24p export settings for finalcut

[bentpixel]

I've been working on some 24p(not 24pa) footage that was captured into Final Cut.
I imported the footage into After Fx(ver 7), and interpreted the footage correctly as
24p(23.976, 3:2 Removal (wwssw) ), so Afx seems to be handling the 24p footage correctly. Now my question is what settings do I use on export? Do I export as 23.976 footage, or do I export as 29.97 (which by defaut is 24p footage without the 3:2 removed, and then let Final Cut remove the pulldown??? I've searched the forums and still don't understand all the ins and outs of 24p and 24pa, I still haven't found a concise answer. If someone could just spell it out from me, that would be great. You can bitch slap me later.

[Steve_Arm]

Basically output settings should be the same as composition settings.Experiment though.

[AndrewKramer]

Well your camera records 24p or 24pa because it has to (according to the technology at the time) in order to fit on the NTSC tape running at 29.976 FPS.

Now Final Cut Pro visually hides the pull-down so on playback all you see is 24 FPS or (23.976). In a perfect world we would film at this frame rate and work at this frame rate and only if necessary output the final with a pull-down for a NTSC broadcast.

So to answer your question, you want to work in a COMP that is 23.976 and export a video file at 23.976 FPS. I use Quicktime PNG setting because it is uncompressed and has very good file sizes.

Once in FCP you're essentially working at 23.976 the only differnce is that, with these rendered files is that the program won't work extra hard to remove any extra pull-down because it won't be there.

I hope this helps.

[bentpixel]

Thanks for the info Andrew. But after some experimentation that almost doesn't seem to be the case, but I'm really not sure, if you can give me more insight that would be great. I was working in a 23.976 COMP (24P footage) and exported to 23.976. When I brought it into the Final Cut project, it came up unrendered. So I exported it as 29.97 and imported it into FC and it seem to work ok, FC didn't want to render it. So heres my new question? When working with 24P footage (again not 24Pa footage) in FC do you want work in a normal NTSC 29.97 lower field project?? Then in AFX you work on that footage as 23.976 3:2 removed and then export as 29.97 back into FC??? My understanding when comes to 24P footage and 24Pa footage is that 24P footage is handled like NTSC footage the difference is the cadence, where when dealing with 24pa footage in FC you remove the pulldown hence getting true 23.976. Check out this link and see what you get from it.

http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/24p_in_FCP_nattress.html

[AndrewKramer]

Don't work in a 29.97 lower field project!
Final cut makes you render anytime you don't use footage that is native. That is why your renders should be uncompressed so when it gets rendered back to DV it will still look good and will be able to be exported back to tape.

Don't be alarmed by the rerender, it's more a project conversion, if you want you can add a cadence to the 24p comp in AE at render time under the rendering settings and save it as a DV codec. But the nice thing about rendering to an uncompressed codec at 24 FPS is when converting to DVD.

When you convert to DVD you are encoding MP2 Video, so follow this workflow,

Capture DV, Add effects in AE then render to DV, Export to MP2 (equals 1 generation)

Now a better workflow for DVD

Capture DV, Add effects in AE then render uncompressed, Export to MP2

Now in FCP you may need to render to preview, but on export it should sample from the original files to compress for DVD.

_____________________________

BTW: Final Cut Pro plays back 24p footage on an NTSC monitor by adding the pull-down making it NTSC compliant, but with DV I usually don't go back to tape but rather to DVD, so let FCP handle the conversion and just keep your project 24p.

And the reason you don't work witha 29.97 comp with 24p footage is because you scrammble the cadence and it can never be removed when you make cuts at differn't places in the pull-down.
Andrew

[bentpixel]

Thanks for the great info Andew, I think I see where you're going with this. Now I totally agree with rendering out as uncompressed of AFX. There is just one thing that still isn't completely clear. As per the link I put in the last post, is FC really working in 23.976 when dealing with 24p footage. I'm just not so sure, the link seems to indicate that you treat 24p footage just like NTSC footage.

"When shooting in 24p Normal, the camera is adding normal standard 3:2 pulldown to the video, which results in 24p footage designed to work with any non-linear editing suite and it will play back and look good directly to any NTSC monitor. You can use 24p Normal footage just like normal video from any DV camera, and everything will work fine, but obviously, the footage will have a film look to it. If you’re just going straight back to NTSC video tape, then using 24p Normal is the simplest, easiest workflow. No special treatment of the footage is needed and you really can just edit as normal."

By that statement out of the link its seems as though you treat 24p just like NTSC footage, the ONLY difference is how it will look. And further reading seems to indicate that removing pulldown is only really needed when its 24PA. I even pulled up the properties of the 24P sequence in the FC project and it indicated it as NTSC 29.97 lower field. Is this wrong???? (oh just for clarification the FC is not mine it is someone elses, so they may be the one who is in error here???) Maybe I'm just overcomplicating this, but it seems as though what you are saying is different than what the info in the link is saying. You really have been a lot of help anything else you can add please feel free. Oh by the way, your tutorials on videocopilot.net are great. Thanks much for your input.