Hey!

I've shot a short film with the DVX102AE. It'll be about 9 minutes long. No dialogue. I want to transfer in the end to 35mm.

The question is: how should I slow down my footage to 24p (and then add pull-down for NTSC version) . I've read a similar thread but it didn't say how you actually do it, or what is the best way.

I have no dialogue, so no problems with that. But I do have a lot of sound effects. How should I approach this? Edit PAL normally (no sounds), then slow down, THEN add the sound effects, and transfer to film in the end? That is the best order to tackle the problem? Or edit with the sound effects from the very beginning, then worry about the transfer?

Thanks guys!
Bogdan

PS By the way, I tried Atlantis to convert PAL to NTSC, I tried all the options there, and I got invariably bad results when there is motion and panning in the frame. Any similar experiences?

Sorry,

I just read that the 2 "interlaced looking" frames when you transfer PAL to NTSC with Atlantis don't show on a NTSC TV monitor. I haven't tried that yet (only on my G5 dispay so far) but I trust what they say until I verify myself...

I've had some experience earlier this year converting DVX100 PAL 25fps footage to NTSC for showing a short movie at a film festival in the USA (playback on a NTSC-dvd player and a beamer). I tried Atlantis but it did not look great, even after experimenting with the settings in the demo-version. I asked for a lot of advise, mainly towards using Vegas 4 for converting 25 fps PAL to 24 fps NTSC. I tried all possible settings and all advices, but I got stucked with bad motion results. I've been trying for a couple of days to get good results and Vegas has a reputation doing some good conversions. I did not try any other stand alone convertors other then Atlantis.
In the end I converted the 25 fps PAL to 60i NTSC using Vegas and that was the way to go. The end results looked very good on the big screen and no one could believe I had filmed on video when the festival visitors watched our short movie.

In your case you want to go to 35 mm in the end. Why converting to NTSC and lower the vertical resolution? Why not considering making the best looking PAL footage and find a good conversion house that can transfer that PAL footage to 35 mm. It will cost you money anyway, so why not finding a way to get the best quality you can get?! I'm sure there are company's that can help with that.

Thanks Peter.

Your Vegas approach seems to have been a success. I've never used Vegas - it's only for PC, right?

As for the DV to 35mm, I guess I was not clear enough. I will of course go to a transfer house with a PAL version. For the film transfer, I was only worried about the sound effects, since my PAL film will be slowed down. Should I slow down the footage somehow and THEN add the sound effects? Or I can edit PAL normally WITH sound effects and only then see about the transfer? As a reminder, I don't have dialogue.

As far as getting from 25p to 24p or 29.97 (I don't know!), I was only asking for the NTSC conversion, not the film transfer.

Hi Bogdan,

Yes, Vegas is a pc-only product. Remarkable software I think, you should take a look someday.

Regarding the 25 fps PAL to film transfer: is slowing down 25 fps to 24 fps the only way a transfer house can do that? Don't they have any "smart hardware tools" that can keep the filmlength unchanged? This is an unknown world for me. I should think to check some of the transfer houses and ask their advise.
Regarding my conversion I also tried to slow down the audiotrack of our movie (only soundfx and music) 4% and it sounded "different", while you must know that Vegas is one of the best audio-tools for video-editing including enhanced time-stretching/pitch-shifting tools. But perhaps those transfer houses have super-professional equipment that do the job better.
If slowing down is necessary and you can deliver digital files to the transfer house, find out if it's possible to deliver an audiotrack in 24 bit / 96 khz format, the more resolution there is, the better the slow down proces should prevent the audio quality.

Regarding 25 fps PAL to NTSC: do some testing yourself and convert to 60i MPEG2. Check different parts of your movie using the NTSC MPEG2 file via dvd-playback on a big tv-set and judge for yourself. It worked for me and it did not harm our movie at all (we even won a grand prize with it in the USA!).

Anybody else with more experience on film transfers?

Thanks again Peter.

Anybody knows if you can use Cinema Tools to go from 25p to 24p?

And (sorry for repeating), what about adding the sound effects? After or before the slowing down? Can slowing down audio and modifying the pitch be done on a Mac software, not at an expensive post-production house (if I have to do that).

Thanks!

Regarding the sound-fx: something tells me that not changing the speed is more favourite (so add them after the slow down). But that means that the audio-fx can be done only when finished with the video, and in my way of working audio and video editing go hand in hand.
I'm sure there is affordable Mac audio software that can change speed/pitch.

Yeah, you're right about editing video and sound at the same time. They influence one another 100%. I guess you have to pick up your shots, select in and outs by making them longer than you anticipate, do an extremely rough assembly, slow THAT down, and then begin editing "normally".

In the meantime, I conformed the 25p PAL footage to 24p with Cinema Tools, the shots are indeed longer by 4% (of course). Now, I will just begin editing (going along with the sound effects).

I hope I'm doing the right thing.