-
Importing archival at project frame rate or no?
Hey everyone!
I’m in unsure waters at the moment. I’ve been importing archival for a documentary project and taking the time to make different projects at different frame rates so that I could import each clip in its native format. I got the sense from running around forums that that was the best method of dealing with this kind of footage. I was talking to an assistant on a different project, though, and he says that it’s better to import at the project frame rate because Avid tends to slow down significantly if there are too many different frame rates at work.
Does that sound accurate? Should I go back and retranscode all of my archival to the project frame rate? Are there different reasons for doing it differently on two documentaries???
-
4 Replies
-
[Marissa Gouverne] “and he says that it’s better to import at the project frame rate because Avid tends to slow down significantly if there are too many different frame rates at work.”
WRONG! Importing at the project frame rate does no such thing. And it does horrible things like convert the frame rate improperly. Sorry, they are wrong here. Always import the footage in a project with the same frame base..unless you are using 8.4 and up, that version has options allowing importing footage at the footage frame rate, not project.
[Marissa Gouverne] “hould I go back and retranscode all of my archival to the project frame rate?”
No, what you did is right…100%.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Thanks for the quick reply, Shane! That makes me feel a lot better about it.
Another question though-does importing at the project frame rate do any good at all? Maybe render times are quicker? Anything? They’ve been doing it this way at the new job and I want to make sure I’m not going off the rails without knowing something.
And 1000x thanks again!
-
[Marissa Gouverne] “Another question though-does importing at the project frame rate do any good at all?”
No.
[Marissa Gouverne] “Maybe render times are quicker?”
Nope.
[Marissa Gouverne] “Anything? “
Nothing. Well, not NOTHING. If you have 29.97 footage and a 23.98 project, converting that 29.97 to 23.98 will lower the data rate, take up less space on the drive. But that’s about it. But the trade off for doing that…meaning that the frame rate conversion will SUCK compared to importing it at it’s own frame rate and adding it to the timeline. There really is ZERO benefit for doing that.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Thanks for the input, Shane!
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up