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To Convert or Not to Convert – Ingesting Mixed Frame Rates
I’m setting up a documentary where the footage is a mix of mostly 23.98 fps, which I believe is what the final product will be (waiting on confirmation), a good amount of 29.97 and a little bit of 59.94.
I don’t usually work with mixed frame rates but for a couple shots here and there and want to make sure I use the best work flow for a smooth finish.
I have set up a 23.98 project and would like to know if the best way to handle this is to transcode everything keeping the original frame rate. I tested one 29.97 clip and when comparing it to the linked media, the one where I kept the original frame rate keeps the timecode the same as the original clip, where as the one that I converted to 23.98 is a couple frames off from it.
I have only found old posts from 2015 and earlier in my search on the world wide web and I suspect things have changed since then. Also, I’ve never used anything later than 2018.xx.xx up to this point and even that’s been a while, but I don’t remember having the option to keep the original frame rate, but again, I don’t usually work with different fps.
So is it fine to transcode all my media at the original frame rate without converting to the project frame rate? It looks better in the edit timeline and keeps the original timecode so it seems that’s the way to go unless it’s going to cause any issues in the online.
Thanks for any input!
EDIT TO ADD:
I’ve just been playing around and see that if I leave the clips transcoded in their original frame rate and not converting them to the project frame rate I cannot do any motion effect on them. So if I am not missing anything and a way to do this, I supposed I should convert to the project frame rate in order to be able to change the speed of clips, correct?
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2 Replies
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Hey Nina,
Are you finishing the project on AVID, or will ot go to a third party?
When it comes to framerates, there can only be the one that you deliver the final master with.
Obviously from that, you may be doing down, up or cross converts depending on the delivery specs.If the amount of footage that you are dealing with is manageble and you have the space for it, it may be worth doing fullres converts of source footage to the master TC format. Then do proxies from that if you need the space.
In other words, if you transcode in full media size, you should be fine. But if you are doing proxies that are not matching, then you’ll need to rethink the process.
Atb
Mads
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Thanks for the reply!
It will be going to an online editor, who or where that will be is yet to be determined.
I do know that they want the doc to be unconventional so I’m leaning towards converting to the project frame rate so that motion effects can be created. Then the online editor would just have to make sure they are matching the cuts on any of the converted frame rate media.
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