[Bobby Hall]

MPEG Streamclip doesn’t let you rip footage from commercial dvds.

If movies are shot at 24 fps and converted to 29.97 for DVDs, does this mean that accidentally ripping the DVD at 23.98 fps won’t have noticeable dropped frames? Is it basically the same thing as just reverting it back to the original frame rate? Thanks to anyone who can shed some light on this for me!

[Bobby Hall]

Since the 23.98 footage skips a little in a 29.97 sequence, does that mean the audio will also skip?

[Bobby Hall]

Would that look better than converting the 23.98 files to 29.97 in Compressor before editing, or would there not be a noticeable difference?

[Bobby Hall]

Hi Shane,

This video will be on the web. Some of the footage is 1080p, some 720p, and some 640p. Some of the 1080p footage is 23.98 fps and some is 29.97.

The final video doesn’t have to look stupendous. Most of this footage was shot with an iPhone and is very amateurish. I just wanted to be able to edit all this without it getting out of sync (I don’t know if that’s a possible consequence of mixing frame rates) and without much noticeable stutter.

I also wanted to know if it’s okay to put everything in a 1920×1080 sequence or if 1280×720 would be a bit better (I’m assuming 640p footage looks less bad in a 1280×720 sequence than a 1920×1080 one…?) I don’t really care if the crappier footage gets blown up since there’s not that much of it. I just want the HD stuff to look good.

edit: Shane, when you said “…pulldown isn’t added or removed properly, so you get stuttery playback on all non-native frame rate footage.”- does this mean I get stuttery playback during the editing process, or in the final exported video? Thanks.

[Bobby Hall]

Hi Dave,

I can deliver the video at any frame rate I want. I just wanted to know what would look good. The video I’m making is a 3-minute reel composed of shots from various other clips, some of which are 29.97 fps and others 23.98 fps.

I wanted to know if I should convert one of those frame rates to the other, and if so, can I use MMPEG Streamclip or is Compressor better? Or is there some type of sequence settings I can use to avoid having to spend the time converting? Thanks.

[Bobby Hall]

Thank you Nick!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Bobby Hall]

I use FCP 7. I’ve found that I save a lot of time if I export a non-self contained prores file out of FCP and convert it in mpeg streamclip than using the quicktime conversion in FCP.

[Bobby Hall]

Hi David,
Thanks for the reply. Yes, I’m using this codec just for the web. My camera shoots footage in h.264 with audio format linear pcm. I convert it to prores to edit it, then export and convert it in mpeg streamclip back to h.264 with a bit rate of 15 mbps and the audio to AAC at 192 kbps. I was just curious if 320 kbps would sound better and saw that 256 was as high as it goes, so I wanted to ask if it mattered.

Anyway, those are the settings I use for the web. After that I just delete the converted prores files, and if I ever think I might want to re-create the video for another platform or change the editing, I just keep the original footage from my camera on a hard drive so that I can always convert it to prores again.

[Bobby Hall]

Thanks!

[Bobby Hall]

Hey John (or anyone else who wants to answer),
I have a question about audio formats and bit rate. I edited a video in FCP7 and the format was prores 422 and the audio format was linear pcm. I want to upload this video to the web, so I’m using mpeg streamclip to convert it to h.264 but I’m not sure what the audio format should be. The default option is linear pcm, but should I change it to aac? I know pcm is lossless but if there’s not really a noticeable difference between pcm and aac and it will make the file much smaller I’d rather use that. What do you recommend? And if I choose aac, what rate should I set for the kbps? Thanks!