how do you convert from 29.97 to 23.98?

[Shane Ross]

Why do you need it to be 23.98?

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
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[Bouke Vahl]

ouch…
Shame on Shane!
One should always cut in 23.976.
If it’s for the web, no de-interlace needing, less frames to compress.
If it’s for broadcast, you have to apply pulldown after the edit so the cadence stays and it can be removed from the master without trouble.

for the OP, did you shoot AP or NP?
(you can tell, find a high motion part and see how the relation interlaced / progressive is. If it’s one interlaced frame every 6 frames, it’s Advanced and it’s simple)

Bouke

https://www.videotoolshed.com/
smart tools for video pros

[Peter Harf]

Hi Bourke,

Thanks for your help. We didn’t shoot advanced, unfortunately. Just regular 24p NOT 24pa. It’s for broadcast, not the web. I once worked on a project where we had the same issue and did it in Final Cut Pro by applying a filer to every shot and then deleted the necessary frame. But that was a long time ago and I don’t remember. Any ideas?

[Peter Harf]

Well, because we shot the film on 24p. Aren’t there duplicated frames applied to the film that needs to be removed?

[Shane Ross]

[Bouke Vahl] “One should always cut in 23.976. “

BOLD statement. What if you are going to broadcast, that is 29.97 (here in the US)? Then you don’t NEED to cut 23.98. All you do is complicate matters by having to remove pulldown and then add it back. AND, if you have to deliver a 29.97 master with specific timing, cutting at 23.98, which is only NON-DROP FRAME, means that you have to calculate things. And when you have deliverables that require act breaks to end at specific times, and commercial breaks to hit 00 frames…23.98 mucks that all up. I’m not saying that the OP necessarily will be doing that, but you did say one should ALWAYS cut 23.976, and I am giving reason why not.

What if you don’t want the 23.98 look?
What if you are going to DVD? That is 29.97…why go to the trouble of trying to remove pulldown properly when you are going to end up 29.97 anyway? And when you have the 24p look already?

There are MANY reasons not to work 23.98. So we need to find out what the final deliverable is to determine if the OP needs to work 23.98.

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Bouke Vahl]

[Shane Ross] “What if you are going to broadcast, that is 29.97 (here in the US)? Then you don’t NEED to cut 23.98. All you do is complicate matters by having to remove pulldown and then add it back.”

Many broadcasters demand a master without cadence breaks.
Also, if the OP shot AP, it’s ugly and never intended for final output, a 23.976 @ 29.97 piece should be NP.
Next, if you need anything else done with the piece, you need the 24 master.
That includes going to internet, Pal, very long DVD’s and last but not least, film (although i suspect that’s not going to happen in this case 🙂
And of course, if the original broadcaster allows cadence breaks, what happens if you sell it again to a broadcaster that does?

[Shane Ross] “cutting at 23.98, which is only NON-DROP FRAME, means that you have to calculate things.”

You only have to do the math once, write down the numbers and be done with it.
It’s a 5 minute job, vs a day or so if you have to manually re-do the piece to remove cadence breaks.
(I’ve done it a couple of times…)

[Shane Ross] “What if you don’t want the 23.98 look? “

Then why on earth shoot it? It’s a compromise format that only looks good if you go to a non-interlaced output like film or internet. In all other cases, it sucks IMHO.
(but of course sucks way less than standards conversion, and is very handy if you need multiple formats, that’s why it was invented…)

[Shane Ross] “What if you are going to DVD? That is 29.97..”

No, it’s not. 23.976 is a perfectly good DVD framerate. Player will add pulldown if needed.
And since you have less frames to process, encoding will be faster, and you can put more on one DVD at the same quality.

[Shane Ross] “There are MANY reasons not to work 23.98”
Huh? the format IS 23.976! Only in a 29.97 container.
Yes, it’s fast to just handle it as if it were NTSC, but as i have hoped to make clear,
there are more disadvantages.
How hard is it to remove pulldown on ingest, or do a simple removal afterwards?
If it’s AP, no render is needed and it can be done way faster than RT.
(If you can live with QT ref, it’s instant removal…)

[Shane Ross] “So we need to find out what the final deliverable is to determine if the OP needs to work 23.98. “

On this we totally agree.

Bouke

https://www.videotoolshed.com/
smart tools for video pros

[Craig Sommerer]

Peter,

If you wanted to be in 23.98 then you should have removed the pulldown before you began editing. You also need to grasp the technical aspects of what you’re doing; there have been questions on this workflow for years now and there is no dearth of information.

https://www.adamwilt.com/24p/index.html
https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/24p_in_FCP_nattress.html

[Peter Harf]

Thanks for the discussion. I decided to go to 23.98 and you said you’ve done it a couple of times. Do you mind telling me exactly how you did it? How do you remove cadence breaks? That would help me a tremendous lot. Thanks!