[David Heidelberger]

I would bring in the HD footage. You already have a rendered version, why make more work for yourself? Let Compressor handle the downconversion.

[David Heidelberger]

The DVD spec supports 23.98 video. If you bring your Quicktime movie into Compressor and choose, say, the DVD: Best Quality 90 Minutes 16:9 preset, that should give you good results. Or, really, you can use any preset you want, just make sure that “Rate” is set to 23.98 and “Aspect Ratio” is 16:9.

– David

[David Heidelberger]

Thanks Shane,

That’s a very helpful solution to an annoying problem. There really ought to be a toggle in Final Cut to get an accurate running time. I guess a suggestion to Apple is in order.

Last night, I wrote a very basic widget that attempts to calculate accurate time from 23.98 NDF TC. I’m still not 100% sure that it’s accurate, but it’s a start. Feel free to check it out: http://www.davidheidelberger.com/software.html

Thanks again,
– David

[David Heidelberger]

Final Cut may not necessarily be rendering the clip. It sounds like the sort of look you get when FCP thinks it can play something back in realtime. Check the render bar above the clip in the timeline. If it’s any shade of green (bright for “preview”, olive for “full”), Final Cut has not actually rendered your still. Under “Sequence>Render All” make sure that “Preview” and “Full” are both checked. Then hit option-r to render your whole timeline. Hopefully, you’ll be much happier with the results. (You could also check those settings under the “Render Selection” menu and then just be sure to select the appropriate clip and hit command-r to render)

Good luck,
– David

[David Heidelberger]

Thanks, but this usually happens about twenty minutes into the tape. There’s still ten minutes left. I think it’s Final Cut that’s rewinding the deck. It hits an error of some sort (dropped frame, I’m guessing), erases the clip it’s been capturing, and then rewinds the deck to try it again. But when it reaches the in-point on the tape, after capturing for a few frames, it stops and tells me it can’t do it, that there’s an error with the clip.

– David