Frame Rate conversion – best practice?

[John Heagy]

[Christopher Travis] “My plan is to cut at 23.98 in a 23.98 timeline to the exact duration required.

Then after final sign off, duplicate all the clips used in the final timelines. Conform those to 25FPS and rebuild the edits on a new 25FPS timeline.”

Like Shane said… the sped up shoots will be too short. You’ll have to extend the conformed shots.

Why not just edit the 23.98 4% longer so when you conform to 25 the time will be correct.

John

[Petter Brox]

Try this:

1) Cut your original footage as 23.98.
2) Export video without audio as a self-contained QuickTime movie using “Current Settings”.
3) Conform to 25fps in Cinema Tools.
4) Open in Compressor and convert to a clip maintaining the original settings (in 25fps), but with “Duration” set to the exact duration of the original clip in 23.98.
5) Import clip to a 25fps sequence in FCP.
6) Copy and paste the sound from your 23.98 to your 25fps sequence. Or export and re-import it if you have created a new project.

Be aware to create PAL projects the “right way” if you’re switching from NTSC: Close all projects, shut down FCP, re-open it, set your PAL-settings and create a new sequence.

This procedure has worked for me on movies up to 20 minutes. Good luck!

Petter Brox
Spain

[Christopher Travis]

Hi John,

I just tried this and it did retain the exact duration, however when going through it frame-by-frame I see that it is repeating frames to do this.

I exported the 15s clip from my 23.98 Timeline
Conformed to 25fps in Cinema Tools
Took it into Compressor and in “Frame Controls” set “Set Duration” to 00:00:15:00 and exported from Compressor

Did I miss a step? Would it make a difference if I changed the “Rate Conversion” setting to something like “Best”?

thanks,
Chris

[Petter Brox]

Christopher,

I’ve been looking at the last thing I made using this method and no frames are repeated, so yes, you should probably use the “Best” option (“Max” in my Spanish version of Compressor) in the “Rate Conversion” pop-up menu.

Give it a try…

Petter Brox
Spain

[Christopher Travis]

ok, I just tried this and now I’m getting lots of warping around moving elements. If it’s not too much trouble, could you post ALL of your settings for one of your successful conversions?

[John Heagy]

[Christopher Travis] “I exported the 15s clip from my 23.98 Timeline
Conformed to 25fps in Cinema Tools
Took it into Compressor and in “Frame Controls” set “Set Duration” to 00:00:15:00 and exported from Compressor”

You did an extra step. If you created a 23.98 seg 4% longer and then conformed to 25fps you are done. No need to do anything in Compressor.

In the case of your 23.98 15sec seq you would need to make it 15:15 long. Conform 23.98 15:15 to 25 and you’ll get 15:00

[Petter Brox]

Oops, you’re right, I’ve made some tests and there are some strange things happening. In my case it’s quite subtle, in fact I’ve never noticed it, but I suppose it depends on the characteristics of your footage.