Underwater DSLR 30p footage to be conformed to 23.976 – any other transcode thoughts ?

[Michael Gissing]

One method is to use Cinema Tools to change the frame rate. This means the 29.97 is slowed down to play at 23.98 by rewriting the frame rate in the file data. There is no transcoding and it is destructive so you might want to change a copy of the files. Perhaps try a few files and see if that works for you.

If slowing the footage down won’t work then you are looking at frame rate conversion in Compressor.

[John Heagy]

30p to 24p is really worse case as far as frame rate conversion goes. You will be dropping significant chunks of time and it will appear “jumpy”. Underwater footage may lend itself to optical flow frame creation which is enabled by the highest quality frame rate setting in Compressor.

If you can doing a conform from 30 to 24 will be cleanest but will slow the footage.

The reason you need 24p is all the other footage is 24p?

John

[Rosie Walunas]

I think that’s the idea that the footage will appear slower or smoother because it’s underwater being shot cranked up.

The shots are coming from a 5D – so I guess it’s 29.97 but I thought that since it’s DSLR that’s progressive – no scan lines.

The idea is that we want it to look slower, so, should the 29.97 footage be Conformed in Cinema Tools to 23.976 (what we’re editing in), rather than simply running through Compressor or MPEG Streamclip so that frames are not lost?

The footage needs to be ProRes and obviously it’s coming as H.264. I know that H.264 can’t go straight through Cinema Tools so it should go through Compressor first, then through Cinema Tools to conform the frame rate?

Does that make sense?

Thanks.

[Nick Meyers]

yep, that is all correct.

convert to Prores,
conform in CT to 23.976

it will have a slight slow-down.
you won’t even notice it on underwater footage

nick

[Rafael Amador]

5DtoRGB makes the best H264 to Prores conversion, and conform to 23,98 at the same time.
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[John Christie]

I’ve done this many times with underwater footage, converting using Cinema Tools. The slow down isn’t that noticeable with underwater footage and it helps smooth out the camera moves.

[Rosie Walunas]

Yes the idea is to have it ever so slightly more smooth. The film is supposed to be cinematic so anything will help.

Can you Conform the frame rate in Compressor? My understanding is that it has to be done in Cinema Tools to be done properly.

Thanks, everyone!

[Michael Gissing]

Compressor can make a new file and do the slow down. Cinema Tools changes the file so it is almost instant and there is less drive space needed.

[Rosie Walunas]

So what configurations need to be made in Compressor? Because normally, I just choose the video frame rate and change that when I’m making a regular conversion, but that doesn’t speed up or slow down the material – does it? For example, if something is at 25fps and then it needs to be in 30fps, I usually just change the frame rate to be 30fps – it is actually being sped up, or are frames just dropping? I was always under the impression that frames were dropping?

Thanks.

[John Christie]

Stick with Cinema Tools. No need to be mucking around with Compressor. Here are two videos I’ve shot that have 30 frame slowed to 24 with Cinema Tools:

Galapagos Islands (around 2:40 in)
https://vimeo.com/49218605

Seychelle Islands (around 4:22 in)
https://vimeo.com/16491335

The Galapagos footage was mostly GoPro, with some shots from a Nikon underwater point and shoot. I just ran them through Cinema Tools

The Seychelles underwater footage was 60i, I converted it with Cinema Tools and then used the TMTS filter, Blend Fields to remove the interlacing.

I like the slightly slowed down effect of the Cinema Tools converted footage. No one has ever commented that it looks slowed down.

Cheers

John

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