[Nick Meyers]

a few days of transcoding is worth a stable and workable project. (edit will go for around 8 weeks)

aiso, i can start working with the re-wrapped DNxHD, and transcode on another machine in the background, so no real worries.

turns out the audio track issue is a non-issue, as they are NOT married in with the picture files, i was mistaken there (had not seen the media at that stage)

also turns out they transcoded with a 2.35 mask, i prefer to ad that myself (allows for re-framing etc)

i may now be thinking of transcoding the original 4444 to LT.
Resolve will do this nicely.

thanks for the thoughts,
nick

[Nick Meyers]

thanks, Ryan.

good question.

the first test sequence i brought in plays fine
how stable would it be over a large project do you think?

it’s a low-budget feature w 25 days of shooting.

nick

[Nick Meyers]

hi eric.

with 29.97 fps, i would think you’d need to do a REVERSE TELECINE in compressor,
not a conform.

(or possibly a reverse telecine , THEN a conform to true 24fps, although i doubt that would make a lot of difference with super-8)

i am a little out of my depth there, as i live in PAL land, so never have to deal with reverse telecine.

re-conform your rushes back to 29.97.,
make a copy of them,
and read up on reverse telecine in the compressor manual.

maybe time for a new thread, too.

good luck with it,
nick

[Nick Meyers]

yes if you use copy, it’s a copy.

but i would NOT have truncated the clips in any way.
now you can not link back to your original media if you have to, and you may find you have to.

nick

[Nick Meyers]

if you really know for sure that you will never need a ful-size version of the piece,
then you can easily edit in a smaller sequence.

i wouldn’t work at the ultimate small size as that is non-standard, and you wont get any RT effects.

the smallest standard sequence settings are the Offline-RT ones, but i would probably work in SD as a mid-ground.

nick

[Nick Meyers]

it’s still not entirely clear what you have.
there are a few possible options i can see:

1.
film was telecined at 29.97, so that every frame of film corresponds to a frame of video.
this is good as you can do more with the film in post,
but you have to do a decent speed change on the footage
i dont think you have this.

2.
film was telecined at 18fps
obviously 18fps doesn’t go too evenly into 30 fps
so there is most likely blending of the S8 frames on every frame of video.

this can make it a little bit harder to edit as there can be 2 images on a one frame, at the original cut points, but it’s not a big deal

really the question is does it look good to you?

if the answer to that is yes,
then the answer to your original question is easy:
edit in a sequence that matches the file you have.
and there should be no need to alter speed at all.

nick

[Nick Meyers]

i would suggest you listen to your 25fps file, and see if the sound is unacceptably bad.

the only people who would notice the shift are those who know the actors very well, and those with perfect pitch.

nick

[Nick Meyers]

simplest approach, IMO, is to use a THIRD layer to deal with the fg actor.
you’ll need to move up from a 4-point garbage matte to 8 or even 16,
and keyframe it as the actor crosses.

if the body is motionless enough during the crosses, then you are right, you wont need super accurate mattes.

nick

[Nick Meyers]

looping a section of the film, or really running it fwd, then backward, then fwd again,
is much better than a freeze.
the frame maintains a breath of life… not in the corpse, but in the grain etc

nick

[Nick Meyers]

a couple of questions:
how did you do your telecine? are the files really at 18fps? or did you simply do a frame-for frame telecine?
what format are your files?
what sort of DVD would you make? PAL or NTSC

nick