PF24 to 24P work around, C100 & FCP X

[Jeffrey Butler]

So for my first test shoot with my new C100 I, for reasons I still cannot comprehend, used PF24 for the framerate with a 59.94 system set.

That's just the dumbest thing you could do, for most situations (I mean all situations). It's supposedly still 23.967 fps, but it's recorded at 60i. For your convenience. Maybe even for your safety.

So after shooting 24 (23.xxx) for the past 4 years, seeing 29.97 in the media specs was disheartening (?), shocking (?), confusing (?)...I mean not what I wanted to see. So, Gary says remove the pulldown but never deinterlace it - and that only after repenting from ever using PF24. Done.

I think I found a fabulous (I mean quick and dirty) way to deal with those poor PF24 clips for FCP X users. Since the "timeline" (I mean project) will conform itself to the first piece of video you drop in, you theoretically only need one of your PF24 clips converted to 1080p, 24. Once you do that, the project (I mean timeline) is set to the proper 23.xxx and whatever clips you drop in there will be conformed on the fly. I tried it - it seems to work. Yes, it will be rendered at some point, but if you're like me, only on output. Since using FCP X I find that I rarely actually render anything in the timeline (I mean project).

This, should you not prove me incorrect, would mean you don't need to duplicate/convert the media manually, but rather just let FCP X do all the work for you, and even that only really when you finally output.

I converted the one clip using Media Encoder CC and just used it to set the specs for the project. Yeah, you can trigger set up for the project manually by dropping in a piece of audio, but I wanted to start with a real clip really converted first.

This may be old news - sorry if it is. It's all new to me!

PFJeff (I mean Jeff)

[Gary Huff]

When you do this, all FCPX does is deinterlace the material, it doesn't remove the pulldown. Thus, you have deinterlaced 29.97 that has half the resolved detail as the original 24p footage.

[Jeffrey Butler]

Originally Posted by Gary Huff

When you do this, all FCPX does is deinterlace the material, it doesn't remove the pulldown. Thus, you have deinterlaced 29.97 that has half the resolved detail as the original 24p footage.

Technically I don't actually know, but it's interesting that the actual conversion sucks more than the on the fly conversion. And that may be b/c of the settings. Here's a screenshot where you can see that each one is just a little bit different. Left to right are Media Encoder CC conversion, FCP on the fly conform to converted clips settings (1080p, 23.97) and finally the original clip dropped into FCP at 1080i, 29.97.

The ball does seem to have something say, doesn't it? Sure looks like half a frame to me. Well, I did say quick. And dirty...

[Gary Huff]

That's because Media Encoder also does not remove 3:2 pulldown. Anything that you use that just renders out 24p from what you give it, without giving you explicit options about the pulldown, is simply doing a deinterlace and throwing out frames.

[Jeffrey Butler]

Makes sense. I wondered. What do you use?

[Gary Huff]

Load it into After Effects, right-click on the video, select "Interpret Footage" then "Main", and then "Guess 3:2 pulldown". Then create a composition for the clip and render out to the format of choice.

Repeat for each clip.