Telecine footage

Sorry if this is a dumb newbie question, but here goes:
I had my 16mm film footage telecined to an "Uncompressed 8-bit 4:2:2" quicktime file, and I need an editing suite that won't lose any of the quality.
What I'm using right now ( FCExpress 3.51) seems to require that I render it into lower quality.
So does Final Cut Express 4 support Uncompressed 8-bit 4:2:2
Or do I need Final Cut Pro?
Thanks, any help is greatly appreciated!

So does Final Cut Express 4 support Uncompressed 8-bit 4:2:2
No.
Or do I need Final Cut Pro?
Yes.

Similar Messages

HVX200 footage and timeline with 16mm telecine footage?

I am shooting a documentary with mostly HVX200 footage in the 720p 24PN mode. I am also shooting about 30 minutes of 16mm footage then doing a telecine pass with my colorist. How can I keep everything in the same format? I was thinking I could rent the Panasonic AJ-HD1200A deck and bring it to my telecine session so they can patch it into their bay/system. I could lay down the 16mm transfer down to DVCPROHD with that deck correct? Is there a special setting on the deck where I could lay it down as 23.98 to match my HVX200 material? Or does it lay it down as 60p and I just capture it at 23.98? Any suggestions would be great!

Chris. It's Saturday. The weekend. The morning after Cinco de Mayo. If we aren't with our families, or recovering from hangovers or enjoying a day off...then we are working...like me. sigh.
If they telecine to DVCPRO HD, they will have to do it at 720p24 but at 59.94 fps. This way when you capture it, you choose 720p24 and the advanced pulldown SHOULD be removed.
But I cannot say for sure...for I haven't done this nor do I have the deck. But I do know that 720p24 footage shot at 60fps on a varicam removes the pulldown nicely to 23.98 and it intercuts well with 24PN footage from the HVX. But the varicam flags the footage as 23.98 while recording 59.94. I am not sure if the HD1200 deck can as well.
You can try posting this onthe Creative Cow in the FCP forum or even the Varicam forum. A few people there have those decks.
http://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/newviewposts.cgi?forumid=8
http://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/newviewposts.cgi?forumid=120
Shane

Reverse Telecine vs. Convert EDL

First posted this in the FCP discussion forum and didn't receive a response. Admittedly, I didn't wait very long.
Simple question, long explanation. Apologies in advance.
Basically, a new client of mine shot a project on film, had the footage telecined without sound and synced the sound himself to help whomever was going to cut it. My issue is this, he synced everything before reversing the telecine on the clips, so everyting is still 29.97. The project will eventually go out to film, so a 23.98 EDL will have to be created.
In past projects, when I received telecined footage I'd reverse the telecine before syncing sound, and my EDL's have always been fine. My question is this, if I reverse telecine now, is his work syncing sound in 29.97 lost? Should I just cut in 29.97 and convert the EDL from 30 to 24 in Cinema Tools when everything is finished? I am extremely hesitant to do this, because in the past I've always tried to keep my "23.98" ducks in a row.
I'd prefer to reverse telecine and work in 23.98, but don't relish the thought of re-syncing sound that has already been synced. There's roughly 10 hours of footage.
Thanks.
Mac OS X (10.4.8) 1.25 Dual G4

I'm curious how you solved this problem - I'm assuming you did figure it out as time stands still for no Editor : - )Please share?
Thanks much.

Reverse Telecine Vs. Converted EDL

Simple question, long explanation. Apologies in advance.
Basically, a new client of mine shot a project on film, had the footage telecined without sound and synced the sound himself to help whomever was going to cut it. My issue is this, he synced everything before reversing the telecine on the clips, so everyting is still 29.97. The project will eventually go out to film, so a 23.98 EDL will have to be created.
In past projects, when I received telecined footage I'd reverse the telecine before syncing sound, and my EDL's have always been fine. My question is this, if I reverse telecine now, is his work syncing sound in 29.97 lost? Should I just cut in 29.97 and convert the EDL from 30 to 24 in Cinema Tools when everything is finished? I am extremely hesitant to do this, because in the past I've always tried to keep my "23.98" ducks in a row.
I'd prefer to reverse telecine and work in 23.98, but don't relish the thought of re-syncing sound that has already been synced. There's roughly 10 hours of footage.
Thanks.

I'm curious how you solved this problem - I'm assuming you did figure it out as time stands still for no Editor : - )Please share?
Thanks much.

Film to video transfer question

Hi all,
I'm currently recieving my first 16mm film project in video but the footage are 4:3 with letter box not 16:9 as I expected. I talked to the coordinator & he said that it can't be in anamorphic since they didn't shoot it with the anamorphic lens. Is this true? I thought all film footages are originally 1.85:1 (anamorphic), right?
thankx,
JP
QuadG5, Kona LHe, Medea1TGB. Mac OS X (10.4.5)

you are confusing a few things, and there is no reason why you cannot still get a 16:9 image or letterboxed image from your footage.
first it is common to shoot 16mm film and still achieve a letterbox look, but you must frame the action inside the 16mm frame for the necassary cropping of the 16mm image that will result. For example, many idependents shoot 16mm for 35mm blowup or shoot 16mm and telecine to HD for wide screen effect, but you must frame it inside the 16mm aspect ratio and be aware there will be some cut off at the top and bottom.
Now, iff you will lose important info in the cut off from 16mm to HD, you can pan & scan during the telecine which is very common.
Not sure how much footage you have to telecine, but you can use your current telecine footage for your offline, and after you have locked picture, take your telecine flex files and EDL back to the telecine post house and re-telecine your EDL to HD. Conform this HD telecine footage at the post house and voila! Your show will be HD & letterboxed.
Technically, 16:9 is not anamorphic in 'film' speak. Anamorphic cinematography only exist in 35mm and as there are no 16mm anamorphic lenses nor projectors. And as described above in film speak anamorphic is the compressing and uncompressing of the image to achieve a wide screen 2.35:1 look that you sometimes see in the movie theaters.
If you want a 16:9 letterbox look, you can just as easily crop your current 16mm telecined footage in Final Cut Pro.

Film workflow advice

Hello,
I need some workflow advice for a feature film and I would really appreciate some input and technical expertise. I am working with telecined footage from 16mm film and I need to perform reverse telecine with Cinematools so that I can edit the footage in Final cut. My end format will be a 35mm blow up from my original 16mm negative, so I need Cinematools to track my footage correctly so that I can later export a cut list for the negative cutter.
My digital footage is SD and is on DV cam tapes. The lab used a telecine speed of 23.98 when they transferred the footage. The lab provided flex files which I used to create a cinema tools database and to batch capture all of the footage.
First, I need to confirm that the footage was captured correctly.
To capture I used the FCP preset: DV NTSC 48 kHz (29.97 fps DV-NTSC Best Quality 720x480)
I did not use the FCP capture preset "DV NTSC 48 kHz Advanced (2:3:3:2) Pulldown Removal" because my understanding is that this preset is designed to remove pulldown during capture when used with external hardware designed to remove pulldown during capture, correct? In this case I will be removing the pulldown with Cinema Tools instead.
I also am assuming that setting the capture fps to 23.98 would have been wrong because my footage is coming from DV Cam tapes, which can only be 29.97, right? So even though the telecine speed was 23.98, the footage needs to be captured at 29.97 and then processed with Cinematools to make it 23.98 or 24 fps, correct?
Second, I need to know if my goal should be to make my footage 23.98 or 24 fps with Cinematools. If my end goal is to export an EDL for a negative cutter to go back to my 16mm footage to cut from, should I edit at 24 fps? I think the answer is yes, but then I am worried that my telecine was done at a speed of 23.98. My audio was recorded at 30 fps - though my understanding is that the fps of the audio doesn't matter since audio is recorded in time and not frames. However, I did read in the Cinematools manual that if the footage is 23.98 as opposed to 24 fps, then it means that my footage is going to playback at a slightly slower rate, thereby affecting audio sync. If that is true, will I have to slow my audio slightly to maintain sync? This doesn't seem ideal.
Third, I am having trouble when I do a reverse telecine test with Cinematools on my footage. I am looking at burned-in key code and film frame numbers in my footage and observing that when I advance through my footage frame by frame in FCP, the film frame numbers of every frame are perfectly clear and legible (they advance thus: A2, B2, C1, D1, D3). However, when I view a clip in Cinematools (pre-reverse telecine), the frame numbers are blurred and have interframe flicker (the interlacing field pattern). The same is true after I perform reverse telecine on the clip. The cinemtools manual mentions this as something to be avoided in a clip that has been reverse telecined (in "Checking you Reverse Telecine Results on page 132) - however I see this problem in clips that I have not yet reverse telecined.
I am worried because another person worked with this footage before me and I fear that they performed reverse telecine on the footage already (and incorrectly) and directed Cinematools to overwrite the original file instead of creating a new one. If this is true then I would have to start over and recapture everything. On the other hand, it seems like if that were the case I would see the problem in FCP as well. Is there a way that I can tell for sure?
Thank you so much in advance for any advice you can give me! I really appreciate it.

Thanks Jim. The project is sort of like an "extended music video".
So it is a record, 45 minutes long and then using that as a guide,
we shot the footage. Its not gonna be just lipsyncing all the time, but
there will be other things inserted there as well.
It is just the workflow that bothers me and mainly:
1 Should I convert HDV material after capturing with prores 422 or stay in native
2 When should I convert from PAL to NTSC?
3 Should I s t a r t, by importing the 5.1 surround mixes to FCP6 and then work
with that as a guide?
I´ve done some music videos before, but this is more like a music movie and
will be sold as a sales DVD.
I would appreciate any help you guys can give.
Thank you, timo

24p assets confused

I'm confused and the documentation doesn't help much.
Source clip is 1080/24p *.mov in AIC.
Now I want to create a HD DVD where the original 24p clip is preserved. I understand DVD has to be tagged as either PAL or NTSC so the player knows whether to telecine the original 24p to NTSC or speed it up to PAL when the player outputs the interlaced signal. (this requirement is kind of old as most new players and HD TV can handle the original 24p).
In HD-DVD/PAL or NTSC project no problem, the clip shows up as 23.98 fps in asset window, and 25fps or 29.97fps respectively in asset inspector.
Per documentation, 24 fps QuickTime assets will be re-encoded and will not longer be 24p when you build the project.
Question 1. How is it done? Will the original 24p be preserved, in case of PAL just simply labeled now as 25p (i.e. clip playback sped up 4%) or will they attempt to preserve clip duration by manufacturing some extra frames?
In case of NTSC will there simply be a flag telling the player this is 24p material so telecine in on the fly, or will they write telecined footage to the disk.
Documentation suggests that in order to preserve 24p material, one should import 24p assets in MPEG-2 (that would indicate that the answer to the first question is, no we do preserve the original 24p media).
Well I transcoded the original QT clip in Compressor to 24fps/MPEG-2 asset, and it shows as such in QT inspector. (there is no Compressor option to select either NTSC or PAL flagging in the output contrary to what DVD Studio documentation implies).
Well that clip can be imported into NTSC project but not PAL (presumably because it is quietly labeled as NTS). What I don't understand now is:
Q2: why this clip is labeled now as 29.97 fps in both assets and asset inspector window? That would imply that the original 24p will not be preserved and DVD studio will write the actual 29.97fts stream to the disk. Correct?
-------

If you give DVDSP a 24p QuickTime movie (an .mov file), your second guess is correct: DVDSP's internal encoder adds 3:2 pulldown into the resulting file to create a telecined, 29.97 MPEG-2 video stream.
If you provide DVDSP with a Compressor-encoded 24p MPEG-2 file (an .m2v file) DVDSP sees that as a 29.97 non-drop frame stream because DVD-Video (for NTSC) must be playable as 29.97, so, yes, Compressor simply adds flags that tell the DVD player where to add 3:2 pulldown during playback. DVDSP, like a DVD player, reads those flags upon import but the video stream - as you've determined by playing it in QT - is still 23.98 fps.
This is extremely confusing, I admit, because the manual adds to the confusion - it's flat out wrong, if memory serves - but trust me, if you're looking to maintain 24p playback, using Compressor-encoded assets is the way to go.

Film to video

Hi all,
I'd posted this question before but not yet got an answer.
1-I got a telecine footages which shot in 16mm sent back from the lab house that has letterboxed to preserve the 16:9 look, but I can't flag it as anorphic in fcp. It will be distorted because it treated that image as 4:3. So how can I preserve 16:9 look?
2- since it's shot in film & transfer into 25fps PAL, can I edit everything in PAL &do a pull down on the final sequence instead of the raw footage, 'cause it will take less time?
thank you,
JP

This is because it is NOT anamorphic. It is letterboxed. Anamorphic is defined as a distorted projection or drawing that appears normal when viewed from a particular point or with a suitable mirror or lens.
If you wish to treat the material as anamorphic, cut it into an anamorphic timeline, then stretch it vertically until it fits (make sure you have wireframe visible, press a, hold down the shift key and grab the corner of your frame and pull it down til it looks right. Probably aspect ratio of 1.2
When you say "do a pulldown" do you mean remove the pulldown or add it?
Patrick

Hvx200 1080i 24p Footage not Properly Reverse Telecining

So I've got a bunch of footage that we shot using the 1080i 24p setting on the hvx200 which yielded 24-in-60 footage, which normally isn't a problem and the other 2 cameras we were shooting (an hv20 and hg10, both in 24p mode) produce the same kind of files. after batching everything out to compressor to remove the telecine, and convert to 1920x1080 prores, i just discovered that all the HVX footage is true 24p, but didn't remove the pulldown correctly, and most every frame is now interlaced.
I'm trying to figure out if it's a compressor issue, a dvchdpro issue, or a computer/install issue. I've had some QT plug-ins that break the reverse telecine function, but considering the hv20 and hg10 footage converted just fine i don't think it's that.
also, after trying to convert to directly to prores and run through cinema tools to do a manual RT, i don't get the option to RT. and lastly using JES Deinterlacer when i set it up and submit i get a "cadence not found" error. it's also is reading the file as progressive when i first put it in JES.
I've also tried running the RT through final cut directly as some of those old pany cams have RT flags and FCP can handle the RT process internally.
Any thoughts anyone? has anyone ever run 1080i 24p footage through compressor and achieved a true 24p framerate, or do i have an isolated instance here?

so after sleeping on the problem, i took the footage and ran compressed it out to prores422, this time making sure to select a frame rate of 29.97 AND checking the "interlaced" button on the codec page. after batching the footage to make it true 60i, i then ran it through compressor again to remove the pulldown, and everything worked as it should. I think the problem arose from the footage reporting itself as DVCHD PRO 30P instead of 60i, and compressor wasn't seeing any fields and therefor not seeing any cadence

25fps footage to put on PAL and NTSC DVDs - Inverse Telecine?

So, I've shot and edited a short item in 25P from my PAL HVX200...
I'd like to create a 'movie feature'-style NTSC DVD. One that has MPEG-2 files with inverse telecine flags to tell the NTSC decoder to repeat the fields to pull up the footage to 29.97fps.
Does that mean I need to scale my footage from 720w by 576h down to 720w by 480h, set the speed to 95.904% to 23.976fps? Can I do this in Compressor? Will Compressor take the audio and speed it up too, but keep the pitch the same?
That will get me a 24P NTSC file. How do I encode this as an MPEG for an NTSC DVD?
If I wanted to create a 'progressive' PAL MPEG for DVD (with the inverse telecine flags), are they encoded as 576 by 720 frames at 23.976fps, or at 24fps?
In the PAL world, a bit in one of the 50 non-broadcast lines is used to tell TVs and DVD players that the content is anamorphic. Is there an equivalent for NTSC? Does Compressor take care of that?
G5 2x2.5GHz Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Hey Alex
a little confused here, but from what i can gather:
you have a movie shot @ 25 fps (PAL)
you want to make a NTSC dvd and a PAL DVD, is this correct from the above source and make sure they are progressive?
well ok the PAL one is easy, just take your source video into compressor and in the frame control tab, make sure that your ouput field is progressive.
the NTSC DVD is a little tougher. do you have FCP?
the only difficulty i do see, like you said was the audio pitch/speed.
i guess you CAN do a conversion in compressor, but how well it looks.. dont know i will run some tests and let you know
Mikey

Reverse telecine but footage too fast

Ola,
Here's my problem:
Captured 24p footage, reverse telecined it to 23.98. looks great, but 30% faster than before. Is there a way to change the speed to the original, either in Cinema Tools or FCP?
A.

I recall reading on here that Cinema Tools does not like reversing any clips larger than 5GBs. Since your 30 minute clip (6GBs DV) went through fine, it may not be the case, however it still could be. 40 minutes is 8GBs and might be too much. I had this same problem and had to perform a work around.
I exported smaller chunks of the big clips via Final Cut Pro as full quality DV movies, brought those into Cinema Tools, reversed them and then brought them back into Final Cut for editing.
That "not enough memory" error has been the bane of my existence and I still haven't figured out what exactly causes it or what the perfect solution is.

How to remove 3:2 pulldown properly from 24p SD 16:9 NTSC footage (After Editing)

Hi,
I'm currently editing a full length feature film and originally imported all the footage directly into final cut making the timeline become a 29.97 timeline, when the pulldown should have been removed before the fact. After much research I know that you can properly remove the 3:2 pulldown from the 24p footage after editing and can be done in compressor. I've tried a number of different compressions and seem to have the dimensions correct which is good. But the 16:9 footage when brought into iDVD or dvd studio pro it seems to want to make the footage 4:3 which is quite confusing and frustrating. I need to be able to get my compression settings correct so that i'm able to put this on a dvd properly. I originally exported the footage from final cut as DV/NTSC and made sure it was 16:9 coming out of final cut. The resolution is 720x480 but comes out as 853x480 as its dimensions and has a squeezed look to the video as it did on its timeline unless the preserve aspect ratio button was unchecked. The only way around getting the squeezed look to go away is to go through compressor and make sure that letterbox is turned off so that its a full screen. Even though its a large file size I compressed using apple pro res to get the best resolution I could, but I need the best results with the lowest file size since the running time is roughly 1:43:00. The footage looks good coming out of compressor, but for some reason even though its full screen 16:9 everytime it is brought into iDVD or dvd studio pro it wants to make it 4:3? what is the reason for this! I recently read an article on this problem and the reverse telecine option within compressor is used to remove the extra frames that final cut adds, and makes the video of better quality relieving the horizontal lines that are caused by the extra frames. I need help on this and I know it can be done because people have proof that it works but I can't seem to reach a solution myself. Thank you to all who reply much appreciated!

What happens when you drop a 4:3 clip - with its anamorphic flag cleared - into the 16:9 sequence ?
I have not been doing exactly this, but I have been going the other way, to produce letterboxed 4:3 footage from 16:9 HDV.
I found, when dropping the clip in, FCP automatically set a scale and distort, to correct for the differnce in aspect ratio - does it do this for you for 4:3 SD on a 16:9 SD timeline ?
Remember, you have to re-open a clip, from the sequence timeline, to see its motion settings in that timeline - I keep forgetting this, drop a clip on, then wonder why nothing I change on the clip happens in the sequence!
Regarding the final output, it all sounds fine, except for the possibility of the 4:3 TV output - the 16:9 footage would be okay letterboxed, but the original 4:3 footage would be better 1:1 - if you had to pillar box the 4:3 in the 16:9 (probably what FCP would do by default) and then letterboxed that when making the 4:3, you'll end up with a box in box, plus interlacing problems from the rescale.
I would consider making a second 4:3 sequence, once you have finished the edit on 16:9, try copying all the 16:9 edits (Cmd-A, Cmd-C) and pasting them into the new 4:3 (Cmd-V) - then its a case of leaving the 16:9 letter boxed, or zooming and panning it for 4:3, and removing the scale / aspect from the 4:3 sequences alltogether, so they play normally.
Messy - isn't it ?
Good luck!
PowerBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.4)

Reverse Telecine affecting identical clips different ways

I haven't a clue on how to begin searching for this.
I recently had a problem trying to get my Sony HZ5U 24p footage to true 24p instead of 30. It was causing big confusion in Color, blending frames together. Even though I placed the footage in a 24p sequence, it would just frames in unnecessary spots. And Reverse Telecine wouldn't work on footage imported by HDV - 720p24.
I was able to import to HDV-Apple ProRes 422 1080p24, Reverse Telecine, and add the clips into a HDV- 720p24 sequence to get the resolution I need...
Except there's a problem.
Something isn't working when I reverse telecine.
The clips I imported were all 2:3, two frames of the same then three others that were individual.
I "reversed" two clips which came out to 1:1 (I guess), no frames are duplicated. But a few of the clips I reversed came out to 2:2! There are two frames of the same then two others that are individual.
I'm not sure what is wrong. I didn't import with a different setting, I didn't change anything in Final Cut, I didn't adjust anything in Cinema Tools. I never filmed in a separate format...
I have a consistent segment I have to make each week for a program, and it's done this for the past three weeks. And on one of the clips (either the one with 1:1 or 2:2) after I send back from Color the audio is shifted off a few frames.
Why would Reverse Telecine give me different results in the same operation of the same format of video??

remove the "/" in your file name. that happened to me too. Renamer4Mac is a great free utility that may help you.

What is the best way to work with AVCHD 720 24p footage in FCE4.1?

Hi I have a Panasonic HMC-150 and I've been shooting 720 24p footage at 21 mbps transfer rate.
I was wondering what is the best way to work with this material in FCE 4.1? I see that in the easy set up menu they only have the option of 1440X1080i at 50 or 60 fps or 1920X1080i at 50 or 60 fps.
Also in the rates drop down menu there is only 50 or 29.97.
So I was wondering which is the best choice for 720 24p footage and will it look alright in any of them? Also is it possible to customize these settings?
And finally can you work with faster transfer rates (21mbps) in FCE?

Yikes, this is going to be tricky since FCE does not support native 24p editing.
The work around for some of us is that AVCHD material that is 24p is often recorded to disc at 60i using telecine, in which case it can be editing at 29.97 frames per second, and then detelecined afterward for final export at 23.98 fps. The problem is that I think your camera actually records real 24p - not 24p packed into 60i. When you import the material from the camera what does QuickTime report the framerate as?

1080i footage to 24P?

Hi All,
Just wondering. I have somne 1080i and also, 1080-24P footage I'd like to put on one HD/BluRay Disc as a 24P (or simply progressive) project. Is it possible to take my 1080i footage, and somehow, make it into Progressive (frame by frame) footage? Or would this simply be a bad idea and be of horrible quality when compared to real (recorded as) 24P source footage?

RedTruck and Hanumang,
Thanks! Honestly, here is why I asked.. I have 2 projects, off YES - the HV20. Hate it or love it - this Cam is awesome for the $1,000 I spent. I do hate the aggravation of the 'not so 24P' aspect of it - BUT, since performing the reverse Telecine in Compressor - I'm REAAALLLY Happy. (that is, on the one reel I have shot - in 24 Cinema mode, not the 1080i reel in question and the subj. of this post) The footage (the 24P footage that was put thru reverse telecine) is pristine. It looks much better then my friend's footage, off his $3500 Sony 3 CCD HD Cam - for whatever the reason..
At any rate, I first shot a 1080i reel. Then switched over to the 24 Cinema Mode Setting, which is still saved to tape as 'interlaced', so I hear. This is why I brought it into FCP as 1080i - sent to Compressor and made it to 24p using reverse Telecine. I set frame rate to 23.976 like the Apple Article Stated to do - on Apple Support website. I then saved the clips and started a NEW Project in FCP - with easy set up for 1080P/Basic Firewire. I placed clips in Timeline and all duplicate frames were gone. I scanned thru, one clear frame at a time, and it was mint. So then, I wanted the original 1080i reel to be part of "same final video" - Hence This Post!
So yea, I can 'play around' with your suggestions.. However, it does seem like the 1080i reel, may be looking degraded from what you've both written! LoL. UGH.
So, My FINAL question?: How about, simply adding any 1080i material to this 1080/24P project as is, leaving it interlaced. Can't FCP do this? Like, I read it can handle any format in same project? But, if I want the final output to be an HD DVD - some footage would be proper, pristine, 24P/24 FPS - and some 1080i. I'm not sure if the DVD would look and play back - with no detrimental side effect? (on a set top layer)

Telecine footage

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