[Dave Boccuzzi]

Yes I did remove the pulldown before editing. The footage I edited with is pro res 23.98p. On the cam tape it is hdv1080i60/24pa. My 23.98 timeline looks as it should and there is no problem, except the client simply does not like what 24p is doing for him. Even when I spit out a 29.97 tape master of it they still say they can see what they don\’t like.

When I step through the hdv version of the footage one frame at a time I can see the 24pa cadence. Every 5th frame is a duplicate of the one before it. Makes me want to remove every fifth frame and reoutput but that can\’t be right.

I looked up the twixtor plug you mentioned. It seems much more concerned with going the other direction; converting 60i into 24p, not the other way around. Do you know how good that or mb is at solving my problem. And what exactly do you mean it\’s a lot of work. the plugin doesn\’t just perform the task without some effort put in? I\’ve never had to make this conversion before so I don\’t know what\’s involved.

Thanks,
Dave

[Dave Boccuzzi]

Hi Dave thanks for the response.

I have tried your suggestion already with my Kona lhe card and it didn\’t work for the client. Sure the tape is 29.97 and looks good enough, but there is a problem. The client wants to stop using the 24pa because of the limitations of fast motion stuff. They are saying the 24p timeline put on to the tape at 60i still shows the limitations of 24p they are trying to avoid, even though it isn\’t 24p anymore. They are seeing some strobing or judder/jitter on fast stuff. Is this possible or impossible?

From what I\’ve learned I think it is possible. I\’m interested to know your opinion on that, and others opinions also. If it is, I wouldn\’t need to re-edit, more of a massive reconect in a new timeline. I captured the hdv1080i60/24pa footage as hdv 1080i60 and used compressor to transcode to apple pro res 24p.

If it becomes an issue, can the hdv1080i60/24pa footage work in an hdv1080i60 timeline and ignore the 24pa part without problems? Or does the 24pa part somehow make it not a good idea to use as hdv60i anymore?

Thanks very much,
Dave

[Dave Boccuzzi]

Missed one simple thing, #4 should be Save, Quit and restart… not just quit and restart.
oops…

I just exported movies 5 and 6 with no problem though

[Dave Boccuzzi]

Oh my god, I think I got it. I just exported 4 separate, 4 hour long HDV-1080i60 movies in a row with no problem.

I have been suffering with this problem for weeks like a curse, as I have read others have also, ever since I upgraded to FCP 7 and snow lep at the same time. I did that on three machines and they all did it… Short exports were fine but anything too long and it looks like junk. There are other problems too but none as bad as this one.

I have previously solved the problem by getting around it… cutting the show into smaller parts.

I’m happy to report that following the steps below just worked 4 times in a row; Here is the recipe:

1-Make sure to set your scratch disk to your external firewire drive where you are working, not your Mac HD with all the apps on it. To do this use the upper menu bar at the top of the screen in FCP and choose: >Final Cut Pro>System Settings. When there use the upper “Set” button to nav to the right spot, when you find it select it and click “Choose”, Then click “ok” on the remaining small screen.

2-Go to easy set up… upper menu bar again…go: >Final Cut Pro>Easy Set up. When there load “HDV – 1080i60”. I have Kona cards and various decks and I constantly have to change settings to match this or that. But none of that ever interfered with a quicktime export before. What ever I was doing with all that it would always just spit out a plain old quicktime file right? I tried everything minus this step and the file export was bad. Including this step every time is when the problem stopped and I got 4 in a row. Changing settings changes you to a “custom” set up… put it back to the factory HDV set up.

3-Now render everything in your 1080i60 timeline; Select All with “Apple a” on your timeline and then render with “apple r”. When that is done and while everything is still selected use the upper menu bar, go: >Sequence>Render Only>Preview… render that way, it may have nothing but often can. It is the green line. If you see any other colors that need to be rendered on your timeline render them all individually by going: >Sequence>Render Only>and then what ever color you see that needs it. Now unselect everything and render one last time with “option r”. It may have nothing but I check all three.

4- Quit and restart, when the computer comes back up, open the project and start the export, Don’t do anything else. To export use: >File>Export>QuickTime Movie… Keep it on “Current Settings”, and “Make Self Contained” should be checked.

A 4 hour HDV quicktime export at this point for me on a 2 x 2.8 quad core G5 says it will only take something crazy like 30 minutes for the whole thing. after about 5 or 10 minutes it settles down to about 2 or 3 hours. Shows with tons of FX should take a bit longer. About one third of the way in, while the file is writing I nav with finder by clicking it in the dock and then selecting “apple n” for a new window. Look at the file being made and see if it is 10+ gigs or only around 1 or 2. File size shows if it is writing a bad file or not. The bad files are always too small as others have mentioned.

Well thats about it. Hope it wasn’t too long winded but I wanted to be thorough. Also, I included stuff that is most likely redundant to many users, but I wanted to make sure this helped newer users as well. This problem has been driving me nuts and I hope this is of some help to others.