720p60 3:2 Pulldown to 720p24 in Final Cut?

Question

We shot a feature film with a Panasonic Varicam at 24p and captured directly to a computer via HD-SDI through a BlackMagic Design Decklink HD Extreme using Apple's ProRes codec (looks fantastic by the way... for those interested there is definitely a visual difference between DVCProHD and ProRes when capturing from an uncompressed source). The transport mechanism was 720p60 because that's what the Varicam outputs, and Final Cut's capture doesn't pay any attention to the HD-SDI meta-data (if any exists) so the pulldown frames were not removed in the capture process.
So, now I have all of this 60p footage that has superfluous frames added in the 3:2 pulldown process of the camera. When we edit these clips within Final Cut in a 24fps timeline, about a fifth of our clips play back stuttered as they are dropping, or more accurately doubling, every other frame and ignoring those in-between. I've figured out the reason for this is because Final Cut has no clue what frame of the 3:2 sequence each clip begins with and thus thinks each clip begins on an A1 frame. In 4 out of 5 frame sequences, this is fine, as shown here:
Normal telecine sequence:
AAA BB CCC DD EEE FF…
Edit starts on first frame:
AAABBCCCDDEEEFF
ABCDEF
Edit starts on second frame:
AABBCCCDDEEEFF
ABCDEF
Edit starts on third frame:
ABBCCCDDEEEFF
ACCEE
Edit starts on fourth frame:
BBCCCDDEEEFFG
BCDEFG
Edit starts on fifth frame:
BCCCDDEEEFFGGG
BCDEFG
As such, we see a stuttering issue (which appears as 12fps... every other frame is ignored of the original footage) on all clips that begin with the 3rd A-frame because Final Cut reverses this pulldown automatically but assumes that the beginning of the clip is at the beginning of the sequence every time, when it's not. I had hoped that I could somehow change the starting pulldown frame within Final Cut but see no way to do this. Cinema Tools doesn't have any good tools for working with 60p original content, so I'm stuck here.
I downloaded and installed the Nattress Standards Conversion filters and have experimented with them but have not been successful at eradicating this problem entirely. It seems its conversion from 60p to 24p assumes 60 unique frames, not a 3:2 pulldown clip. This coupled with the fact that Final Cut has some flakiness with its handling of the pulldown in general leaves me seeking the best strategy for handling this from wise council, which I would absolutely this forum to be.
Thanks for any help in advance!

Answer 1

Alex, thanks for your help. I didn't notice one of the FCP settings for my camera had been changed. Funny how working at 2:45 a.m. can sneak up on your brain.
Thanks again & take care!