Dealing with 24 and 23.98 fps

[Joe Laude]

I'm doing post on a short shot with the Red camera, and I already know we're going to run into a snag with the frame rate they shot in. They shot in 24 fps, I guess in anticipation of a film out, but now they aren't doing one. My question is, when I get all this completed in Final Cut as a 24 fps sequence, how do I slow it down to conform it to 23.98? Is this as easy as nesting it in a 23.98 sequence? I know FCP is finicky about different time bases, and it likes to clumsily duplicate or drop frames. The director has the project on his hard drive, so I can't try it myself right now.

 

[Charles Angus]

You may not nest sequences with different timebases in FCP.

As to the best way to do that, I couldn't tell you.

Probably the thing to do would be just call the footage 23.98 (not actually adjusting it's speed) and conform the audio to match. That way you keep frames intact.

If you are working with image sequences, then that's easy - just call it 23.98. With video, I don't know.

 

[Alex Carr]

Take all the footage into Cinema Tools and conform it to 23.98... If you have audio it will change it to match.

 

[rotberg]

So I've been having issues with sync and I saw your post about using Cinema Tools to convert the Red files to 23.98. I did this to one file and it messed it up big time, even when I tried to re-conform it back to 24.00. Now after about 2 minutes it stutters all the way to the end with green frames every frame or so.
I can't get it back to the way it was before so I've lost my "M" proxy of this file.

Obviously I should have made a copy instead of risking my files, but live and learn, I guess.

Just wanted to throw that out there.

 

[Jeremy Newmark]

So I've been having issues with sync and I saw your post about using Cinema Tools to convert the Red files to 23.98. I did this to one file and it messed it up big time, even when I tried to re-conform it back to 24.00. Now after about 2 minutes it stutters all the way to the end with green frames every frame or so.

You won't be able to conform the R3D reference quicktimes, because they are referencing the original R3D files which are not actual quicktime movies. Cinema tools is not going to change the time base of the R3D file, so most likely this is just confusing quicktime, hence the green frames. However, if you actually output quicktimes using RA,RL,RC,RR, etc. then those files should have no problem being conformed in Cinema Tools.

I can't get it back to the way it was before so I've lost my "M" proxy of this file.

Obviously I should have made a copy instead of risking my files, but live and learn, I guess.

You can create a new one with RedAlert.

 

[Meryem Ersoz]

yes, you haven't lost your Quicktimes, just open RedAlert, open your R3D,

File > Make Quicktimes (you can also just make your M proxy, if you're so inclined)

voila, should be good as new

To conform in Cinema Tools, I would assume that you need to render out to a codec, Pro Res or H.264 or some such, not use a proxy,

 

[rotberg]

gotcha.

thanks a lot, guys.

 

[Joe Laude]

Thanks for the responses. I've been juggling a few projects and haven't been able to get back on here.

I'm going to poke around with Cinema Tools and see what I can do. Thanks again.

 

[Conor]

I'm in a similar situation to Joe's. I'm working on a short film that was shot at 24 fps on the RED One camera. I used the Log & Transfer function to get the footage into FCP, and have been editing with the 24 fps 2048x1024 ProRes QuickTimes with no problems.

I'd like to finish to an HDCam or, more likely, a D5. My tape, therefore, needs to be 23.98. I plan to use Crimson Workflow to get back to the original R3D files and use RedCine to output 1920x1080 uncompressed 10-bit QuickTimes. I'll then output from FCP.

Can RedCine output 23.98 fps QuickTimes from footage that was shot at 24 fps? If not, do I use CinemaTools on the uncompressed 10-bit QuickTimes? If I have done a sound mix at 24 fps, will CinemaTools adjust the audio to stay in sync with the altered video?

Thanks a lot.