FCP6 to Color - In Out Points Shift

[Terry Pell]

I have a two-minute clip in FCP that I have razor-bladed into 4-5 subclips. When I send the sequence to Color, it shows up with the in and out points shifted.

On closer inspection, it appears that each subclip has several extra frames that extend into the next subclip and so on, so that the shift gets progressively worse towards the end of the clip.

This suggests that the clip isn't really 23.98 fps, but has extra frames that don't show up in FCP6 but do show up in Color. For reasons that I don't understand, the captured Quicktime clip said that it was 23.77 fps, so I exported another Quicktime clip at the correct framerate (23.98). That should have corrected any framerate problems that occurred during the pull-down, right?

So the clip was 23.98, it was in a 23.98 sequence, and Color said it was 23.98. But it still had some extra frames that were hidden in FCP6 and showed up in Color.

Has anyone run into this? Is there a definitive procedure for eliminating extra frames and/or making sure the clip is exactly 23.98 fps, regardless whether FCP6 can correct for stray frames in some sort of hidden way? Does anyone know if Color has problems with razor bladed subclips generally?

Thanks for any advice.

[NoahK]

Have you checked in Color to make sure you are not importing with handles? It's in the setup room>project settings tabs. Not sure what is happening with those frame rates though- what format were they and how captured?

Noah

[Terry Pell]

I'll check the import with handles issue -- I believe it was set to import the handles on earlier projects so that is probably what it was set to this time. If it is set that way, I'll try changing it. [Edit: I checked and the handles were set to "0"]

As to format -- the clip was filmed in "24pa" advanced pull-down format on a dvx and captured using the advanced pull down pre-set into FCP4.5 and then transferred to a FCP6 project.

At the time the clip was filmed, the camera was having dirty head problems (red x) and several advanced pull-downs off that tape stopped and generated an FCP warning to the effect it was missing the information it needed to do the pull down.

So it's probably the case that this clip has a few messed up frames in it. Is there a definitive way to eliminate the extra frames? So far, I have tried opening the captured clip in Quicktime and exporting a new clip using the correct frame rate. This probably removed frames randomly, but it should at least have ensured that the frame rate was precisely correct.

(I would just recapture the clip except that the tape the clip is from was itself the source the dirty heads and there is no way that tape is ever getting near a camera or deck again! Besides which, it was probably messed up when it was recorded, so recpapturing wouldn't do much good.)

Thanks for your help and advice.

[NoahK]

I'd recapture- you can alway reclean the heads. If you have dropped frames during capture that cannot be fixed without a recapture.

Noah

[Terry Pell]

Here's what I found out, in case it helps someone else. FCP makes adjustments to fix framerate problems that aren't visible in FCP -- it subtracts and modifies frames to keep the clip the size that it is supposed to be. (Graeme Nattress explains this on his Standards Conversion plug-in page -- http://www.nattress.com/Products/standardsconversion/standardsconversion.htm)

Color doesn't do this, or it doesn't do it the same way. As a result, framerate anomolies that are hidden in FCP emerge when a clip is sent to Color. All of sudden, the end of the clip no longer lines up with the out point.

You can fix this by getting rid of any framerate anomolies in your clip before you edit it in FCP and thus before you send it to Color.

To make sure your clip has the correct and stated framerate throughout, you can open it in Cinema Tools and use the Conform button to make it the right framerate. Cinema Tools shrinks or expands each frame as necessary to conform the clip to whatever framerate you put in the box. (Note that it modifies the original clip, so you may want to copy your clip first) Opening and exporting a clip from Quicktime Pro with a new framerate will not do this.

I can't say this will fix all instances of in and out points not lining up properly in Color, but it worked for me.