[Sara Iyer]

Thanks for the tip, Rafa. I should probably make sure all that sequence info is correct before I blame framerate.

[Sara Iyer]

Thanks for the suggestion, but I think I’m going to keep posting myself, since I’m helping out with a lot of the post on this project. It just so happened that I was at work when the issue came up so we were not in the same room at the time. There shouldn’t be any “translation” problems.

I know there are a lot of animation + FCP tutorials, but there was an issue that neither of us could find an answer to through search engines.

And does on-two shooting = shooting on 2s? That’s what he’s doing, only not at 30fps/15 stills, but at 24fps/12 stills.

[Sara Iyer]

Thanks Warren… I think I may try this. I’ve been reading that Quicktime Pro can do something similar, but I don’t have that program and I DO have AE. Thanks!

[Sara Iyer]

Thanks for the clarification, Dave. Where can I change the defaualt frame rate for image sequences? I can’t seem to find it in user preferences or AV settings.

[Sara Iyer]

Hi William,
Thanks for the response!
I forgot to mention it in my post but when I exported using Quicktime Conversion, I tried a few different bitrates… 2000 and 1200 made it too big for youtube, 1000 made it under 100 MB but it still looked the same on youtube as the Compressor 800kbps, even though the file size was substantially larger.
The 1000 bitrate QT was the one I uploaded to vimeo last night and it looks good except for some video skips and glitches in places — but its not grainy. I think vimeo lets you upload 500 MB a week — so possibly >100 MB file sizes… maybe if I try a higher bitrate on vimeo, it’ll take care of the glitchiness?

[Sara Iyer]

Update: I tried uploading it to Vimeo and it looks much better. The graininess is gone, though there are still a few lines (glitches) that show up every now and then, mostly when the camera’s moving (and it moves a decent amount). I came across a few other forum posts on the web where people had similar problems with 24p footage and youtube, it must just be something that it doesn’t process well. That’s my guess anyway..

[Sara Iyer]

As the previous poster mentioned, OWC is good, I haven’t owned one but every professional project or professional company I’ve worked for has used OWC with good results. I’ve had good luck with Maxtor brand drives. I’ve had a 200 GB for years with no problems, and just recently bought a 750 GB for only $150 — they seem to be pretty affordable. Not to say you should base your purchase on price, but like I said, they seem to be quality drives as well as being affordable. I would stay away from LaCie — just heard too many bad things about them crashing.

As for what kind of drive to get, USB vs. Firewire, etc. I would recommend Firewire for FCP stuff. My original Maxtor was a USB and it wasn’t terribly slow, but FW is a little faster and it’s always nice to have the top of the line when you buy a drive. Keep in mind that the 15in Macbook Pro only has one Firewire 400 port (at least mine does — dont know if they changed that) so if you get a drive with only Firewire 400, as I did, you won’t have a port for plugging in a FW deck or camera or anything else at the same time unless you get a FW hub. Just something to keep in mind. I believe the 17in Macbook Pro has at least 2 400 ports.

[Sara Iyer]

Thank you for all the info! I did try logging chunks and batch capturing and it did indeed work — 23.98 vid rate and it all syncs up.

[Sara Iyer]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for the info. I’ll definitely try capturing small chunks at a time.

I also read something on another website that said when you shoot 24pa, that you are supposed to capture regular DV NTSC, no pulldown, because the camera already flags certain frames (the blended ones) to be removed, thereby making 29.97 into 24 progressive frames. My understanding of this is that since it IS digital, it is 29.97 on the tape and must be captured as such. And that if you capture using pulldown removal, FCP will not only remove the flagged frames, but also randomly (or not so much randomly I suppose) remove additional frames, thereby speeding it up.

Not sure which of these it is, but I’ll give both a try!

Thanks,

-Sara

[Sara Iyer]

Unfortunately our budget doesn’t allow for P2 cards – we’re spending most of it on the lights and grip package! And after double checking with the guy we’re borrowing the camera from, it is confirmed that he doesn’t have P2 cards. So we are most definitely shooting to tape — 480i/24p. I’m going through the manual as well but it corroborates what you guys are saying – that I need to shoot 720p in order to utilize VFR.

I guess what I”m asking now is, is there some other way to get a similar effect shooting 480i/24p? Either in camera, in Final Cut, or in another program such as Cinematools?

Thanks so much — I appreciate everyone’s help.

-Sara