-
converting 23.98 to 29.97 QT movie
Hi there-
I am working on a project that was originally shot on HD – it has been brought into Final Cut Pro with a compressor of DVCProHD 1080i60, the frame rate is 23.98 – it is anamorphic.
I am trying to deliver a 5 minute piece of the cut to another house for trailer purposes in the best quality possible, via ftp – they are working in SD at 29.97 as they are mixing other sources in.
When I use the compressor template for SD under advanced format conversions, (I have chosen the DV NTSC anamorphic option) it forces the project to a 29.97 frame rate – This causes unsightly lines around edges that almost looks like interlacing. If I send the same file out at 23.98 all is fine. I have put it on a 29.97 timeline and rendered within FCP and get the same result.
Does anyone know how to get a 23.98 project to export a good quality QT movie at 29.97 – I am hoping as it is so short there will be no audio speed differences – I probably have to be concerned with pulldowns?
Thanks!
Roz -
6 Replies
-
I’d export with 8 or 10-bit uncompressed or ProRes. You want it in the highest-quality SD codec the other edit house can use. DV will look awful compared to HD.
It’s important that in Compressor in the Encoder tab in the Inspector you set all the quality settings to Best.
John
MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.5 QT7.5.5 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870
ATTO ExpressSAS R380 RAID Adapter, PDE Enclosure with 8-drive 6TB RAID 5
24″ TV-Logic Monitor
Final Cut Studio 2 (up to date)Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neumann U87, Schoeps Mk41 mics, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN
-
Roz, these conversions are tricky and the software doesn’t always get all aspects of them right. With your sequence at 23.98 going to say, Uncompressed 8-bit, I’d guess that Compressor’s Advanced Format Conversion is your best bet unless you have a Kona card or the like and other necessary hardware.
The end result with Compressor should be at 29.97 frames per second with 2:3:2:3 pulldown. Remember that this is an interlaced format. You should see what appears as 3 progressive frames, then 2 interlaced frames, then 3 progressive, and so on. This will not be visible on a proper interlaced TV monitor.
-
Hi Tom,
As you know I don’t belong to the NTSC worl, so I can be making a dumb question.
It seems to me that Roz is trying to edit together some 29’97 with 23,98 footage (Roz said: they are working in SD at 29.97 as they are mixing other sources in).
it wouldn’t be better to just convert the 23’98 to 29,97?
I mean without adding the pull down.
Again, sorry if this makes no sense.
rafael -
The way I read it is that Roz has a 1080p24 master and needs to supply a SD 29.97 piece for someone else to use. In order to preserve the timing of the Roz’s edit, the logical way to do this is to add pulldown. This will result in 29.97, interlaced but with the same length and the same “24p look” of the original edit. It draws from the progressive frames and pulls down fields from them in the 2:3:2:3 pattern to create the i29.97 version. Much like a telecine. That appears to happen correctly with the Adv Format Conversion in Compressor.
-
Hi guys-
Thanks for the good advice – I upgraded to H264 under Quicktime in advanced format conversions in compressor. I set my size to 50% of source which ends up being 960 X 540 – I changed the frame rate to 29.97 and pulled quality to best – it all looks great playing through QT player at full screen on my desktop. If I change any of these variables I get the crappy lines on edges again. I do not see any indicator in compressor that we are doing a telecine or what the pulldown is but I am assuming it is automatic in the conversion between frame rates. When I look at it visually I cannot see the 2:3:2:3 frames running progressive or interlaced as described by Tom but it looks as though every 5th frame is duplicated. GREAT QUALITY!
In response to Rafeal – when I put it in a 29.97 timeline and just render the bad lines come back.
I tried to get the # above (960 X 540) to be closer to 720 X 480 so as not to confuse online house- but cannot seem to work out the math for anamorphic, there is no preset close to this # – probably a dumb question – assuming they can cope with it.
Roz
-
You can add pulldown on output via FireWire.
From the Cinema Tools manual:
“Final Cut Pro lets you add pull-down to 23.98 fps video as you output it via FireWire. As
discussed in the previous section, this is useful when you are editing 23.98 fps video
and want to output it to an NTSC device.Important: You must have a FireWire device connected and the sequence must have a
23.98 fps timebase for the pull-down options to appear. They will not appear if the
sequence has a 24 fps timebase.To add pull-down back in while sending 23.98 fps video to an NTSC device
via FireWire:1. In Final Cut Pro, select the sequence in the Timeline.
2. Choose the type of pull-down to use from the Real-Time Effects (RT) pop-up menu in
the Timeline.
3. Output the video using your FireWire connection.Refer to the Final Cut Pro documentation for details about outputting video.
The pull-down is performed on the video that is sent out of your computer via FireWire.”Kevin Monahan
http://www.fcpworld.com
Author – Motion Graphics and Effects in Final Cut Pro
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up