I just got a Panasonic GH2 which can shoot in 1080p24 and I edit with FCE. What I have figured out is that if you just use a 29.97fps timeline, it plays the 24fps video fine. Then when you export the project at the end, just export back to 24fps and it should line back up with the original 24fps of the video you shot and not skip or duplicate any frames.
The one thing that might be a problem is that when you tell FCE to export at 24fps, it actually does what I think is a pull-down and exports at 23.98 fps. This may mean that once in a great while there is a dropped frame. If you do the same thing but use a 25fps timeline in FCE the actual exported rate is 24.04 I think. This is worse as there will be duplicate frames twice as often.
If you are concerned about the dropped frames with using the 29.97fps timeline in FCE, export to a lossless (or near lossless) format at 29.97fps (ie by not using "Quicktime Conversion"), then post process the result in JES De-interlacer (free), using "standards conversion" to convert the video from 29.97 to 24fps (use telecine mode, not blend). This will resample the frame rate to exactly 24fps and you should be good. Link:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~jeschot/home.html
I have noticed some weird jumpy stuff if I slow down a 24p clip in FCE where the camera was panning left and try to fight that by moving the clip right on the canvas (the faster frame rate of the FCE motion keyframe move fighting the slower frame rate of the original video moving in the opposite direction), but I assume that would also happen with 30p or 60i video in that situation if you slowed it down enough - just the 24fps video is making it more obvious at less extreme speed reductions.
Message was edited by: Arvid
