Converting a 30 frame project to a 24 frame project

[Joe Womble]

Drew,

Here is a great way to do this, thanks to Avid’s own Michael Phillips:

https://www.24p.com/30_24.htm

Regards,

Joe Womble

[Drew Stevens]

Joe,

Thanks so much. I’ll test this out later today.

–Drew

[Terence Curren]

[Joe Womble] “Here is a great way to do this”

This is the way you have to do it, but it isn’t “great” by any stretch of the imagination. Using the ancient EDL technology to convert projects is very stale.

Effects and titles don’t come across.

You will have lots of edits that are off by one frame.

And any dissolves will wreak havoc with your timeline until you rebuild them.

Contrast this to FCP where you can copy the timeline in a 30 frame project, then paste it into a 24 frame timeline.

I’ve been begging for Avid to fix this for years, but apparently the broadcasters don’t need this so Avid gives it short shrift. In my world I am constantly fighting this as clients offline at 30 the want a 24 frame HD master.

Can you tell I’m pissed!

Terence Curren
http://www.alphadogs.tv
http://www.digitalservicestation.com
Burbank,Ca

[Drew Stevens]

Well, as far as I’m concerned, the original editor should be horsewhipped for making a 30 frame project to begin with. I find it amazing how many people there are who consider themselves professional editors when they don’t know basic, elemental things.

With Avid, if you know what you’re doing, it’s quite easy to create a 24 frame project from the get go. One shouldn’t have to convert from 30 to 24. Luckily, in my case, having the original edits off by + or – a frame isn’t a big deal, since the original edits weren’t very good to begin with.

p.s. If you have to convert a 30 frame FCP project to a 24 frame project, you run into the same + or – a frame issues, which is why it’s best to set things up properly from the beginning, no matter what NLE you use.

[Terence Curren]

[Drew Stevens] “If you have to convert a 30 frame FCP project to a 24 frame project, you run into the same + or – a frame issues, which is why it’s best to set things up properly from the beginning, no matter what NLE you use.”

True, however FCP leaves a 1 frame black hole which I prefer as it makes it easier to spot the trouble areas.

As for effects, they stay with the FCP timeline and scale properly.

This shouldn’t be that big a deal for Avid to write. It could be a stand alone tool like MetaFuze that you just drop your sequence in and it does the conversion. No third party can do it because Avid has too many proprietary secrets in their effects code.

I’m not defending anyone here as most of the time you are right about the original editor. What I’m finding increasingly though is people who sell the show after the fact and then find out they ned to deliver a 24 frame master.

Terence Curren
http://www.alphadogs.tv
http://www.digitalservicestation.com
Burbank,Ca

[Ronen Pestes]

you can try edl max.
https://www.edlmax.com/

it is doing better job then the Avid edl transfer.

Ronen Pestes
Film Editor
http://www.ronenpestes.com

[Johnny Robinson]

I’m sorry I not answering your question, I just want in on the stream because I have a very similar problem.
I am working with a high definition feature movie. It was originally shot in 24 (23.98) fps. However at one point in it’s convoluted life, it was converted to 30 (29.97) fps. This resulted, of course, in a pull-down with duplicate blend frames. This digital print is all we have. We can’t get back to the original 24 fps footage.

However I need to create a 24 fps version of it for distribution.
Every time I try, it creates a visible unacceptable movement stutter. I have exported from Final Cut and used Compressor and Quick Time 7 and I get several different results but they usually wind up with some blend frames or dropped frames that I see when I examine it frame per frame.
It is even possible to get back to 24 once video was changed to 30?
I am on a current FCP studio system.

Johnny Robinson
Johnny@johnnyrobinson.com

[Terence Curren]

The problem is that you are removing the wrong extra fields. If you are trying to remove the pulldown in software, you have to assign the proper cadence (which fields are the extra ones) so that the software can remove them correctly.

HOWEVER…

If your 30 frame master was made from a 24 frame master, you will be okay once you establish the proper cadence.

If your 30 frame master was created from a bunch of 30 frame sources, then you won’t have a consistent cadence throughout your master. In this case, I would strongly recommend you go to a hardware solution like a Teranex. These high end boxes can actually adjust to changing cadence on a shot by shot basis in Real Time.

Not cheap though. You will need to find a local higher end post house or dub house who has this service available.

Terence Curren
http://www.alphadogs.tv
http://www.digitalservicestation.com
Burbank,Ca

[Johnny Robinson]

Looking at this footage, what I see is a 3-2 repeat that progresses as follows.

Frame 1 – complete progressive frame
Frame 2 – complete progressive frame
Frame 3 – complete progressive frame
Frame 4 – an interlaced blend frame made from frame 3 & the next one
ghost frame – half of this frame’s data is interlaced to back to 4 & half is interlaced to frrward to 5
Frame 5 – an interlaced blend taking half data from the ghost frame and half forward to the next.
Frame 6 & 1 – sequence repeats

The original motion blurs in the normal frames are not interlaced blur, it’s progressive.

Another observation is this:
One of the renders I did worked perfectly for some sequences creating perfect progressive frames with no drops. In other sequences in that render there were regular drop frames that look pretty bad. I believe this reflect a change of phase at the 6 or 7 basic edits we did after the reimport.

Johnny Robinson
Johnny@johnnyrobinson.com