, out the door. File to file. Where are you located?

Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Keith Slavin]

Hi Alex,

Looks like you need high quality frame-rate conversion from 29.97p to 23.98p. isovideo provide fast turn-around, professional superior quality standards conversion/transcoding services (see https://isovideo.com/services.php) based on our 2013 IABM/NAB Game-Changer Award-winning Viarte server. We recently used Viarte for footage conversion (59.94i to 23.98p) for Ron Howard’s “Made in America” documentary, which was world premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 7, 2013. See details from https://isovideo.com/press_915.php. If you are interested in trying out our service, you could send email to keith@isovideo.com. We could run a quick test and see if it works for you.

Best,
Keith

[Nancy Kiang]

Hi, Shane –
I need this service, too (convert 29.97p to 23.976p). Could you please suggest a place or software? Since this thread is from a year ago, I suppose new methods may now be available.

I have Compressor 4.1.3. When you say, “Compressor will do an OK job,” what is “OK”? After running through Compressor, can I spot fix bad motion areas with some other software (dv2film, AE, Twixtor, other)?

Thanks for any more tips.

Nancy

[Nancy Kiang]

Alex – Did you find a solution that worked for you? I need to do the same thing and would greatly appreciate any recommendations.
Thanks,
Nancy

[Shane Ross]

Try using COMPRESSOR to do this…turn on the FRAME CONTROLS in the INSPECTOR and set everything to BEST. And be prepared to wait for a long time.

Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Nancy Kiang]

Thanks, Shane.
I have Compressor 4.1.3.
Does Compressor simply drop frames?
(Looking for Frame Controls in the Inspector, and found these under the “Quality” section:
– Resize filter
– Retiming quality
Those have “Best” options to select.

There are also these:
Adaptive details – check or uncheck (default unchecked)
Anti-aliasing level – sliding bar 0-100 (default 0)
Details level – sliding bar 0-100 (default 0)

Should I alter any of the latter 3?

I had done a simpled-minded convert to 25 fps to see what that would do to scolling titles, and, wow, the studder is bad! I know I can convert the film without titles then add titles back at the proper frame rate in FCPX, but I just wanted to use that as a control on motion converts.

So, I’ll try your recommendation to re-do it. Please just confirm if those are the FRAME CONTROLS you meant, and what I should do about the last 3 options.

Thank you!

[Shane Ross]

[Nancy Kiang] “Does Compressor simply drop frames?”

Yes, but smartly. Although this really only looks smooth if you have 29.97 interlaced. 30p to 24p is simply a frame drop, and nothing really makes that look good. 30p to 24p and 24p to 30p is always messy.

[Nancy Kiang] “Adaptive details – check or uncheck (default unchecked)”

Check that. Leave the others alone. And RATE CONVERSION should be set to BEST.

Now, 30p to 25p…just as bad as 30p to 24p. 30i to 25p is slightly better, because you have fields to work with. But this is why a lot of networks want 24p masters delivered to them…because they convert to 25p better. 30fps to 25 is a standards conversion and not all that slick.

Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Nancy Kiang]

Thanks, again.

If there’s still noticeable studder (stutter, judder, …), then I may go with one of these post services that can do motion interpolation.

“30p to 24p is simply a frame drop, and nothing really makes that look good.”
And 29.97p to 24p is also a frame drop, but just a tad less bad? (Just to clarify, some people round, some people don’t…)

While we’re at it:
– Is “ghosting” good or bad on a down-convert of frame rate? Is it like motion blur and should fool the eye, or is it wrong?

Okay, from here on, I shoot only in 24p…

[Nancy Kiang]

For others who may be reading this thread for advice, here are my results with Compressor 4.1.3:

Input: Scrolling titles white on black background, ProRes422 HQ, 1920×1080, 29.97p, 1 minute 18 seconds

Output 1: To Custom-> MXF 25 fps -> 1080p 422 Uncompressed (just for the helluvit, as I might make that my master file codec)
Settings in Inspector->Video: Defaults
Result: Render time 25 minutes? Awfully jerky scrolling titles

Output 2: To Custom-> MXF 25 fps -> 1080p 422 Uncompressed

Settings in Inspector->Video, Quality:
– Resize filter: Best
– Retiming quality: Best
– Adaptive details: Not checked
– Other options: Defaults (0 on sliding bar)

Results: Render time 40 minutes. Dramatically better than Output 1. No jerky motion, but slight twinkling in the scrolling text (this might be just due to my computer screen, since I see it a little in the original file, too).

Output 3: To Custom-> MXF 25 fps -> 1080i XDCAM HD 422 50 Mbps (the Uncompressed version wound up 8 Gb, and really no need for Uncompressed just to diagnose motion issues)

Settings in Inspector->Video, Quality:
– Resize filter: Best
– Retiming quality: Best
– Adaptive details: Checked
– Other options: Defaults (0 on sliding bar)

Results: Render time ~50 minutes. (Compressor doesn\’t show when it\’s done). Oy, the twinkly text of Output 2 became much worse, wobbly and uneven! Don\’t know if that\’s because of the codec or because Adaptive details was checked.

Output 4: To Custom-> MXF 25 fps -> 1080p 422 Uncompressed, to see if it\’s the codec or the Adaptive optics making things worse.

Settings in Inspector->Video, Quality:
– Resize filter: Best
– Retiming quality: Best
– Adaptive details: Checked
– Other options: Defaults (0 on sliding bar)

Results: Render time guess 40 minutes. The problem with Output 3 was recompressing to the XDCAM interlaced codec. Output 4 is just hint better than Output 2 and hard to tell, but the scrolling seems possibly smoother. It is pretty respectable compared to the original 29.97 fps clip, and I\’m guessing many people would not notice.

Conclusion: With these three options in Video Quality set to best, Compressor\’s convert from 29.97p to 25 fps is quite respectable. The catch is one should export to Uncompressed to avoid further degradation in other codecs, and it\’s odd one cannot select to output to the original ProRes codec as the input. So, at 40-45 minutes per 1:18 minutes for my film, and 8.17 GB Uncompressed, my 20-minute film will need 10-11.5 hours and 125 GB to convert. I guess I can tolerate that running overnight.

In Compressor 4.1.3, I don\’t see any option to output to Apple ProRes 422 HQ at non-29.97 frame rates: all the MXF output options do not include ProRes. I guess one\’s input file already has to be in the desired frame rate, and then video can be converted to other codecs. One can convert to both other frame rates and other codecs in the same export, but not to ProRes.

So, maybe one has to output to Uncompressed if one wants to bring one\’s file back into ProRes without losses?

I\’ll post results from the overnight convert here if it succeeds in finishing.

[Nancy Kiang]

Shane – Where is the place you know in LA that will do Teranex that cheap and fast?
Thanks,
Nancy