Looking for input on shooting/editing resolution/frame rate

[Walter Soyka]

If you really only have duplicated frames (2:2:2:4), you can try to fix the final. The first thing you have to do is figure out where the pulldown was added. If the pattern is consistent throughout the final movie, across all cuts (meaning the pulldown was added on output), then you can simply decimate every fifth frame to get from 1080i29.97 to 1080p23.976. If the pattern is inconsistent, you’d have to do frame duplication detection, which could get very tricky over dissolves and effects.

[Drew Smith] “The issue with fixing things is that our final version is through post color/grade which we spent a lot of money on. If we go back to original footage files and reconform, I suspect we’d have to do the grade again?”

Talk to your colorist. They may be able to reconform without regrading (but they would have to re-render).

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
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[Drew Smith]

Ok, so I just checked the final version of the video that we got from the post house. It has the three normal frames and two (mixed?) frames (two frames where you can see some combing on a computer monitor) pattern.

Will have to check other versions of the files…I’ll keep you posted.

Thanks again for your help!!

[Drew Smith]

Ok, I finally got my hands on some of the original captured footage as well as the final Apple ProRes file that was given to us by the post house.

Both have a cadence of three normal frames followed by to frames that seem to have combined fields (combing) Is this pulldown?

The strange thing is that I also have a QT version of the film that we used for a test screening and it has the previously mentioned 2:2:2:4 pulldown. Not sure how that happened.

Thoughts?