[Mark Spano]

[Run Rodriguez] “My source footage: 1080 progressive HD 23.97 fps Apple Pro Res 422 Quicktime

My goal: NTSC progressive 29.97 fps Apple Pro Res 422 Quicktime”

Adding pulldown is easy in Compressor. While I’ve done this conversion plenty of times before, I’ve always gone from 23.976p to 29.97i. The pulldown is generated in the fields and going from 24 images per second to 60 is easy math (24×2=48 + 24×1=24: total=60). Repeating each frame twice gets you 48, then repeating every other frame an additional time gets you another 12, giving you 60 fields in a 2:3:2:3 pattern that’s familiar to the eye. Going from 24 to 30 is probably tougher on the math, since you have to keep all 24 images and add somehow 6 more to the sequence. The math would be (24×1=24 + 24/4=6: total=30). In other words, every frame shown once, and then every fourth frame shown twice, giving you a repeating pattern of 1:1:1:2 – this can’t be nice to watch.

So frame repeating (a.k.a. adding pulldown) is probably not the way to go for this conversion. Frame interpolation/blending is probably what has to happen. Here’s how I’d set up Compressor:

In your Video settings tab in Inspector, make sure your codec is set to encode progressive frames:

Then in Frame Controls, set it like this:

You’re basically telling Compressor to spend a chunk of time figuring out how to make the best 30 frames out of the 24 you give it.

Try small sections first to see how it goes. If you want to try the pulldown method, just change the Rate Conversion to Fast instead of Best. You will probably not like the way it looks though.

[Mark Spano]

[Richard Crowley] “The slight pop when powering down is very likely “normal” and not harmful”

This is absolutely correct. The little pops are the capacitors from the amplifier section discharging. This is normal for powered speakers of all varieties and by design will not harm the speakers or amplifiers within.

[Mark Spano]

[Phil Doherty] “it turns out that the facility created a 1080i project-their argument being that as the project was being mastered to a 1080 HD tape it made more sense.

Is this the correct approach?”

Yes, provided a number of rules were followed.

1) They are using Avid MCv4 or higher

2) They imported each type of source material into a project that corresponds (i.e. 720p50 in a 720p50 project, 1080p25 in a 1080p25 project).

3) They then created the 1080i50 project and opened the capture bins from the previous two projects there.

Avid is not a resolution-independent platform – therefore if you make a project a certain format, anything you import into that project will be transcoded to that format. By creating the individual projects, Avid understands to keep the footage as is (transcoding to MXF of course, but not changing frame-rate or resolution). Then when that material is opened in a different project type, Avid knows to apply motion adapters to the source material in order to properly playback in the new project type.

[Mark Spano]

[Justin Priestly] “Am I losing any quality by transcoding with MPEG Streamclip instead of Compressor?”

In my experience, doing what you’re doing will result in virtually identical quality files. You are most likely correct in assuming that since you wouldn’t use Frame Controls for this conversion, you’re not missing out on anything awesome that Compressor would have done that Streamclip isn’t.

[Justin Priestly] “I’m assuming one is the regular flavor and one is HQ, but I’m having trouble gleaning which is which.”

This is easy to determine. Open a clip in Streamclip and set an in/out point of a few seconds. Go to Export to Quicktime and choose one of the Apple ProRes, and make movie. Go to Export again and choose the other Apple ProRes and make movie, call it a different name. If you open each resulting file in Quicktime Player, look in the movie info window at Data Rate. Whichever one is higher is HQ. On my system, the first one in the list is HQ, and the second one is standard ProRes.

[Mark Spano]

I get spinning wheel in Compressor often when the Preview window is open and the source Quicktime file is complex. It’s taking some time to try to approximate what that compression will do to the video and display it for you – not crashing. Try opening Compressor and closing the Preview window before applying any preset. If it’s what I referred to, you won’t get a spinning wheel. If not, then it might point to a bad source file that Quicktime can’t understand.

[Mark Spano]

I concur with JtB – AMA is amazingly easy to use to access the media. My usual workflow is two-step: AMA to access and have Avid create bins and import all the metadata, then select all and consolidate to high-speed storage to edit with. Every once in a while there’s a hiccup in consolidation, so I’ve got to keep an eye on it, but if it ever argues, I just retry and it continues. Pretty easy and allows for a closer-to-old-school edit from a copy rather than the master approach. No need to relink to any higher resolutions as the XDCAM-EX material is read and edited with easily by Avid.

[Mark Spano]

[Tom Wolsky] “If you mean normalize to the subclips in the browser, don’t do that.”

Another piece of advice: speaking as an audio engineer, if you’re giving this to a mixer once your edit is done, then don’t normalize AT ALL. Normalization is destructive to audio files. While it can be “undone” as it is only a gain change, it will have to be “undone” to every file your mixer wants to add any effects to that add any signal level (any additive EQ for example). That’s just annoying. You are much better off applying automation curves to your clips – this is non-destructive and handing this off to a mixer allows the mixer to choose to use your ‘moves’ or not. My opinion, but it might be worth something…

[Mark Spano]

Where is the source file and where is the destination? I have found only best results when performing the compression tasks on a file located on internal SATA drive, exporting to internal SATA drive. External drives, no matter how fast the access, seem to make the process slower. My setup: on an 8-core, I use 6 instances. Do not include unmanaged processes from other computers.

The other issue at hand is type of compression. QuickCluster works very well with H.264 and MPEG-2 – HDV may be another story. Try internal drives and if that doesn’t change the results, try different source and destination codecs.

[Mark Spano]

Not sure what your issue is, but what you tried first is correct, as long as your hardware is set up correctly. If the footage you received is 1080/25p, drop it on a (same as source) 1080/25p timeline, put your video output to AJA Kona LH: 1080i25 10bit, and away you go. The KONA card will handle adding the duplicate fields. Any judder you see then should be whatever is inherent in the footage.

[Mark Spano]

I run into these issue with Pro Tools all the time – many people have different monitor setups, so things land off screen all the time. At least in Pro Tools, this works:

Go to System Preferences and choose Displays
Change monitor resolution to a low setting like 800×600
All windows will snap to positions on screen
Change monitor resolution back to what you had

Hopefully that works in all Mac apps.