Multi-format conundrum

[Shane Ross]

[Jacob Murray] “I need to organize and prepare the project, while not hindering the editor from working, as the Producer insist he not stop and wait for me to fix all the formats, which is also a problem.”

That is a BIG problem. I mean, I cannot tell you how big of a problem that is.

This project as you described is a disaster. I mean, it is a near complete disaster. Mixed film, tape, tapeless, 29.97, 23.98, 25fps… It is as if ZERO thought was given to post and how things need to be done. Just shoot things and ask questions later. Well, here it is, later.

You need someone on staff who knows how to deal with all of this….because this is a world of hurt. 16mm and 35mm telecined to DVCAM tape? That surely is not the master for those formats. How will you match those back to the masters? I mean…there is so much going on here there is no way to deal with this on a web forum. This is a gigantic mess.

AND YOU ARE EDITING!

That needs to stop and I mean now. You need to get all of this sorted before you continue, and no doubt have to re-edit what you have done. Everything needs to be ONE frame rate, and you need to figure out what you want that to be. 23.98? OK then, you need to convert, smartly, all of the 29.97 to that format. Best PAL conversion? Terranex or Snell Wilcox at a post facility. Film transfers? How are you going to master those.

You need to hire help…someone who knows what they are doing. Sorry to sound harsh, but this is a really big mess and if you want this to work at all, and have some money and sanity and TIME left over, you need to get all of your ducks in a row before you go any further.

Shane

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

[Kevin Monahan]

Do all your conversions to a common format/frame rate and one that you will be outputting with, ideally ProRes. It’s fine to use Compressor and batch process all your material. Change your schedule to the graveyard so you can work on the material and not bother the editor. Sometimes sacrifice is necessary and this seems like one of those situations.

Kevin Monahan
http://www.fcpworld.com
Author – Motion Graphics and Effects in Final Cut Pro

[Shane Ross]

OK, I will say this…

You need to convert everything to one format…at least one frame rate. Recapture with a capture card, use Compressor…everything. But that has to be done before you do anything else. Editing must stop while you do this, or that can edit ONLY with the footage that has been converted.

In the case of the Film to DV transfer, is this the ONLY tape format you have for this? Was it transferred to HDCAM first, then dubbed? If so, capture the HDCAM as ProRes and forget the DVCAM.

YOU need everything as ProRes, and the same frame rate. And you will need a lot of fast storage for this.

I don’t envy you at all.
Good luck.

Shane

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

[Jacob Murray]

Thanks for the vote of confidence 🙂

I know it is a mess, and I am just an assistant editor. This is an independent project.

I don’t think hiring on any more people is an option.

Technically speaking, I know how to do all of this. The scale is the scary part, considering normally there would be 3-4 assistants working on a project this size.

But I love a good challenge.

I’ve considered everything you are saying. Particularly getting a proper list of selects back to the film for transfer to online quality material. Obviously the DVCAM tapes are offline.

The upside to this is there is a good chance we will gain access to a 4k scanner for free through a university. If this is the case, the I just to need to cross reference everything to make sure I have matching reel names, so I can then later transfer and correctly label the tapes later (we are thinking D5). Luckily the timecode of all the film material is all set at a different hour (1-33), so that’s one thing they got right. Am I correct in thinking that if re-transfer each film reel to HDCAM with the proper hour start, that I can capture and link these new tapes to the offline DVCAM tapes we’ve been editing with?

As for PAL vs. NTSC, really I was asking which of Compressor or Nattress is going to give me better quality. I’ve pushed for a Terranex conversion at a post house, but there’s always that nasty budget…

I have done these conversions in Compressor, but I haven’t used Nattress before. Which do you find easier/faster?

As for editing needing to be stopped immediately, I have pleaded that case several times.

The best agreement that I can come to is that the editor work on a section of material that is already correct at 23.98. Then I will go segment by segment, converting the material so that he can work on each one as I finish them. Do you foresee a problem with that?

I know this is going to take a LONG time. I’m hoping I can have it all the problem footage sorted out in about 6-8 weeks.

[Jacob Murray]

Ok, so batching the HDV footage out of compressor to 23.98 pro-res won’t give me a huge loss in quality?

That’s the main thing I am worried about. Do you think Nattress will give me a better quality, or are they about the same?

[Carsten Orlt]

I know everybody else is saying convert everything to one frame rate and frame size
BUT
why not not leave all as is and only establish one editing format and frame rate.

My thinking here is: In the final edit you’ll only have x-amount of a certain source. If you convert all your current source footage you might be spending many nights for actually no benefit 🙂

But if you establish only one master editing format (delivery format, say you want all in the end on one HD 1080 master at x-frame rate (23.97 or 25 are good ones as they are easily converted to all other formats) in the end you will only have to convert what is needed in the cut. And some of the conversions can be handled by FCP just fine. Frame rate conversions I would do in Compressor as you have more options (BUT only after the edit is finished!, for offline purposes what FCP is doing is just fine) Also for some conversions you might want to look at Video Purifier from Innobits as it can do magic!

How does it work? Easy! Let FCP handle all the conversion between different formats on the fly while editing (assuming you have a fast system). Only footage I would see problems with are any GOP based formats like HDV. But depending on the timeframe it might still be better to sometimes do some rendering than spent endless night converting.
You can convert all existing edits to this master format too. Make copies to be safe, then load the seq and press command-0 (zero) and in the dialogue window bottom left click to load different setting – choose – done. Well not quite as you now have to go though an adjust different source footage to fit your new master format.

do some test on existing or with new seq and cut all different source footage into it to see if it’ll work.

my 2 cents 🙂

Carsten

[Jacob Murray]

Interesting.

I kind of did what you are talking about last week. We had to submit a cut on DVD to IFP. It took about a day and a half to convert the PAL sequences and adjust all the boundaries and find all the black flash frames that resulted from cutting in some of the 23.98 footage into a 29.97 timeline for the DVD. Worked fine for the purpose of the DVD.

For that I tried two methods, both of which worked for this offline DVD.

I copy and pasted a PAL HDV50i sequence into a 29.97 sequence.
Seemingly randomly, some clips were still in sync and were the right clips. Other times they boundaries were so far off that completely different shots were in the newly pasted sequence. For those I reloaded the original shot in the viewer and cut those back in. Other clips were cut a frame short at edit points, so I extended all of those to remove the black flash frames. There were a few other screwy things.

I also took some of those PAL sequences and converted them in Compressor using the advanced format conversion DV NTSC setting, with frame controls turned off and then cut those in to the master sequence.

What worries me is getting the film back into the project.

If the tapes are 29.97, and they were captured at 23.98, and we then telecine the film out to HDCAM tape at 23.98, are my timecodes going to match up so the edit doesn’t get thrown off?

I’d like to think what you are saying will jive, but I worry about all the little things that can go wrong along the way and wind up causing the conform to be more of a re-edit, that the decomposed material won’t properly match what we are viewing on the edit.

If I am reading you correctly, you are saying:

-Do nothing now except establish the master frame rate, which will be 23.98.
-Copy and paste the current sequences into new sequences at the proper frame rate and clean them up.
-Continue editing with all sequences set to the same frame rate, regardless of what the original format is
-When ready to online, consolidate the media and convert those clips only to 23.98.
-Cut the converted clips back in.

Yes? No?

Will the boundaries of the converted clips match those of the source material that was cut in at the different frame rate?

[Carsten Orlt]

[Jacob Murray] “-Do nothing now except establish the master frame rate, which will be 23.98. “
Well you have to test everything to make sure it’ll work.

[Jacob Murray] “-Copy and paste the current sequences into new sequences at the proper frame rate and clean them up. “
No, copy and paste is not accurate enough and also creates new instances of your clips and will destroy the current master relationship. Just open (make a copy for safety) and change the seq setting. then you can adjust what you need to adjust in place.

[Jacob Murray] “Continue editing with all sequences set to the same frame rate, regardless of what the original format is “
And frame size! Yes I at least would look into this possibility. Somebody stuffed up big time setting up this project and a producer not willing to pick up the pieces now sounds a bit like a cheapy to me, so I would try to make it as easy as possible for myself 🙂

[Jacob Murray] “When ready to online, consolidate the media and convert those clips only to 23.98. “
When converting frame rates you have to make sure that the length of any given clip will stay the same. Then what you call the boundaries will be the same.

Take a night or day and test the theory before you commit. If it doesn’t work or you not confident, convert everything to 24 at a fix frame size (SD or HD) and you will have a certain outcome, but now a lot of work on your hand…

Carsten

[Craig Sawchuk]

“Just shoot things and ask questions later. Well, here it is, later. ”

Seriously great line Shane. ‘Hope it isn’t copyrighted…

Thanks,
Craig

[Jacob Murray]

Thanks for breaking it down further Carsten.

What you describe is what I sense the Producer is hoping will work.

Doing it this way definately means atleast months less headache for me… if it works.

I’ll run some tests later tonight and tomorrow morning and let you know how they go.

My gut still tells that converting everything now is the right thing to do, but it wouldn’t be the first time I was asked to fix a mess the wrong way.