[Michael Pfost]

I’ve done the frame blending and optical motion rendering with Compressor, but these interpolate the frames.

I was trying to go about it the correct method of speeding up 23.98 fps video to 25 fps. This is what they expect in PAL markets.

[Michael Pfost]

Hi – thanks for the response. I was using the inverse telecine workflow so that my resulting PAL video would not have any blended frames. It was basically a 4.1% speed-up from the original 24fps version.

It plays back beautifully, but I’m not sure how to analyze the video and see where the issues might be.

Is there a program that will analyze a clip and report field dominance and frame order issues?

[Michael Pfost]

One addition – when converting the 25fps 720×486 video to 25fps 720×576, I did use Compressor’s Crop function to take off the top 2 and bottom 2 lines (as they had video not needing to be shown).

Did this create an issue?

[Michael Pfost]

It is quite easy to “Reverse Telecine” a 29.97 clip with Compressor.

Just turn Frame Controls “On” and choose “Reverse Telecine” under the Deinterlace option. Make sure the “Set Duration to:” is 100%.

You’ll then have your film at 23.98 fps if it was telecined correctly.

I use ProRes 4:2:2 files for the whole workflow. I’ve also found that it is actually faster to not use multiple clusters when processing. (I takes me about 20 minutes of rendering for a 60 minute file and I’m using an 8-Core 2.26 GHz MacPro).

[Michael Pfost]

I believe you 🙂 The problem is use this same workflow for a 52 minute program. The audio starts to drift off, eventually being about 4 seconds off in the end. This has been my problem.

[Michael Pfost]

Here’s the problem… I did use Compressor to do exactly that, but the audio would always be out of sync by .1% in the end (final PAL version).

I tried going to 23.98 and 23.976 — same issue.

I’m starting to wonder if ProRes is causing the issue or perhaps my audio codec (tried Apple Lossless and Linear PCM).

I’ve read countless forums with people having the same issue, but always having to speed up the audio in the end.

It sounds like Compressor needs to apply “Audio Pull-Down” or “Audio Pull-Up.” I’m not sure – it has driven me crazy.

[Michael Pfost]

Thanks for both of your responses.

As you advised:

1. I went ahead and placed the footage on the FCP timeline and exported as a self-contained QT movie. Would this also work as just a reference file?

2. I then used CinemaTools to conform the file to 25fps.

3. Then I used Compressor to change the file to PAL 720×576.

At the end, the episode was in-sync and there were no blended-frames. YIPPEE! Now I just have to do this 120 more times – LOL.

I wonder why the Compressor workflow doesn’t work properly? I was hoping to use Compressor with time-remapping to do the same thing and reduce the pitch of the audio. I guess it sounded too good to be true.

Anyone have a good workflow for do a large # of files? I already have each episode in a ProRes file 23.98 fps.

[Michael Pfost]

Ahh – I didn’t see the specific forum for Episode Pro. Good to know 🙂

Thanks for your response as well…

[Michael Pfost]

I wouldn’t use FCP to deinterlace, instead use Compressor. The results are much better. Also, be sure you are using ProRes files through-out your entire workflow, then use Compressor to create your h.264 file. A bitrate of 14Mbps does a great job with 1080p video, but you can probably use a much lower one for the web.

[Michael Pfost]

Well — I didn’t receive a response – LOL — but this workflow is correct. Episode Pro creates perfect MXF files on a Mac.