Is there a way to figure out what frame rate a DV tape is?

Mommaerts

Mommaerts

Member
Hi everyone,

I just received a dv tape to transfer to my editing sweet. I don't know for sure what the format is and would like to make sure i'm importing it correctly.

Here's what i know:
1-footage was taken at 24pa
2-it was edited in vegas and i can only assume 23.98 if it was imported correctly
3-then it was outputed back to dv tape at 24pa and handed to me.

I beleive this was one of the first projects done by this editor and I'm not sure if they accidently exported it as 30 interlaced or at 24p or maybe didn't have the pulldown set enabled or something.

After capturing a different tape that i shot as a test using the advance pulldown removal setting in FCP i get clear images on each frame, it also appears on my browser as 23.98. Now when i capture this tape that was given to me i see a blurry frame every 5 frames, also it appears in my timeline as 29.97 even though the capture setting was the same for both tapes.

So the question came about, is there a trick to making sure that i'm importing the footage correctly? What if it was done at 24p then export to dv tape at 30i or maybe they didn't use the pulldown properly.

Is there anything i can do to ensure the integrety of my capture? should i be using a 29.97 timeline and give up on the 23.98? (note: i still see a blurry frame every 5 frames but once in a while it's every 4 then back to 5)

If someone could shed some light or put me at ease before i start this long process of colour grading and matting for 16:9 that would be very helpful.

Thanks to all who reply, you guys kick ass!

(M)
 
Tape format

Tape format

Mommaerts,

I will write what I know about format. When you write anything on a DV
tape, it's recorded as 29.97, because it's NTSC format. Therefore, whatever
you have on that tape, no matter what format it was shot originally or what
the previous editor did to it, it is 29.97 video material.
However, I don't know what kind of pulldown method Vegas uses when it
exports onto the tape. You should talk to the previous editor if he converted
the video to 23.39, and edited it on 23.98 timeline or not. If he did, you could
ask him how he exported onto the tape. If he didn't do anything, I ASSUME
it used 2:3 pulldown method. Then you your job is (ONLY IF YOU WANT TO
TREAT THE VIDEO AS 23.98) to capture it as 29.97, and convert it to 23.98
in CinemaTools.

Hope this helps.
 
If your timeline tells you it's 29.97, then it's 29.97. Figure out what your friend did wrong when re-logging the footage, and if at all possible, get ahold of the original tape.
 
Thanks for the responses, they do help confirm a few things. I don't have contact with the editor so I can't ask them what they did and it may take a long while if i asked them to export it at 23.98. I've never used cinema tools but maybe that will help get rid of those blurry frames.

If anybody has any other suggestions or experiences i'd love to hear them.

Thanks again,

(M)
 
If it was exported to tape it was done at 29.97. 24p cannot exist natively on DV tape without the 3:2 pulldown. If you see one interlaced frame every 5th frame it's 24pA with 2:3:3:2 pulldown.

Noah
 
Hi Noah, so if that's the case about the tape being 24pa with 2:3:3:2 pulldown why is it that after i capture it with the 23.98 2:3:3:2 setting it appears in my browser window as 29.97 however other tracks i've imported appear as 23.98 in the browser window. I might be talking out my ass here but is it possible that the tape doesn't have the frames tagged properly for removal? If so is there a way to mark the frames again?

If the solution isn't worth the time and effort then that may be my answer. It's just a short I helped shoot and wanted to do some colour grading then archive it for personal use but prefer to work in 23.98 as opposed to 29.97.

Thank you all once again,

(M)
 
When you re-export a 2:3:3:2 edit out of FCP it does not include the tagged frames like the camera does. So you're best editing at a 29.97 timebase with that sort of material. You can try fussing around with CinemaTools but chances are you'd need to go back and re-export the original with a standard pulldown in order to get it all to work out properly on the re-import. Or if you could get access to a hard drive with the original's 23.98 edit you'd be in better shape.

Noah
 
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