P2 Clips are 23.98

[Jeremy Garchow]

Rich, since you said you are intercutting clips from SD, are you posting in SD? SO not only do you have a frame rate conversion, you have a down conversion as well? Also you say you get 720p tapes shot @ 23.98 bit capture @ 29.97? How? Do you mean 59.94? Remember, Varicam material is always 59.94. I am getting a sense that you are confusing terms and I am not really understanding your workflow. You have HD footage, you have Sd footage. You are editing in HD or SD?

Let’s start from the beginning on this current project you are working on.

Jeremy

[Rich Rubasch]

Ok, for one project I got a drive with about 50 clips on it. All 23.98 720p. We were cutting SD, so I strung them out and output to the 1200 deck. I batch digitized the clips back in at DVCPro50 SD. All was well, except I had to do the output and redig.

On a second project I got a mix of 1080i DVCProHD, 720p 23.98 clips and betacam. The scren size was 2840 x 860. All the interviews were green screen. I exported those separate right to AE. I also exported all the broll. I wanted to do a precut in FCP mixing all the footage (I only have the Kona LH, so upconverting was out on the Beta stuff). If I could have precut my sequence I would have just output the cut and laid it over a background for the green screens, added graphics and then did a final rescale to deliver files that were 1080 x 1920 (squeezed in AE, and unsqueezed with the Spyder on location)…the files were delivered as PhotoJPEG 1920 x 1080 anamorphic upper field for import into a Grass Valley Turbo.

What would have been great, however, is if there had been a simple way to take all the 23.98 clips and converted them without sending everything out to the deck first. then I could have mixed them into a 29.97 timeline and probably been ok to precut and export that to AE.

Whew. Crazy project. After it was done, I had to go back to the AE stuff and reposition everything to fit into a standard 16:9 frame, scale down to 4:3 letterbox and output to Windows Media at 640 x 480 letterbox and DVD. Every super and interview that was way off to the left or right had to be repositioned. It got nutty. Between the fields and frame sizes, getting everything right, and the render times was pushing it.

Learned some things, though.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Jeremy Garchow]

Rich, thanks for responding. I will of course have more questions for you.

[Rich Rubasch] “Ok, for one project I got a drive with about 50 clips on it. All 23.98 720p. We were cutting SD, so I strung them out and output to the 1200 deck. I batch digitized the clips back in at DVCPro50 SD. All was well, except I had to do the output and redig. “

And you couldn’t work @ dv50 23.98?
Do you have FCP6?
Have you taken a look at Fields Kit?

FCP has been able to do 23.98 SD since v3.

Also, why not cut in HD and layoff an SD version?

Alright, project 2 is a bit more tough, but you still aren’t taking 29.97 material and making it 24p. That is always a bit more difficult. Again, do you have FCP6 and have you looked at Fields Kit? As far as the beta stuff, it might have been worth it to send that out to get upconverted. Since your final deliverable is 1080i 29.97, then temporally the Beta will fit right in or perhaps scaling within FCP might have done it for you. Making 23.98 into 29.97 is a relatively simple process. What were your interviews on, all the formats?

[Rich Rubasch] “After it was done, I had to go back to the AE stuff and reposition everything to fit into a standard 16:9 frame, scale down to 4:3 letterbox and output to Windows Media at 640 x 480 letterbox and DVD. Every super and interview that was way off to the left or right had to be repositioned. It got nutty. Between the fields and frame sizes, getting everything right, and the render times was pushing it. “

Oh man. This never fails to amaze me. Making a 4×3 version out of the super widescreen material is always a pisser and always seem unnecessary to me, but hey that what they pay us for, right?

Jeremy

[Rich Rubasch]

~And you couldn’t work @ dv50 23.98~

We also had a bunch of DVCAM footage…Delivery was DVD and a DVCAM final tape output. We cut it on an Aurora Pipe FCP system, not the Kona system.

As for converting the Beta material, I got the actual broll Betas on Saturday and had to have three videos ready to Fed Ex on Monday. I ended up still fixing two shots on Monday and they FTP’d the final cut from our server late Tuesday….the show was Wednesday morning!

I actually let AE do alot of the frames management. Did a pretty good job too. I exported everything in its native format and built it in the wide comp, then did a final squeeze into the 1920 x 1080 comp.

Again, things would have been very simple if I could have had an easy way to take the hard drive 23.98 clips and make them 29.97 (59.94) to use and mix with the other footage.

Which is what this post is about, but I keep getting the suggestion to work at 23.98, which Bob Zelin has argued against, and in most of our workflows, I agree wholeheartedly.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Jeremy Garchow]

Boy, you were really under the gun on this one, huh?

[Rich Rubasch] “We also had a bunch of DVCAM footage…Delivery was DVD and a DVCAM final tape output. We cut it on an Aurora Pipe FCP system, not the Kona system. “

Okay. I didn’t realize you had DVCam with it. So you didn’t have FCP 6 either. Then what you did was definitely the best, although you can take your 720 footage, use FCP to scale it down then add proper 3:2 pulldown with a program called Fields Kit from revision fx. With FCP6 this is possible, although you will have to fix the fields as FCP6 renders in 2224 pulldown to 23.98 clips.

Compressor does a wonderful job of converting 23.98 720p to 59.94 by adding 3:2 pulldown (which is different from 720p 29.97 by the way and different pulldown than 3:2 in SD).

People tell you to work in 23.98 because it’s a lot easier to go to other frame rates rather than trying to go from 29.97 to 23.98, but it is contingent on your footage being 23.98.

[Rich Rubasch]

We do have FCP 6.0.2. I do not have Fields Kit though I have seen it come up a lot on the COW.

Again, I don’t mind a third party solution…I was just hoping there was a simple method. I believe now that the best method is to have the cameraman shoot 29.97 to begin with!

Thanks for the lively discussion.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Rich Rubasch] “I believe now that the best method is to have the cameraman shoot 29.97 to begin with!
“

If you have that luxury, and if you are combining SD and HD (and sd that is not shot 24p itself), then perhaps it is.

Fields Kit is great and cheap. Sometimes you don’t get to decide what the best workflow will be and when that happens there’s no magic button to get the conform done. People will tell you not to work in 23.98, some will tell you to work in 23.98. It really is a job by job, case by case basis.

If you have FCP6, you can start to mix and match, just watch out for the 23.98 in a 29.97 SD timeline. That’s where Fields Kit will come in handy. Also, if you decide to use compressor to take your 23.98 720p footage to 720p59.94, it goes pretty quickly.

Jeremy