mixing 720 25p with 720 24p from the hvx

[Jeremy Garchow]

Are you the only people shooting 24p? if so, you sohoudl consider shooting 25pN (with a suitable camera) to match the rest of the footage.

As far as proxies, what are you doing with them?

Jeremy

[Chad Cooper]

The reason we are shooting in both is simply because we need to collect footage from eight different countries. This project has come along very suddenly with a quick turn around so there is no time to send our own crews to these places. The crews we are hiring there will be sending us PAL footage. Therefore the thought was to conform everything to 24p which is how it will be delivered.

The proxy files are only for the sake of an offline edit. We’ll be sending those back via an FTP and then starting the edit while we wait for the hard drives to be shipped back. Again, this is all due to a very tight deadline.

Jeremy, shooting 25P is something we considered but were hoping that it wouldn’t be necessary. By the way, I’m in Chicago and your advice comes highly recommended by our friend Damon.

So now that I’ve explained our reasons a little better, what’s the best way to get this footage to match?

Thanks again
Chad

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Chad Cooper] “By the way, I’m in Chicago and your advice comes highly recommended by our friend Damon. “

Nice. Tell Damon I said hello.

Well, at some point you are going to have to convert the footage from one format or another. Since most (?) of your footage is going to be PAL based, I don’t see why you’d post in 24p. If everything is going to be 25pN, I’d shoot and post in 25pN, even here in the states. You can always conform the master to 24p if you really need a 24p master (is it really a 24p master or is it an NTSC master)?

You can either front load the conform process by taking all of the 25p and making it 24p (using a variety of tools, it really depends on your audio needs). Or you can edit in 25p and conform your 24p to 25p if you decide shooting 24p is worth it for you here in the states.

Another option is to shoot everything 25pN and post/edit in 25p, then conform to whatever you need at the end.

Jeremy

[Shane Ross]

[Chad Cooper] “The proxy files are only for the sake of an offline edit. We’ll be sending those back via an FTP and then starting the edit while we wait for the hard drives to be shipped back.”

Take a look at PROXIE MILL by http://www.imagineproducts.com. This software automatically generates proxies in whatever codec you specify (presets available) with burned in timecode. And these proxies will have the same timecode as the source, BUT…there are no offline resolutions that FCP supports really (nothing found in the Easy Setups). The best thing to do, IMHO, is import all of the footage, then use the MEDIA MANAGER to recompress as offline RT for the offline edit, then conform to the full versions later. I have a workflow article about this here:

https://www.lafcpug.org/nab_supermag_08.html

Shane

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

[Chad Cooper]

[Jeremy Garchow] “(is it really a 24p master or is it an NTSC master)?”

Well, it seems the client is still deciding but for now it looks like it’s going to be an NTSC DVD. That being said, the PAL idea makes a lot of sense as long as it easily converts to NTSC. I’m going to check on shooting PAL with our camera guy. Once the 25P edit is finished, would compressor be the best way to convert it?

Shane, I had seen you post about proxie mill. I’d love to try it and had suggested it but they don’t want to pay for nine copies. I’ll definitely give the article a read though.

Thanks guys!
Chad

[Shane Ross]

[Chad Cooper] “I’d love to try it and had suggested it but they don’t want to pay for nine copies.”

NINE COPIES!? Why do you need nine copies? Just one. You can have it on one machine and tell it to look at ALL the P2 dumps and it will just start making proxies. You can do this when shooting is done and you have all the footage at your disposal.

Shane

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

[Chad Cooper]

There are nine crews in nine different countries. I need the proxie files to be made so that they can be ftp’d back to here to start the edit while the hard drives are being shipped.

Chad

[Sean Oneil]

Use Cinema Tools and conform your 24p to 25. Or 25 to 24. Very simple.

Sean

[Tom Brooks]

If I understand it right, you need your shooters in 8 countries to get you something faster than the two or three days shipping will take so that you can start editing. It can be a complicated process and the chances of getting the right result from 8 different sources could be tricky. I suggest that you allow the sources to send you footage in 25p for simplicity and you edit in 25p.

Would it work to have them place all material on a single 25p timeline and then send you two exports of that? One in HD on hard disk via DHL shipment, the other lo-res (suggest Offline RT) via ftp?

Your 24p footage would have to be converted to 25p for the edit. Compressor can do this well (p. 265 in manual is about speed changes.).

When it’s done, the whole thing can be converted to 24p for conversion to DVD.

As an alternate approach, you might be able to convert the lo-res to 24p after downloading it from ftp and then do the same conversion to the HD stuff when it arrives–the idea being that you could again reconnect to the converted HD material with frame-accurate results. This could allow you to edit in 24p.

Just an idea to ponder. A few extra days would make everything so much simpler, eh?

PS-I see Sean has suggested Cinema Tools. Perhaps a better option for you.

[Jeremy Garchow]

Both Cinema Tools and Compressor are options, but they will speed up the footage and therefore speed up and resample the audio which is why I said it really depends on your audio needs and what you can live with. If there’s no audio, Cinema Tools is a great way to do it. You can also use Compressor for frame interpolation with wihtout any retiming and it works pretty well.

I still think shooting/posting everything in 25p is going to be the easiest as long as you have a mulitformat monitor.

AS far as proxies, that might be more trouble than it’s worth. How long is it going to take to make proxies and then upload them? I don’t know what countries you are going to, but there’s a lot of countries out there where the internet is nowhere near as fast/reliable as you are used to. I understand the idea of the proxies, but depending on the amount of footage, it might not be as fast as you think.

Jeremy