John Heagy
Forum Replies Created
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That’s certainly a popular belief, and safe. 24p will never fix poorly exposed, clipped and uneven color. The image is everything, the rate is secondary in my opinion.
Cinematic = feature films = hollywood = big budgets = top directors, scripts, DPs, actors, locations, editors, scores, and marketing. It just so happens that 24 fps was the minimum speed needed to play an audio track. Before audio it was 18 fps or less. If 24 is better than 30 or 60, then 18 must be even better… no? Feature films HAVE to be shot at 24, the directors have no choice.. you do. With the advent of 3D and digital projection, the 24 fps requirement will eventually fall away. When feature films no longer NEED to be shot at 24, you will see frame rates go up… 48 and 60 would be my prediction.
Higher frame rates mean sharper images and smooth pans. 2K shot at 60 fps will be sharper than 4K shot at 24. Ask any still photographer if they shoot 1/48 (180 shutter)… they will laugh.
Ask your self why an inferior acquisition and delivery format that produces soft and stuttery imagery is so desirable. That’s an easy one… it’s associated with big budget films and people want that association to rub off on their productions. Frame rate is the least of the attributes that make feature films quality productions.
The power of the status quo is huge. 24p is familiar, 30 and 60 look different. Different = Bad
Oh… and I call BS on the whole “suspension of belief” theory, it’s simply the cult of 24. It will go the way of the horse and buggy. I’m sure directors of the Charlie Chaplin 18 fps era thought the same thing about 24 as you do about 30 and 60.
The future is progressive. 24 for broadcast means interlaced. Don’t get me started on 3:2 pulldown.
With all that said 24p has a place… international deliverables and theatrical release… for now!
Sorry for the length.
John Heagy
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Make sure the tape is 29.97 and not 23.98. Playing a 23.98 tape in a deck set to 29.97 will cause FCP to abort on dropped frames. visa versa is true as well.
John Heagy
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Alexa camera original QTs are a bit “off” for lack of a better word. Not too surprising given the lack of any coherent documentation to guide developers on QT best practices. The QT API is a patch work that spans decades, and there are dozens of way to do things. The few Apple QT recommendations don’t work in FCP. ARRI simply picked a path that cause issues FCP.
I don’t know how much footage you have, but doing a “Save as…” in QT player should “fix” the ARRI camera original files. You can also try a batch Export in FCP or use CatDV to export new movies. You may be able to export reference movies which would save export time, but self contained may be necessary.
Once you have the new movies, re link them to your project and try your Media Manage again. I’d suggest doing a test using the above techniques to find which works the best and fastest before exporting all your Alexa footage.
Arri needs to fix their files.
John Heagy
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A search in the Compression Techniques forum may yield some info.
John
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Either de-interlacing 1080i, without frame blending, or 720p30 from 60 is your best bet. If you have any motion in your shots, frame blending will start to look like odd motion blur.
I would be less concerned with frame rate and take your finished product to a skilled colorist. Remember “cinematic” means big budgets and high production value, frame rate won’t duplicate that.
John Heagy
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We’ve used the KiPro aka: the “Easy Button” to solve many file<>tape requests. It’s a perfect tape replacement in many cases and much less “virtual” than Gallery’s VirtualVTR. While syncing to a ProTools timeline may not be guaranteed, all Tim needs is a solid LTC output for the ProTools timeline to sync to. This the KiPro can definitely do.
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[John Heagy]” “Connect the KiPro to your ProTools machine, via RS 422, and put the KiPro in remote. The KiPro will slave to your ProTools timeline and output video via any of it’s many outputs.”
We’ve controlled a KiPro via RS-422 with FCP/Kona3 and a DaVinci 2K and it syncs first time every time. I also tried it with a Sony 9100 edit controller and while it cues, jogs and plays, it will not sync. This is not too surprising as Sony’s protocol is “to the letter” including command received timing and machine ballistics.
I have not tried it with ProTools, we use Fairlight.
I suppose I should revise my statement from “will slave” to “should slave”.
John Heagy
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Forget about using FCP as an RS-422 master or slave. Buy or rent a Aja KiPro and export your video as ProRes from FCP with TC and audio (mono tracks only, stereo doesn’t work) and copy the .mov to the KiPro drive. Connect the KiPro to your ProTools machine, via RS 422, and put the KiPro in remote. The KiPro will slave to your ProTools timeline and output video via any of it’s many outputs.
Hit the “Easy” button!
John Heagy
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Give ClipWrap a try https://www.divergentmedia.com/clipwrap/features I use it to wrap AVCHD .mts into QT, even brings along TC if the camera supports it. Haven’t tried it with m2t but it supports them.
John Heagy
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We are using PresStore for now, but with no DAM interface and limited scalability we will be demoing Atempo next week as possible replacement.