I received a strange request from someone and I want to know what it may entail before agreeing to take the job on. It appears to be a simple job (but I know better)... someone shot some 24p footage on a Panasonic DVX100 (don't know if 24p or 24pA) and would like it to be converted to 30i.

Why? In their words, "I would like ot transfer the footage to 30I since it is much easier to edit 30I on AVID."

What turns out to be the case is they have Avid Express DV 3.5, which does not have any 24p support, according to their school's tech.

Now, I'm a Final Cut guy using FCS1. I have a Panasonic deck (the DV2500) for capturing, FCP for ingest... and conversion? Would I just use FCP's "DV NTSC 48 kHz Advanced (2:3:3:2) Pulldown Removal" capture preset to get the results they are looking for?

If they shot in 24p then they can just edit in a 60i timeline. If they shot 24pA then you would ingest with the preset you said but render out either a 60i file or a 24p file with 2-3 pulldown.

I believe, I'm a FCP newb.

If they shot in 24p then they can just edit in a 60i timeline.

The way it was explained to me, is that they can't us the footage, as it is now, in Avid Express 3.5

If they shot 24pA then you would ingest with the preset you said but render out either a 60i file or a 24p file with 2-3 pulldown.

What do you mean by render out? AFAIK, I should be able to take care of it at the point of capture. What would I need to do that would require rendering?

24p files would be unusable for the client. It has to be 29.97 NTSC DV.

24p (not 24pA) is meant to be edited in a 60i time line. Your editing software should be blind to the difference.

24p (not 24pA) is meant to be edited in a 60i time line. Your editing software should be blind to the difference.

Unfortunately, the client doesn't know if it was 24p or 24pA. They do know that they do want "30i", or what they mean is 29.97/60i

Chances are it's 24p (2:3:2:3) which in my line of broadcast I see 85% of the time with 24.

Whenever I don't know, I bring the clip into After Effects for interpretation.
AE can guess the pull-down 95% of the time with the interpret function.
Even if AE gets stuck, I can manually try the pulldown pattern and render out, test the results and proceed.

My advice is to track down a version of AE. It really is (IMHO) the best software for determining pulldown and remove it.

Hit control F in after effects to see the interpretation dialog box.

-C

Whenever I don't know, I bring the clip into After Effects for interpretation.
AE can guess the pull-down 95% of the time with the interpret function.
Even if AE gets stuck, I can manually try the pulldown pattern and render out, test the results and proceed.

I happen to have AE CS3 at my disposal (as well as shake 4), however have never used the interpretation feature—that's new to me.

I'm trying to envision the workflow... I capture with FCP, but with what settings? I capture it as 29.97 without any removal pulldown? Then import into AE and interpret the footage? Then render it out?

I have done so little work with 24fps footage that I don't really have a grasp on how to deal with it.

if the material is 24P, it has 3:2 PD already embedded and its 29.97 on tape. it will just edit fine as 29.97 (30i)

if the material is 24PA -

load it in FCP with the 24PA DV preset to strip out the dupe frames.

place the clip(s) into a 24P DV timeline

be sure 3:2:3:2 cadence is set for play out in one of the prefs (TL settings I think, I hate FCP's lack of unified prefs !) and FCP will add 3:2PD back in in RT on the way back out to tape. nothing to render at all.

FCP will add 3:2PD back in in RT on the way back out to tape. nothing to render at all.

I should have mentioned they want it on their external HDD, not tape. But is there not a way to convert the clips as they are ingested?

no.

if thats the case, capture the 24PA, take the native 24P files and send them thru compressor or AE and add 3:2 PD there. you will take a compression hit for doing this.

if its 24P@29.97, then just hand off the QT's which FCP captured... assuming their NLE is happy with QT. with avid, it may well import the QT's and then convert to OMF :(. if the AVI takes AVI nativiely, then re-wrap the qt's as AVI. if the avid does convert to OMF, there may be another compression hit. also takes a long time.

you should test a short 60sec clip thru the entire workflow process to be sure it works before committing... and hope that all the tape were shot the same.

another option is to lay back out to tape as 3:2 29.97, then load it back from tape. 3X realtime, but then you can hand off tapes as backup which isn't such a bad thing either if the hd dies. then you are the hero.