trouble mixing frame rates

I'm cutting in 29.97 DV footage into a 23.98 DVCPRO HD sequence. I have about 20 shots total of 29.97 material. Some of them (but not all!!) play back stuttery. When stepping through the frames, I find that FCP is actually REPEATING, instead of dropping, every 3rd frame of thos 29.97 clips. Obviously it's dropping other frames to make up the difference, but not in any obvious pattern that I can discern. With the 29.97 shots that are playing correctly, it's dropping every 5th frame (I think) and not repeating any frames, so playback looks smooth.

There doesn't seem to be any difference in the specs between the 29.97 clips that are working and the ones that aren't working. I've tried re-insterting the "bad" shots over an over again from the master clip, and from new master clips I created from the media. I've tried copying and pasting all attributes from the good shots to the bad shots. Nothing seems to work. Suggestions?

Well, for one, you should convert your footage to 23.98 before you edit. Bring it into compressor and drag a 24p DvcproHD setting and turn on frame controls and set resizing and retiming to "best".



www.strypesinpost.com

In the past I've never had a problem cutting 29.97 footage into a 23.98 sequence. This is for offline edit only, so I'm only concerned about playback. And as I said, the problem isn't with all 29.97 shots, just with some. About 15 of my 20 shots. So clearly FCP can play back 29.97 footage fine in a 23.98 sequence. It just won't with those 15 shots for some reason.

Well, you probably have to pay more for online editing if you don't pay attention to your workflow early...

FCP doesn't mix frame rates very well. It will drop frames as and when it likes to keep the duration the same as your original clip.



www.strypesinpost.com