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Major Post Flow Problems: 25p/60, 33p/60 and 50p /60
Dear forum,
We have shot a short film using a Varicam in DVCPRO HD format.This camera/format was chosen before we really had too much time to figure out the post strategy. But most of the footage is shot at 25p (we are in PAL territory) but the camera’s frequency was at 60hz. Some of the footage was shot at 33p and also 50p for slow motion effects.
Due to crazy deadlines we had to load the material into our AVID MC Adrenaline very quickly so we could start editing.
When we loaded the footage into the AVID, we couldn’t connect the AJ1400 DVCPROHD deck via firewire. What we wanted to do was to downconvert and capture via firewire (I read a little about the possibility to also capture the variable frame rates with some kind of pull down??). But we couldn’t get deck control, so we aborted this plan and instead captured via SD-SDI using a DV codec into the Avid.
Then we also realized that all of the material was recorded in 60i and since we didn’t have money or time to do a frame rate conversion to 25p, we decided to capture the footage into a NTSC format/timeline, I believe that the Avid called this 30i.
So here comes the questions.
1. Now we really need to find a way to capture the footage that was shot at 33p and 50p into the Avid in slow motion since the editor cannot edit without the clips being the right slow motion speed. If we get the frame rate converter to out put the 33p and 50p, will they even be able to be captured into our Avid now when we are editing on a 30i NTSC format/timeline?
2. An alternative option could be just to ditch the 33p, and just go for a 50p (or rather just 50% slow motion) by using a slow motion controller and slow the AJ1400 deck down by 50% and re-master new HD master tapes with a 50% slow motion. Then I believe that we will still be in the 30i NTSC/timeline world and thus these new HD masters will be able to be captured in our Avid.
3. Another question is that I am not sure we checked any box off in the Avid to do a pull down of any kind in order to be able to get a 25p effect. So I am afraid that the footage that we have captured is just NTSC interlaced. So how would we online this at the end so it will end on a 25p time line. If we don’t consider the slow motion issues, I fist I thought that we would just online the footage to DVCPRO HD time line, and then feed it through a frame rate converter to end up in a 25p timeline. Of course this will have some consequences in relation to the sound but that could probably be acceptable. Is that even possible.
So if any of you have a suggestion what to do, I will really appreciate it.
All the bests!
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1 Reply
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We shot a feature last year with the Varicam, and your problems sound familiar. Final Cut will support the camera, but a surprisingly cheap option may be to get a copy of Edius – this handles it all perfectly in native codec. It may not be the edit system of choice, but it definitely works. I got used to the software interface quickly enough too. The different speeds are displayed correctly in Edius in real time, without the need for rendering.
You can kiss goodbye to relevant timecode however. But don’t worry about that.
As far as we could establish, Avid does not, and will not, handle this material effectively. So Edius for PC systems and Final Cut for Mac. (I believe Edius will load up on a mac too.)
Good luck!
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