Question regarding compressor vs. frame rate

B

bufaba

Member
My apologies if this has been discussed or should be a no brainer. However, need to be certain:

Editing feature film on FCP 5.0.4 (could upgrade to 5.1 if necessary) that was shot on 720P 24p native mode. Have received hard drive with footage. Once I imported a few clips, I noticed that in the clip settings, while the frame rate is at 23.98, the compressor is 720P p60. Is this how it should be? Or the compressor suppose to be 720 p24?

While source clips are running at 24 frames within a 60 frame field, I can still edit in the sequence in 24. But I was expecting my source timecode to be in 24 as well. Is it right? Is it wrong? We're doing a film out, so will a 60 field affect a blowup to 35?

Hope this made sense. Just ask to clarify, if need be.

Thanks!
 
Switch to 24 timeline

Switch to 24 timeline

You're fine. Its a progressive 60 count or something like that. Your clips are all still 23.98 media and your editing time base is still 23.98, so your sequence/timeline timecode will reflect that as well.

As for the why do they have a 720p60 compressor and not a 720p24 compressor is a little beyond me. I think Jan can explain the whole 60 count better than I could, so hopefully she'll read this thread.

cheers.
 
Thanks!!! It appears that if you change the Time Code Rate from 60 to 24 for each clip, then your source clips will reflect an accurate 24 fps count, so that you're not bouncing from a 24 fps seq. and a 60 fps source. Let me know if this sounds like a bad move, but it seems to me the time code hasn't changed, just the way it is read.
 
Ahh...

Ahh...

"Change the timecode rate from 60 to 24." Not exactly sure what you mean by that. I get the difference between the two, but precisely what setting are you changing and where? I don't think its a bad move issue, this is just a curiousity/clarification thing on my end.

cheers.
 
If you select a clip and select item properties, I believe under the Timing menu there is a spot for time code rate. The column will be "TC Rate". If you right click on this number, you get a list of options ranging from 24 to 24 @25 to 30 to 60, so on. We switched this from 60 to 24, which seems to accurately do the math so that your source material reads back 24 consecutive frames, rather than reading back 60 frames that have 24 pulled out of them.
 
Found it...

Found it...

I see what you mean now, did find it. I thought about that though and actually it really shouldn't make any difference for stuff you do. Even if your material is in the whole 60 frames shell and then redundant frames pulled out so there are only 24 frames, the 'math' or 'numbers' of that kind of timecode won't affect your final outputs. The reason being is that the timecode of the sequence takes priority for outputs. The timecodes on your clips 'don't matter' so to speak. So if your timeline is at 24 fps, then when you output (to anything) you'll be counting at 24 fps, only from 0-23, no weird 60 math.

cheers.
 
same issues here

same issues here

I'm experiencing the same problems. We also shot at 24p (not 24PN) and this ingests at 60fps (or 59.94 to be exact) in FCP (why - who knows?). Therefore, when I try to drop the footage in the timeline (which is set at 24fps) it wants me to render every time. That's not an option because it is too slow a process.

My initial solution was to adjust the timeline to 60fps. This enable me to edit without rendering all the time. BUT - the footage does not play smooth. There are these weird little 'bumps'. This is I think due to the fact that in the ingesting process, extra frames are added or whatever it does to get to 60fps from 24fps.

I am now considering editing in 60fps, and when done, copying this edit into a 24fps timeline and then rendering the whole thing. Does that sound like a viable option?
I am now going to try your suggestion too.
:love4:
 
Bufaba - I tried to change the TC rate the way you mention. It does not give me the option to change it - it says 'source'. ?
 
evamidgley,

When you shoot 720p (and not 720pN) then when you digitize the footage you need to remove the extra frames. FCP does have a 'remove advanced frames with firewire connection' or something like that. Its a check box for your capture settings dialogue window. Now there is debate as to whether or not that truly works though. If it doesn't, I believe Cinema Tools is the way to go.

As for editing at the 60 fps timeline and then just doing the render at the end. That should be fine in theory. Personally I haven't always been thrilled with FCP's abilities to render though, so would avoid it just because of that. Perhaps when you do render out, render out at a better codec, just w/ the 23.98 time base setting (rather than the DVC Pro HD one).

As for Bufaba's strategy, that won't work for you. The footage they shot was shot at the native mode, so the extra frames were already removed. It was simply a different count that FCP was using. The clips didn't change a bit, just told FCP to count differently. In your case, you will need to change the physical clips in that you need to remove the redundant frames.

cheers.
 
DVCPro uses only intraframe compression, so the frame rate shouldn't make a difference.... I'm not sure why they call it 720p60 rather than just 720p - likely just because it's the most common standard...

Ooops - just saw that a post indicated that the capture may have been 60p rather than 24p - I'll second the Cinema Tools plan. But the compressor will still be called 720p60 for 720p24 stuff...
 
trying CinemaTools

trying CinemaTools

Hi VaricamLife - thank you for your suggestions.
I am not capturing thru firewire. I off loaded the P2 cards straight onto hard drives so I am now 'ingesting' them into FCP straight from the hard drive. So the first suggestion would not work for me.

As for CinemaTools - I have never worked with it before. Here is what I tried and did not work:
Open Clip (and here I open the clip that is under FCP documents, so a .mov format). It is 59.94 fps, I used Conform to set the frame rate to 24fps. And now all I have done is created slow-motion - the clip is twice as long and the action oh so slow.
:( Did I do it totally wrong? Any suggestions?
Eva
 
Just to clear things up...

Just to clear things up...

Eva,

Okay, so you have shot at 720p (ala the Varicam which is what we mainly use).

You have brought this footage into FCP and comes in at 720p60 (the frames of your timecode count up to 60)
- are they counting a full 60 frames or are the numbers jumping around a lot (you hit frame 58 and then when you step up one frame you hit frame 01, etc.)? Like is there really only 24 actual frames there when you step up frame at a time?

If the footage is counting at 60 frames, like you get every single frame from 0 to 59, then you have redundant frames that you want to lose. This can be done with Cinema Tools. However, if you're a little worried about going that route, you could try the Frame Rater Convertor tool. I'm not sure if that will work, as to my understanding it was meant only for converting materials shot at variable frame rates, not materials shot at 23.98. But I've never tried it, so could be worth a shot. You can find this on your FCP 5.1 discs or on the Panasonic web site. It seems the FCP one might be newer and not as buggy.

However, if you frame numbers are counting in a 60 cycle, but jumping around, then your redundant frames have already been removed. In which case this can cut directly on a 24 fps timeline. The numbers might look odd, but it will cut fine, as it is at 24 fps (the clip itself that is).

Sorry for the delay on the reply but things are starting to get quite hectic on my end, can't visit the forum as often as I'd like right now. Good luck.

cheers.
 
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