Cimema Tools and 3:2 pulldown removal

[Vital_Visuals_Inc]

I'm trying to use Cinema Tools to remove 3:2 pulldown from a S16 telecine job. I know, I know... this isn't an S16 group... but let's suppose that one wanted to use Cinema Tools to reverse telecine some normal 3:2 pulldown from DVX footage. Here's what I start with:

Video frame: Film frame
1: A
2: B
3: C
4: C+D
5: D+A

or something like that. No matter how I set the reverse telecine dialogue box (with the exception of choosing the F2-F1 field), I get 24P video that looks like:

1: A
2: A+B
3: B+C
4: C+D

In other words, I end up with 23.98 footage with one nice non-interlaced frame and three interlaced frames. What I want is:

1:A
2:B
3:C
4

The whole point of this exercise is to get back clean 24P footage from my telecine job! Any pointers?

Thanks in advance,
+Steve

[xander76]

That's a tough one. I have a suggestion, but I'm not sure about it.

First off the relationship of video to film frames in a 2:3:2:3 pulldown should be:

1 : A
2 : B
3 : B + C
4 : C + D
5 : D

This means that cinema tools is probably following a strategy that's something like this for the video frames:

1 : take this frame whole
2 : take this frame whole
3 : take half this frame and combine it with the next
4 : take half this frame and combine it with the previous
5 : take this frame whole

If CT somehow thinks that frame 3 or 4 is actually frame 1, you'll end up with 3 combined frames and only one correct frame like you have. As to why this might happen, I've no idea. I'd try shaving off frames from the front of the clip to see if CT is getting confused by a clip starting on the wrong frame. Might not make a difference, but who knows?

I've only used CT for DVX clips, and it worked perfectly. Ironically, though, it was originally built for film pulldowns like you are doing.

[Vital_Visuals_Inc]

I don't get it. What I'm ending up with appears to be a 24i thing- now I seem to be getting two progressive frames and two interlaced frames. I'm importing a clip processed in Cinema Tools into FCP 4, and as I move through each frame one at a time, I get two frames out of every four that vibrate on my viewing screen. I can also see the interlacing artifacts when I look at the clip in the CT viewer or in QT. How on earth could I be doing the reverse telecine thing on CT and still be ending up with interlaced video?

+Steve

[Vital_Visuals_Inc]

Well, a rather unsatisfactory workaround-

If I import the 29.97 clip into After Effects and output it to a 24P file, AE removes the pulldown and gives me exactly what I want. The problem is that AE requires too much tedious setup to make this happen.

Hmmmm....

[Vital_Visuals_Inc]

OK, if anyone ever runs into this again...

I think Cinema Tools was making my footage into 24i footage that still contained fields. I used the deinterlace filter and wound up with 24P footage. It seems a ridiculously tedious way of doing it-

1. Import the footage into FCP from tape
2. Open the clip in CT
3. Do a Batch Reverse Telecine (using Reverse Telecine Clip command doesn't automatically detect the A frame, so it doesn't work) on the clip/s
4. Import THAT clip into FCP
5. Apply the deinterlace filter.

Now-

I'm working in a 16x9 widescreen setup, editing anamorphic and capturing anamorphic. But when I put clips in either the viewer or the timeline, they come out 4x3. Using the motion tab, I open up the Distort dialog, and it has the frame squeezed 33%. How do I open the clip and have it magically unsqueezed in all its 16x9 glory?

+Steve

[ArkhamFilms]

If I'm not mistaken, the anamorphic option is in your presets menus. You can select or deselect the "anamorphic" button for capture and sequence presets.
I'd have more detailed answers, but I'm not in front of my computer at the moment. When I get home, I'll check it out.
Hope this helps.
-CJ
www.arkhamfilms.com