Will FCP conversion from 29.97p to 25i be same as hardware conversion?

[John Pale]

Do not attempt to do any standards conversion within FCP or other software.

Go back to your original NTSC ProTools session. Create the necessary stems and output all 8 channels and video to a 1080i/60 HDCAM SR master. Have that master converted to PAL. Output your PAL stems to DA88, if required.

[Michael Gissing]

For best quality standards conversion, use an Alchemist to do a real time conversion. All the audio will sync as it remains correct real time. Audio can be output as wav or aif, just not broadcast wav as this embeds timecode metadata.

In the audio world, maintaining real time makes life simple.

[Bouke Vahl]

[Michael Gissing] “just not broadcast wav as this embeds timecode metadata.”

This is plain wrong information.
BWF does NOT contain timecode information.
It contains TIME information, that is frame rate independent or dependent, depending on the way you look at it 🙂
Fact is, it is not stored as HH:MM:SS:FF, but as a number describing the time, written down as a multiple of the sample rate per second.

If you want to retain your start time and you don’t do a time base change, the time code CALCULATED FROM the BWF timestamp will be exactly the same, of course with corrected frames.

So, if your NTSC master as a 01:00:00:00 start TC, and you export a BWF file, it will show 01:00:00:00 as well in a PAL environment.

Do note that you need DF TC. If you convert NDF to PAL, you DO in fact change the timebase (not so much for the video as well for the timecode, since NDF does not run at clock time)

Bouke

https://www.videotoolshed.com/
smart tools for video pros

[Derek Pons]

Talking to a post house that is helping us, this was going to be my plan.

Using the existing NTSC 29.97 ProTools session for the 2 hour cut, have the audio mixer create the stems needed for the 1 hour PAL HDCAM/Digibeta masters – stereo mix on 1 & 2, undipped mix minus narration on 3 &4, then print that to a NTSC HDCAM, then get that converted to the PAL masters. Then, re-digitize the PAL master, and then have the mixer resync to that and create the 8 stems needed for stereo/5.1 audio delivery. Does that sound like a good plan? My main goals are to make sure audio deliverables match the tape masters, and trying to give the mixer the least double work as possible.

[John Pale]

I would make an HDCAM SR sub master in NTSC with all the stems. SR has the extra audio channels. Then convert that in the Alchemist. Recapture the sub master in a PAL project and do your audio exports or DA 88s. The audio stays locked to the video the entire way. Then your mixer doesn’t have to resync anything. My fear would be that the way suggested, the file would go in and out sync with the video slightly throughout the program, due to the conversion algorithm, though overall it would be the right length..starting and ending in sync.

Another thing…..

Make sure you really need to do this. Speak to someone at the network you are delivering to. When faced with this problem once, we phoned up the broadcaster in the UK and they said to just forget about the stems, as it was more trouble and expense than it was worth. The deliverable requirement was flexible for material not domestically produced.