mts to fcp

Hi,
I'm a newbie and have been struggling with this for a few days, so I would really appreciate some advice.

My question is this:
I have shot footage in 24p with a prosumer camcorder and it gave me MTS files.
I am converting to ProresLT and for some reason, it's showing up at 29.97. Will I lose the "film" look I have gone after since I shot in 24p? How about when I do slow motion in FCP? Will that look worse in 29.97?

Here is the full story:

The MTS files are on my PC. The directory from the camera no longer directory exists, so I cant bring them into FCP directly.

I edit in FCP6 on an IMAC (MAC OSX 10.5.8), so MTS files have to be converted to something that will work in FCP and moved over to MAC from the PC.

Please note I have no budget so need to do this without buying additional software. i need to do it using free software only. I am also limited in not having an external harddrive to transfer from PC to MAC, but I have workarounds for all those issues.

The best way I have found to do this is using FREE MTS CONVERTER to convert to proresLT which I thought would be a good format to work from. ( I can change it if necessary).

The files end up being huge in ProresLT, over 5gb each.

So now I use FREE VIDEO CUTTER to cut the files small enough (under 5 gb) that I can move them to the MAC with a USB drive or DVDs.

So again, My question is this:
I have shot footage in 24p with a prosumer camcorder and it gave me MTS files.
I am converting to ProresLT and for some reason, it's showing up at 29.97. Will I lose the "film" look I have gone after since I shot in 24p? How about when I do slow motion in FCP? Will that look worse in 29.97?

Any better ideas given my limitations...?

thanks so much,
Michael

Many consumer video camcorders claim to shoot "24p", but in reality they are shooting 29.97fps, often with a 24p "simulator" added in. I have a Canon HF S10 that does exactly that. In those cases, you shoot 29.97fps, straight, no in-camera simulation. 24p simulation is always better in post-production and gives more control.

> The files end up being huge in ProresLT, over 5gb each.

That's not that big at all. Especially if you shoot the way many people shoot in tapeless, letting the takes run long.
Why did you put the files on the PC in the first place? The file sizes would not have been a problem at all if you had remained in the Mac world. Some PC drive formats can handle files above 4GB, but those are usually not compatible with Macs without special software.

> Please note I have no budget so need to do this without buying additional software. i need to do it using free software only.

You can get ClipWrap (Divergent Media) for $50 and Voltaic (Shedworx) for $99. The video converters you're mentioning above sound like those iffy spam-advertised Chinese applications that none of us would trust.


www.derekmok.com

thanks Derek, its a Canon Vixia HF G20

I already shot in 24p.

I put the files on the PC because I couldnt figure out how to get the files onto MAC. I figured it out now but its too late. The camera was rented.

FREE MTS CONVERTER and FREE VIDEO CUTTER actually both do the job, and I cant afford to spend more on clipwrap (even $50 at this point) but what do you suggest regarding my question?

"I am converting to ProresLT and for some reason, it's showing up at 29.97. Will I lose the "film" look I have gone after since I shot in 24p? How about when I do slow motion in FCP? Will that look worse in 29.97?"

thanks

Michael: Examine your 29.97 thing to see what you've got, and then change it to 24p.

It is probably 59.94i. Choose some action, set the FCP canvas to 100%, and step through the thing frame-by-frame. Do you see one frame two times, the next frame three times, etc.? Do you sometimes see one frame interlaced into another? What do you see?

Whatever your thing is, if you have Compressor as well as FCP6, you can probably change it to proper 24p.

Dennis Couzin
Berlin, Germany

Dennis,
It appears that every 4th and 5th frame are duplicates. In other words,
frames 1,2,3,4 are fine, 5 is a duplicate of 4.
Frames 6,7,8,9 are fine, 10 is a dupe of 9
frames 11,12,13,14 fine, 15 is a dupe of 14
etc.

what does that tell you?
thanks

If your 24p footage has really become that, throughout, then it can be fixed. You need to examine one more detail. Study it for more than 200 frames. Are there no additional doublings? Does it keep to the pattern? What you describe is a crude conversion from 24 fps to 30 fps. The similar conversion to 29.97 fps would be slightly different, requiring 200 frames to show this, and the fix would be slightly different. Essentially, the fix is to set duration to 0.8 with "nearest frame" in Compressor and then conform to 24 fps. (If you have FCS, not just FCP, then you have Compressor.)

But it sounds like your footage might be 24p after all, and just sitting in an incorrectly set up FCP sequence. 24p footage dropped into a 30 fps FCP sequence will look like your description -- that being FCP's crude way of converting 24 fps to 30 fps. Try conforming your footage to 24 fps using Cinema Tools. (If you have FCS, not just FCP, then you have Cinema Tools.) Then drop your footage into a 24p sequence. Check an action, frame-by-frame. What does it look like?

Dennis Couzin
Berlin, Germany