DVD SP4 converting 23.98 footage to 29.97 fps
 

I've encountered a weird problem when I import my HD footage to DVD Studio Pro 4. In the assets folder, under frame rate, it tells me that my 24f footage shot with the Canon XH-A1 is actually 29.97 fps even after I've edited and compressed it in 23.98 fps. Strange. I've even tried compressing in both mpeg-2 and H.264 formats and it still ends up with the same results.

Does anybody have any idea as to why DVD SP4 is doing this? I've previewed the footage and runs pretty smoothly, but I would prefer if I could burn a DVD at 23.98 fps instead of 29.97 fps. It is possible, right?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

What you are experiencing is the 2:3 pulldown - your footage is 24 fps, but for an NTSC DVD you need 30 fps, so your encoder must add extra frames.

Try Google-ing around for telecine or 2:3 pulldown.

Ah, your probably right. Thanks for the info.

It is possible. Have you used Compressor? You can create the 24fps MPEG-2 file in Compressor, which DSP 4 will read as 24fps and flag it for 3:2 pulldown on playback.

However, if you're importing Quicktime files, even if they are originally 24fps, DSP 4 will encode them at 29.97

Yes, I've tried to convert those files to an 23.98 fps MPEG-2 in Compressor, and I'm still getting the 29.97 reading in DVD SP4. I thought I could get true 23.98 playback in Hi-Def, but it's probably like you said, Benjamin; DVD SP4 is flagging the 3:2 pulldown for NTSC playback.

There's probably a way around this, of coarse, but I haven't figured it out just yet.