From 24pa DV source material to 25fps pal?

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Level 1

15 points

From 24pa DV source material to 25fps pal?

Hello,

I am submitting a new feature film I edited in FCPX to a film festival that is VERY specific on their requirements for uploading the film for consideration (copy from their email below):

For the upload the file must comply with the following specifications:
VIDEO
Codec: avc1 H.264
Frame Size: 1280px X 720px
Bitrate: 821kbps
Frame Rate: 25
AUDIO
Codec: mp4a: MPEG-4 AAC LC
Bitrate: 128kbps
Channels: 2 (stereo)
Sample Rate: 48KHz

I shot the film on a Panasonic DVX100a. Using 24p Advanced Pulldown. So my questions here is: how do I accurately go from 24pa DV material to pal?

I have exported as a single ProRes 444 QuickTime file (23.976 fps) and was expecting to just go into the latest Compressor, setup these requirements, convert, upload and be finished. Unfortunately, not that easy. And the festival is being very strict on their requirements. My biggest problem is going to 25 fps from 23.976.

When I just do a custom export in Compressor and select 25 frames the result is a jittery video on playback.

Is there any way to smooth this out better using Final Cut Pro X and/or Compressor?

THANK YOU!

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.7), Final Cut Pro X

Posted on Jun 20, 2012 5:01 AM

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Answer 1

Russ H

Level 7

22,432 points

Jun 20, 2012 7:56 AM in response to LDPMovies

Did you use the speed controls in Frame Controls? Although I'm not in a position to test this, I assume that speeding up by 4% (the 23.98@25ps selection) in Retimeing Controls should work for 24pa. And you've played the exported Pro Res file in QT Player and it plays correctly…correct?

Russ

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Answer 2

LDPMovies Author

Level 1

15 points

Jun 20, 2012 10:01 AM in response to Russ H

Hello Russ,

This is a film I have exported from FCPX many times to convert for DVD, Streaming, etc (all at 24p of course). So yes, the ProRes file plays fine itself. It's the conversion to 25 frames that I am worried about getting to "look right". So are you suggesting to retime in Final Cut or in Compressor?

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Answer 3

Russ H

Level 7

22,432 points

Jun 20, 2012 10:07 AM in response to LDPMovies

I'm talking about Compressor, using Frame Controls' Retiming Settings.

Russ

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Answer 4

LDPMovies Author

Level 1

15 points

Jun 20, 2012 12:16 PM in response to Russ H

I haven't gotten back to my office yet today but I am a little concerned how this works with the audio. Will the audio still sync if I am speeding up the video? in theory I don't know how it could.

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Answer 5

Russ H

Level 7

22,432 points

Jun 20, 2012 12:27 PM in response to LDPMovies

The pitch changes; usually acceptable, but try and find out.

Russ

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Answer 6

Russ H

Level 7

22,432 points

Jun 20, 2012 12:35 PM in response to LDPMovies

One other thing related to audio that I should have mentioned in the first post: in the Encoder pane, make sure that Audio is set to enabled and not set to pass-through.

Russ

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Answer 7

LDPMovies Author

Level 1

15 points

Jun 20, 2012 9:45 PM in response to Russ H

Russ,

The motion is a LOT better now after your setting suggestions here. The audio is synched well at the beginning of the exported file (it's 1 hr 43 min film runtime) but then as I get further along in the playback it gets more and more out of synch. Any ideas? I "enabled" the Audio under the Encoder settings.

This is the summary of the output settings in Compressor:

File Extension: mov

Estimated size: 609.95 MB

Time remapping:output duration 95.903999%

Audio Encoder

AAC, Stereo (L R), 48.000 kHz

Video Encoder

Width and Height: Up to 1280 x 720

Selected: 852 x 480

Pixel aspect ratio: Square

Crop: None

Padding: None

Frame rate: 25

Frame Controls On:

Retiming: (Fast) Nearest Frame

Resize Filter: Linear Filter

Deinterlace Filter: Fast (Line Averaging)

Adaptive Details: On

Antialias: 0

Detail Level: 0

Field Output: Same as Source

Codec Type: H.264

Multi-pass: On, frame reorder: On

Pixel depth: 24

Spatial quality: 75

Min. Spatial quality: 25

Temporal quality: 50

Min. temporal quality: 25

Average data rate: 0.82 (Mbps)*

*Unfortunately as well Compressor reporting of the Data/Bitrate here is way off. At least according to QuickTIme playback. Which says the file's datarate is 952.48 kbps. Man, I just wish this stuff would work as it's set. This festival is real strict too. I asked if it's OK if the data rate is a little off and they said the specifications cannot be changed.

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Answer 8

LDPMovies Author

Level 1

15 points

Jun 20, 2012 10:08 PM in response to LDPMovies

My next test I'm going to try all settings I pasted above, but with one change

Remapping output duration 95.903999% but leave the Frame rate at 100% source/23.976 (instead of making this 25 as well).

Don't know. grasping at straws here. Tomorrow is my deadline. Ugh.

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Answer 9

Russ H

Level 7

22,432 points

Jun 21, 2012 5:58 AM in response to LDPMovies

Since no one else has chimed in on this forum, try posting this in either Apple Final Cut Studio Discussions here or on the Creative Cow Final Cut Forum.

Couple of comments:

Enabling is a correct setting. I'm not surprised that the bit rate was off from the estimate (always a rough estimate), but am puzzled by the drift.

One thing I noticed is you have a .mov file whereas I believe they want an MP4. Try starting with the http Live Streaming high broadband preset and type in the specified bit rate.

Russ

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