How to get proper 23.976 footage from PF24

Did you shoot in 60i mode or 24p mode in your camera?

If you shot in 60i mode, there's nothing to change and edit in a 29.97 timeline.

If you shot in 24p mode and your camera did an internal 3:2 pulldown (meaning that the camera saw 24 frames per second, converted it to 29.97 and then wrote it to your media card) and you'd like to cut at 24 (or 23.976) rather than 29.97, then remove the pulldown. However, I'm pretty sure that FCP's 3:2 pulldown removal is for 24p source shot on Panasonic camcorders (like the AG-DVX100). I'm not sure what, if any, affect this will have on 24p from another company.

I'm also pretty sure that if you shot in "PF24", then your footage is just 24 frames per second. Doesn't the "F" stand for "frame" to indicate that there are no fields in the resulting file? That is, no 3:2 pulldown would have been performed so there's nothing to remove.

That could also explain why you're getting a miss match between a 23.976 Timeline and PF24 source.



-Warren

Okay, so strike my wondering about having 24 fps footage on the memory card.

Looking back at your original post, it sounds like you're seeing exactly what you should be seeing.

In PF24 mode, your camera is seeing 24 frames per second, but doing an internal 3:2 pulldown conversion from 24 to 60i (a.k.a. 29.97) as it writes the video file to the memory card. As such, all files recorded in this mode would show a frame rate of 29.97 (however, it could be noted as 29.97, 59.94, 30i, or 60i depending on which application you're in). Since your footage that's running at 29.97 has been pulled down from 24 fps, you can remove the 3:2 pulldown (however, this can be referred to as "pull it back up" or "inverse telecine"). Think of "pulldown" as pulling progressive frames down to interlaced fields. And, if your interlaced fields contain pulldown, you can think of "pull up" as pulling interlaced fields with 3:2 pulldown up to progressive frames. While this might sound like the craziest thing on earth, it's served the film industry well for decades ever since the introduction of video.

Simply put, your camera original clips should show a frame rate of 29.97.

If you remove the 3:2 pulldown, your converted files should show 23.98 (23.976 rounded up).

As far as the message from Final Cut Pro about the source clip not matching the Sequence settings, the easiest way to modify your Sequence settings is to click "Yes" when this dialog box appears. Most likely, you're just dealing with a frame rate difference in this case (i.e. your footage is running at 23.98 while your Sequence is running at 29.97).

If you're going to remove the 3:2 pulldown, you need to do it before you start editing. An edited 60i master based on 60i 3:2 pulldown source will not pull up cleanly due to the the mixed cadence that's inherently a result of having been editing this type of video (phew, say that five times fast). Cadence refers to the 3:2 pulldown pattern that was used. It's consistent from the head to tail of any clip that was recorded continuously. If you create an edit, then you shift that cadence pattern temporally.



-Warren