EDL conversion from 25 to 24

[Will Macneil]

Well the first thing I would verify is that the telecine was done at 24fps. This is very unusual. The standard for film offline in PAL is to transfer at 25fps and slow it down in the non-linear system. In Final Cut Pro this is called the 24@25 method.

The frame rate of the edl usually depends on the logging system used by the neg cutters. Here in the UK most neg cutters log at 25fps as this is the timecode on the transferred tape.

If you can give me some more details, I’ll try to help.

Will

[Richard Downing]

Thanks for the quick response. Firstly, the telecine was indeed done at 24fps which, I agree, is both unusual and undesirable. Unfortunately we couldn’t head that one off at the pass. Also, there won’t be a neg cut – we are going to get the whole lot (here in SE Asia, neg cuts for online are very rare). Each lab roll has been has been transferred to Betacam with the timecode zeroed (with hour offsets per roll) at the “punch” at the head of the roll. The intention is to do the same for online telecine and transfer the selects with timecode generated by the telecine (using Aaton Keylink) – sort of a TV commercial approach but a lot bigger. Regarding the keylink, we are just using it to generate the timecode – keycode was not used at all for the offline transfer or anywhere in the process. The issue, of course, is that the offline tapes have 25fps timecode while the online tapes will have 24fps code. In both cases the telecine will have been running at 24fps so overall durations will be the same. Basically, then, the 24fps EDL that I need should look the same as the 25fps EDL as far as hours, minutes and seconds go. The conversion process needs to just re-map the “frames” values from a base of 25 to 24. I should add at this point that I have not actually seen the film or the 1-lite tapes which are presently in another country but am relying on several phone discussions with the director and editor earlier in the process.

[Will Macneil]

I think I see a problem in that this doesn’t account for pulldown. I’m assuming the original transfers used either a 12:1 or 24:2 pulldown to get onto PAL tape, unless they did a standards conversion!

So you’re going to lose frame accuracy working this way.

There is software which can do this edl conversion, but I don’t think Cinema Tools can handle it (it’s specifically designed not to do this.) You might try loading the source columns from a 25fps edl into your online and see what happens.

Good luck,

Will

[Richard Downing]

You’re quite right about the pulldown. I expect to see some cutting inaccuracies. Thanks for your help anyway.

[Gary Adcock]

[Will MacNeil] Well the first thing I would verify is that the telecine was done at 24fps. This is very unusual. The standard for film offline in PAL is to transfer at 25fps and slow it down in the non-linear system. In Final Cut Pro this is called the 24@25 method.

Make sure on 2 things- that your 24fps is 23.98 if the Telcine was done at 24.0 fps
if you are @ 24.0 you have just doubled your Audio Post costs becuase the audio is most likely NOT goingto be at 48.048MHz so all of your mixes will now be off.

Secondly you said it was transfered to beta but at PAL or NTSC – there should be no pulldown issues from a PAL Tape, Just the slip to 24, However there is no way to write 24fps to beta it would be 25fps or 29.97 –Cinema Tools also has the ability to getnerate a 24pEDL / cut List from 29.97 materials but doing a file > export > Converted EDL > 30 – 24

gary adcock

Studio37
HD and Film Consultation

[Michael Buday]

Just in case you’re interested, we sell a program that will convert EDL’s from one frame-rate to any other frame-rate – and it will do a proper conversion from 25fps>24fps. Remember, you not only have to take into account the frame-count for every TC position, but all the transition rates and any “offspeed” effects (slo-motion/fast motion, etc.)

http://www.swgrille.com

Look for the EDLMAX-24 link.

Michael Buday

[Misha Aranyshev]

Way back when Cinema Tools was Film Logic it could generate accurate cut-lists from 24+1 telecin