Playing around with the Nattress demo - slick stuff but I'm having a bit of trouble interpreting the manual. I'm trying to figure out a process to make a 60i->24p DVD to see how it looks when played back from a progressive scan DVD player.

Does anyone have a step by step workflow for this? Assume I want to end up with a 24p file for 24p mpeg2<>DVD encoding.

1. When starting with 60i material, do I want a 23.98 or 29.97 timebase for the FCP sequence?
2. Assuming a 60i->24p conversion, what format should I use when exporting to get straight progressive frames (obviously not DV - YUV uncompressed? animation?)? No fields, no pulldown, etc (is this possible?). Disk space isn't an issue.

-seperate question-
3. If I'm not exporting to a progressive format for one reason or another, but rather a fields format (for example sake, lets say DV - end result is a 60i file with 24p motion feel), what export template should I be using? 29.97? 23.98 (w/ all the generated pulldown, etc)?
-/seperate question

If I can get a 24p file I can DVD it easily enough - no worries there.

A lot of this stuff may be obvious after having worked with it, but it's not really intuitive. I've read the PDF manual and there's a lot of detail about how the plugin works, how the techniques are devised, what the options are, etc - but nothing really says how you should be using it nor is there even a rough tutorial guideline on how to get started with it. The experiments I've tried end up clearly wrong (stuttering frames, roughly 6 saved images? for every second of video, etc).

Any suggestions are appreciated!

*bump*

Anyone?

have you considered directing these questions to graeme nattress? on his website, he really seems to encourage direct inquiries regarding their use. i just purchased these filters recently and have only begun to use them in the most elementary way and probably have some similar questions, although until i get my most recent project more close to completion and more prepared to add these filters and render, i won't know exactly what questions i have.

for my initial test, i used 60i in a 29.97 timeline in FCP, added the 24p filter, and it looked pretty good....probably there are ways to enhance it, but it's a starting point. i wish i could be more help--and wish someone more experienced with using these filters would chime in with an answer!

any hints on maximizing their use?

http://www.nattress.com/standardsConversionMovie.htm

Watch the NTSC to 24p movie.

You need to be in a 23.98fps timeline as that's what you're converting to. Set codec to 8bit uncompressed 4:2:2, turn on the "source is DV" option in V2.5.

Well, you can use the converter again to add 3:2 pulldown using the "24p to NTSC" option, or just use Film Effects which is designed for that workflow.

Email me if you get stuck!

Graeme

Hi Graeme,
Will converting the footage from 60i to 24p (using your conversion software) result in a better looking DVD? BTW: Your film look filters work great.
doug

Thanks Doug! The conversion uses exactly the same algorithm as Film Effects, but does not add back in the 3:2 pulldown, and hence leaves you with 24p footage for use in a 24p timeline. Because you can make a 24p DVD from a 24p movie, you can get a better quality DVD as less frames per second are compressed for it.

Graeme

Thanks Graeme!

Hrm.. ok I've been doing a lot of playing around with the filters - very nice btw! && thx for the help! - but I don't think I like 24p all that much. At least, I don't like the look of it when coming from 60i (looks great w/ a DVX or other normal 24p source). I definitely prefer 30p (good compromise between filmic prog feel and avoiding blended out of cadence fields).

I'll do some experiements w/ the filters 30p abilities - the color grading is also very slick so I think I'll look into it for those features alone.

Thanks again!