Telecine prediction for EDL

[Rick Sebeck]

Mike,

Thank you so much for your help. But I still don’t think I’ve figured everyhting out correctly – that is I still don’t have an EDL that matches my tape.

Again, here was my proccess so far –

35mm telecined to DVcam
ALE into CT exported a batch list
digitized in FCP reverse telecined in CT to 24fps
Cut the film at 24fps
Exported the entire film (90min – it’s not a short) as a 24fps QT movie
Changed the time base from 24fps to 23.98 in CT
Made a new 23.98 sequence in FCP
Exported via Kona2 to DigiBeta.

Made an EDL of the original 24fps sequence.
Converrted 24fps EDL to 30fps EDL with CT

The only time I can get the 30fps EDL to match anything is when I copy the 24fps edit into a 29.97 timeline – it matches except for the feild 2 edits that have a gap. That is why I am thinkiing of removing the gaps (extending the edits (which I have noticed always fall on a duplicated frame) and rendering out the dropdown in FCP. Of course, I haven’t even considered audio in the equasion.

What is the difference betwwen FCP pull down on the fly and rendering it out in a 30fps sequence?

All this work is to avoid the time it would take for the Davinci to run the scene detect – as we are trying save time for the colorist. And again, this is just a temp color until we actually get the neg cut.

[Mike Most — account bouncing, bad address]

I think the mistake you made is twofold. First, in the future you should make all projects of this type 23.98. There is no real need for a 24 frame project under almost any circumstances. Second, you can’t just change the timebase and have the material play correctly. You need to conform the 24fps Quicktime movie to 23.98. Then you can drop it into a 23.98 timeline and have it play out correctly. I also don’t know what you mean by “gaps.” There is no simple way I know of to tell when an edit is going to fall on field 2 while you’re still in the editing system, because you can’t field jog. You need to lay it off to tape and check the edits in order to determine this.

The rate, however, should have nothing to do with the EDL conversion, as it’s just a numerical conversion. It assumes a 3:2 pulldown with “A” frames falling on time codes ending in 0 and 5, and changes every time code number in the EDL accordingly. I’m not sure it even does length checking at each edit (as a true matchback process would, but that would usually be working in reverse, i.e., taking a 30 frame video edit and compiling a 24 frame film cut list).

I suppose there isn’t a significant difference between the on the fly playout and a 29.97 render, but it’s much easier to not do a separate render – especially seeing as it’s unnecessary when you’re using something like a Kona card, which I believe can do this in hardware.

[Mike Most — account bouncing, bad address]

By the way, if it makes you feel better (and it might), (as a colorist) I did an entire movie (100 minutes) that was done exactly the way you’re describing – cut at 23.98, output with 3:2 pulldown to DigiBeta, with a converted list supplied for color correction. It didn’t slow me down very much, but I did have to check every edit to determine whether it was on field 1 or field 2. The DaVinci has various cue functions, so you can instantly cue to either the first frame of the current event, the first frame of the next event, or the first frame of the previous event. So in effect, all you need to do is automatically cue to the first frame of each edit and jog through it, changing the field ident if you need to. Not really as much of a time consuming step as you might think, especially if you do it as you’re color correcting. Besides, the reality for colorists is that EDL’s usually have errors in them – events that shouldn’t be there, missing events, etc. Colorists with any degree of experience are very used to that, and are careful to change what needs to be changed as they work.

[Rick Sebeck]

Mike, thank you so much. I think one of my other mistakes, was that when I exported to tape, I strated the insert at 58:30:00 – at the begining of the color bars. If I rexport the film starting at 1:00:00:00 do you think my EDL will match? That is does the conform EDL use hour one as the start of it’s offset?

-Rick

[Mike Most — account bouncing, bad address]

EDL’s in any nonlinear editing system start at the time code that your timeline starts at. They are translations of the timeline, and do not take into consideration where you happen to start your edit on the playout.

[Rick Sebeck]

Exactly, but since I started the lay to tape at 59:40 on the 24fps sequence my film doesn’t start at 1:00:00:00 on the 29.97 tape. So obviosly my EDL wont match!

If I lay it to tape again starting at 1:00:00:00 will that “solve my problem”

-Rick

P.S> Mike, you are a rockstar – are you in the LA area? I’d love to throw some work your way.

[Mike Most — account bouncing, bad address]

>>Mike, you are a rockstar – are you in the LA area? I’d love to throw some work your way.

Hardly a “rockstar,” just someone who’s done this stuff for quite some time. I was in L.A. for the last 25+ years, but moved to Miami about 4 months ago. I am, however, “Chief Technologist” (whatever that means) at a film lab/video facility, so if you need something done, there’s both overnight delivery and Internet delivery……