[Glenn Stewart]

Actually I’ve just been contacted by a couple of friends who use the same workflow and have the same problem so it’s not just me, they had no idea why a workflow they’d been using for years was suddenly broken, I hope CS4 fixes it because the workaround is a real bitch.
Glennser

[Glenn Stewart]

So I don’t need the “type =”?
I love this expression, wish I had more opportunities to use it.
Glennser

[Glenn Stewart]

I don’t know if concur with your advice Dave? To me I see no reason not to leave your camera at 24p unless you have a reason not to. You can always work as if it was 30p/i and not worry about producing a 24p master unless you’re lucky enough to need one?
It keeps your options open and you can take advantage of peoples prejudices in favour of the 24p without costing you anything, no-one will know that the cadence is broken even if they really can tell 24p from 29.97.
What do you think? I appreciate where you’re coming from and agree a lot of time and resources are wasted on 24p workflows mostly based on buzz and hype but why not keep your options open?
Glennser

[Glenn Stewart]

Thanks for the suggestions guys.
I know this workflow mightn’t be familiar to you guys but it really is a great way to produce ntsc and pal from the same builds without worrying about keyframes slipping, (esp. roto or tracking) and all the other problems you run into if you try to convert all the framerates of the projects. Of course if we didn’t have to version text I’d just render oversized at 23.976fps and then speed that up to 25fps but that’s not the case. It’s the same technique they use for feature films and I’ve never heard anyone complain about the pal versions playing too fast? (There was a Panasonic white paper by David Wiswell back in 2000 which advocated 24p workflow which is still worth a read, it’s still available at panasonic)
I was playing around with it yesterday and Kevin you’re right that the slight rounding difference shouldn’t make a difference but it does, when I trick AE into actually keeping 95.904% (the only way I can do this is to put the 23.976fps comp into a 25fps comp that is the correct final duration, place the playhead at the last frame and use Cmd+Opt+, to time stretch the last frame to the playhead, then everything works as it should and did before. To replicate the problem you need to have 23.976 footage or pre-rendered elements nested at least two comps down and not starting at the first frame, I think the fact that they don’t start at the first frame is the problem, it’s as if AE is trying to “snap” the frames into alignment but it results in things being slightly off and repeating/dropping frames.
Thanks again for taking some time on this, as I said it used to work and now I have to find some workaround, right now I’m forcing it using time remapping instead of stretch but it’s a couple of extra steps and I find I need to tweak and check it a few times to get it to work right.
Glennser

PS Mike, I thought about using Andrew’s preset but there really isn’t a need to reinterpolate new frames using Timewarp or frame blending, I can’t pin the changes down to any upgrade either.

[Glenn Stewart]

Thanks Dave, I appreciate your advice and if it was just footage I’d do that but I’m versioning pretty heavy comps with footage and camera moves along with text that needs to be versioned for multiple languages, I don’t want to waste time and space rendering everything at 23.976fps just to bring back in and convert to 25fps.
It’s really driving me nuts, I’ve been doing this for years and I just don’t understand why AE is changing the stretch value now, I’ve tried changing the project settings to 25fps and frames along with changing the nested comps settings to preserve frame rate when nested but it didn’t help.
If you have a second can you try and replicate what I’ve described (23.976fps comp nested in a 25fps comp), try to apply a stretch value of exactly 95.904%, I can type it in but when I check it afterwards AE has changed it to 95.903999%, it’s a tiny difference but I think it’s resulting in the duplicate frames in the render.
Projects that I set up months ago and rendered fine are now messed up so I know I’m not imagining it, at first I thought I was doing my maths wrong but that’s not the case, this workflow should be fine, I don’t know how common it is but I’ve been using it for years without any problems. I’ve trashed my preferences and had a look through the interpretation rules file but can’t find anything.
Thanks again,
Glennser

[Glenn Stewart]

Thanks guys, I was hoping (foolishly I suppose) that it might be something really silly that we were missing or could be fixed.
Glennser

[Glenn Stewart]

So is this product Mac only? I checked the specs and it seems that way, why?
Glennser