Frame rate conversion HELP

Question

Is it true there is no way to SUCCESSFULLY apply pulldown to 24pNative footage (shot with the HVX-200 on P2 cards) OTHER than laying it to tape? I'm told it's the video card that's doing the pulldown and there's no way pulldown can be done within FCP/Cinema Tools/Compressor. What I'm trying to do is convert my DVCPRO 50 23.98 quicktimes to DVCPRO 50 29.97
I just can't come to terms with the idea that the only way I can work in a 29.97 timeline is by dumping all my 24pNative footage to tape and re-digitizing. Of course you can drop a 24pNative clip into a 29.97 timeline and render it and FCP will "pull it down" so to speak by adding duplicate frames but of course it isn't correct, nor does it look correct.

Answer 1

Hey Shane,
Thanks for all the help so far, very much appreciated.
THE WHOLE STORY with a happy happy ending
- shot a music vid with the HVX-200 and the mini-35 adaptor (with SLR lenses) in DVCPRO HD 720pN mode. Planned to deliver the video in standard def.
- Chose HD 720pN recording because a) wanted to be able to have the option to deliver an HD version if ever desired b) wanted to be able to use the HVX's undercranking and overcranking abilities only available in 720p mode (which look amazing and can be played back on set real time, I'm still to this day impressed by that), 3x the recording time on a P2 card at 720p 24pN versus recording DVCPRO 50 24p, and finally wanted my VFX/compositor guy to be able to work with highest res images possible (i.e. do his work with the HD dailies and deliver me HD and SD versions of the completed VFX shots ). And yep, in order to deliver an HD version of the video I would have to do a match back edit with my HD dailies and HD VFX shots but that really doesn't take too long for a 180 second show.
- Chose to work in and deliver SD because it's all my offline rig is capable of outputting (i.e. no HD client monitor, just my NTSC CRT). I know some people who cut their music vids (shot in DVCPRO HD 24p 720p/1080i who are still going to deliver standard def as it's still the requirement up here in Canada with our MTV equivalent station Much Music) without ever actually seeing what their show looks like on a client monitor (i.e. an NTSC or HD televsion) until they take their locked picture to the online suite and only then do they get to see it on a TV...in a room that costs $500-$1000 an hour (i.e. they do this cuz like me, they don't have a high end video card or HD televsion). I just don't think it's wise to not see what your video actually looks like on an NTSC monitor (for all the obvious and not so obvious reasons I'm too lazy to list and you already know), hence why I downconvert my HD dailies at the offline stage (instead of downconverting my locked/color corrected HD timeline at the online stage) so I can actually see what my video looks like on an NTSC monitor (i.e. the medium it will broadcasted in) as I edit it.
- Because I shot some DV footage with the HVX-200 (emergency shooting only remember) I know needed to work with DVCPRO 50 23.98 and DV 30p in my FCP project. After coming to the conclusion I had no way of getting my DVCPRO 50 23.98 (downconverted from my DVCPRO HD 24pN remember) into a 29.97 timline, unless I laid it to tape (popular belief at the time), I unfortunately chose to upconvert my DV 30p to DVCPRO 50 30p and then reverse telecine it (pulling out frames from orignal 30fps source material, i.e. resulting in a slightly choppy look when played back) in order to work entirely in a DVCPRO 50 23.98 timeline. Another editor agreed that unless I wanted to lay my 23.98 footage to tape (the HD quicktimes or the SD downcoverted quicktimes) I should just make my 30p material 23.98 by reverse telecining in either cinema tools or a program he suggested called DVFilm Maker. I checked out DVFilm Maker, looked pretty mickey mouse to be honest and just reverse telecined in cinema tools.
- So, Mr. Shane, after I read your post that you were looking into what compressor can do, I thought it'd be worth a double check if DVFilm Maker could turn 23.98 to 29.97 and LOOOONG BEHOLD (wipe my eyes) it has a catagory called "Post-Edit Processing" that offers the feature "Convert 24P/23.976P to 3:2 NTSC". I quickly double checked my HVX-200 manual and sure enough, 24pNative mode records the "active a.k.a. effective" frames in the 3:2 pulldown process giving you true 24fps, so surely it could be REVERSE-reverse-telecined (also referred to as "pulldown" I guess). And it bloody well can. No recompression, no visible damage what so ever, just adds 3:2 pulldown and creates a duplicate 29.97 quicktime.
All my footage (whether it was HD 23.98 or DV 30p) is now DVCPRO 50 29.97 and can be edited without loss of quality (other than it being SD which was intended for now).
And it just occured to me, if you wanna save hardrive/P2 card space while in the field, why not shoot 24pN and then pull it down in post? (that was probably a loaded question that will generate a lot of responses entitled "Actually, you idiot..." but whatev. I'm so relieved at the moment that NO sacrifices have to be made. But I'll be damned if I didn't need 5x times the hard drive space than I should of for this little music video (i.e. all the original dailies in their original codecs HD/SD, and the duplicate sets of upconverted/downconverted dailies).
Goooodnight.