capturing dv 24

I'm cutting a short film that was shot on dv 24. The material was captured on a system by the producer's office and then given to me. I wasn't told until recently that the material was 24fps, so my sequences are at 30 (29.97). I started stepping through my dailies frame by frame and it seems as though every 5th frame is repeated, which would seem to me to mean that the material was not captured correctly - i.e. 24 fps captured at 30, thus forcing the dupicate frame. (this is my first FCP project; I've been working on Avid for many years, so the liklihood that I'm confused is very high!). How does FCP work during capturing - does dv24 have to be transferred to a 30-frame format adding 3/2 pulldowon, then digitized (sorry, captured) into FCP removing the 3/2 (this is how it works on Avid, unless you're on an Adrenaline), or can FCP capture the 24fps directly? It looks to me like the only options during capture are either for material w/ 3/2 pulldown or material that is running at 30fps, which is why I assumed my material was captured incorrectly

DV formats

DV25 (miniDV/DVCAM/DVCPro)
DV50 (DVCPro 50)
DV100 (DVCPro HD)

People need to learn what things are called before they start confusing other people.

There are Video Cameras that shoot at 24fps (23.98) and there are different pull down cadences they create as they are recorded to tape at 29.97. Example Panasonic DVX 100a - 24p and 24pa

Just to be VERY CLEAR, 24p and 24pa are recorded to tape AT 29.97 with the pull down added (on DVX 100 series for example).

FCPHD can be set to remove the added frame/fields on capture so you have a 24fps (23.98) material for a timeline at that framerate or Cinema Tools can do this.

Whether you capture removing the frames or not depends on what workflow you chose and why. If you're going back to NTSC video, you'll likely be going out to tape at 29.97. If you're going to DVD you MIGHT want to be at 24fps. If you're going to film you'll want to end up with 24fps BUT 24p vs 24pa may mean different workflows.

Others can jump in and add more details. You should post what your target output is for others to help though.

My own opinion on jobs like this. I ask client for camera masters and transfer the material myself (and charge accordingly). I don't want clients digging me into holes. I'd ask if they knew if 24p or 24pa was used during the shoot. Let's hope they didn't mix the two. You can check cadence by jogging through the material but it isn't fun and there's human error risk.

Thanks so much for your help. A couple more questions (I'm trying to equate what I know in the film/Avid world w/ FCP):

1. If you're capturing material and want to remove 3/2 pulldown, is there an A frame to start on when working with these tape formats, so the program knows which fields to pull out? I didn't see anything about this in the capture tool or logging database, and the manuals don't address this at all.

2. If material were captured at 29.97, this should mean that I have two fields for every frame - is this something I can see in the FCP environment by stepping through orig. material and/or sequences frame by frame? Or would the two-field resolution only be visible playing back on an NTSC monitor? I'm trying to figure out if what I have is screwed up.

2.
with an image in either the viewer of the canvas, press and hold down the H key.
this blows the viewer or canvas up to 100%
and that's how you can best see fields in FCP.
you see them as a progresive image, with the fields "combed" together.

much better is to use an NTSC Monitor, to get that tell-tale flickering.

cheers,
nick