Creative Communities of the World Forums

The peer to peer support community for media production professionals.

Activity Forums Adobe After Effects Weird 24p problems

  • Weird 24p problems

    Posted by Marc Istook on September 29, 2008 at 6:26 am

    I’ll try to be as detailed as possible here in looking for help.

    I’m working on a Final Cut Pro sequence using footage shot 720pN with the HVX-200. The project is using the DVCProHD 60 Compressor, with the timebase of 23.976, same as the shot footage. I created a title animation in After Effects that should match my FCP sequence. I created two versions, both 23.976 — one using the animation compressor, the other using the DVCProHD codec. When I open the files in Quicktime, they play beautifully and look wonderful. In the FCP viewer and sequence, it’s another story.

    Luckily for me, the animation happens to have a 23.976 timecode as part of a graphical element within the animation. When I drop the file into the FCP sequence and scroll through it, frame by frame, the animation repeats and skips frames. The timecode readout in the animation will progress normally… 2:05, 2:06, 2:07. 2:08… and then it’ll hang on 2:08 for a frame and skip ahead to 2:10… It does this consistently throughout the animation.

    I’ve tried everything I could think of to figure this problem out. I created a new version of the animation, tried different sequences and sequence settings, re-rendered the project in After Effects, everything. To make matters worse, in After Effects, I created a simple running 23.976 timecode clock animation — and it works without any problems. I’m confused as can be about this. I don’t know if it’s a Final Cut problem, an After Effects problem. Either. Does anyone have any suggestions??

    Thanks,
    Marc

    Marc Istook replied 17 years, 7 months ago 2 Members · 6 Replies
  • 6 Replies
  • Chris Wright

    September 29, 2008 at 7:21 am

    maybe your title animation was exported out at 29.97 with a 3:2 pulldown and then reversed pulldown wrong cadence 2:3:3:2 instead of 2:3:2:3 in FCP?

  • Marc Istook

    September 29, 2008 at 8:28 pm

    No, it was a 23.976 project that rendered to a 23.976 quicktime file.

  • Chris Wright

    September 29, 2008 at 10:18 pm

    Here’s my take, you actually set camera at 720p not 720pn native so you never used “Remove Pulldown and Duplicate Frames” in FCP and now you see duplicate frames which is actually 59.94p and still looks good in quicktime player because its all progressive.

  • Marc Istook

    September 30, 2008 at 12:39 am

    I’m not sure I follow you?

    Basically, the footage was shot 24pNative — 23.976 fps. It ingested via transfer with no pulldown — because there wasn’t any pulldown to remove. It’s in a 23.976 timeline in FCP. The animation was created in a 23.976 timeline and rendered to a 23.976 file. But for whatever reason, FCP keeps repeating and dropping frames. Maddening!!

  • Chris Wright

    September 30, 2008 at 1:02 am

    then the next step is to use an uncompressed codec right from mxf files all the way through workflow. $5 says that fixes it.
    (disclaimer i have no $5)

  • Marc Istook

    September 30, 2008 at 3:04 am

    I found the culprit…

    The FCP sequence was set to 23.98. But it’s really 23.976 — for some reason, FCP calls it (inexplicably, in my mind) 23.98. My AE animation comp and animated movie were set to 23.98. Apparently FCP has a hard time making up the .004 frame per second difference between the 23.98 animation and the 23.976 timeline and ends up repeating and dropping frames. Rending the AE project at 23.976 instead fixed things.

    Whew.

    Thanks for your help,
    Marc

We use anonymous cookies to give you the best experience we can.
Our Privacy policy | GDPR Policy