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DanRourke
Participating Frequently
April 18, 2016
Answered

Delivering in 29.97, working with 23.976 footage

  • April 18, 2016
  • 6 replies
  • 34758 views

Hi.  I have seen countless posts on forums and on Google regarding mixing framerates in Premiere Pro which is really handy, but no one seems to have the same scenario that I have - or at least I have not found it.  I have to deliver a series to a broadcaster and it is being shot in 23.976.  I need to deliver in 29.97.  At first I was going to cut in 23.976 and do the math so that my commercial breaks and overall length will be correct once converted to 29.97 in the online phase.  But I noticed that if you cut 23.976 footage in a 29.97 timeline, it seems to convert the footage correctly, adding pulldown.  I took 00:07:29:00 of a short promo that I did in 23.976 from one sequence and copied into a new 29.97 sequence.  The duration changed to 00:07:29:14, telling my that the pulldown was added.

Is this the correct way of working with 23.976 footage to deliver in 29.97 for broadcast?

I am using Premiere Pro CC 2015.

Dan

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer jvknowles

    Hi Dan, I can relate our experience with the same situation and you can take from it what you will:

    We shoot 23.976 for a show that broadcasts 29.97i. We cut in 29.97 from start to finish. That decision came from our Post Supervisor, and as she had the experience & wisdom from delivering many shows I put total faith in that decision. It also applied to our post sound and color grading -- we wanted everyone to be on the same page going through post. Visually it's the same, so I see no benefit in cutting at the native framerate especially when it might mess up your running time calculations.

    Premiere Pro will apply the correct pulldown when you drop 23.976 footage into a 29.97 sequence, there's no problem there. It will tax your machine a bit more than native playback, but on our machines (new iMacs, Mac Pros, Macbook Pros) with Thunderbolt RAIDs there are no hiccups or dropped frames. The ONLY issue is if you have to deliver 29.97 INTERLACED (not progressive), which you probably do. You have to have your sequence set to interlaced (Upper Field) BEFORE you export your final. If you cut progressive and switch to interlacing only in the output then it will not have the correct cadence. We went through this with the network and had an episode kicked back by QC because of this.

    HTH,

    JVK

    6 replies

    Warren Heaton
    Community Expert
    Warren HeatonCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    September 12, 2017

    Hmmm... if you simply drop p23.976 footage into an i29.97 Sequence, you're not getting true 3-2 pulldown.

    You'd want to use After Effects to conform p23.976 to i29.97 so that you can control the Field Rendering Order and the 3:2 Pulldown Cadence.  This can be done to source footage or to an edited master.  For episodic television, applying it to source footage could be effective.  For theatrical, you'd likely do it to the edited master when ready to create the home video version.

      J
      Jerry MacKay
      Participating Frequently
      April 21, 2017

      I'm having a huge problem getting a commercial to play properly on Spectrum (formerly Time Warner). I had created an HD spot in After Effects at 23.976 (we shot the footage that way). I rendered it at 23.976, then brought it into Premiere. In Premiere, I put that into a 29.97 timeline, where it appeared to add pulldown correctly. I then exported with Media Encoder into an interlaced format, upper field first. The file looked bad on my progressive computer monitor, which is what i expected, but it looked fine when played to my broadcast monitor.

      I submitted the spot to Time Warner, and the spot played back poorly. It looked as if it thought it was progressive...it looked just like it did on my progressive computer monitor.

      Am I leaving a checkbox unchecked somewhere?

      J
      Jerry MacKay
      Participating Frequently
      April 21, 2017

      I should add that I just did a test in After Effects, where I import the 23.976 spot I created, and convert it in After Effects to 29.97 with pulldown added. When I bring that into Premiere and export it with Media Encoder, the final file looks exactly the same as the original one I made. So I don't know what else I can do to make it work with Spectrum.

      D
      DPowers
      Participating Frequently
      February 22, 2017

      There are several incorrect answers here. Putting 23.98 footage on a 29.97 WILL make the footage 29.97 but it does so by replicating frames and it is the incorrect post production procedure and will result in stuttered motion on pans and tilts. For proper motion, it is imperative that your sequence frame rate match your source footage frame rate.

      IF you need a different frame rate on output such as 29.97 then you set your encoder to handle it with your preferred method of frame rate matching. For HD broadcast you take a 23.98 progressive sequence, send that sequence to media encoder, set the frame rate to 29.97 and the field order to upper first. Then a proper 3:2 (3 Progressive: 2 interlaced frames) telecine cadence will be introduced for proper broadcast. 

        J
        jvknowles
        Inspiring
        September 12, 2017

        Are you saying this from a purely post perspective or specifically Premiere? Because this was NOT our experience, at least on CC 2014. I don't know if the issue has been solved since then but trust me when I say that your workflow would have resulted in a 4:1 pulldown in the final output instead of the the proper 3:2. We tried it several times, both through Media Encoder and straight from Premiere, but every output had the wrong cadence. The network kicked it back after it flunked QC and we switched over to editing at 29.97i instead of 23.98. We had no choice.

        chrisw44157881
        chrisw44157881
        Inspiring
        September 12, 2017

        i hope this whole thread realizes that if you go back and edit 29.97 pulldown, you will create broken cadences all over the place. you have to reverse pulldown, place in 23.976 comp before doing any editing. this is an old, old problem that many people still think is a good idea.

        J
        jvknowlesCorrect answer
        Inspiring
        April 20, 2016

        Hi Dan, I can relate our experience with the same situation and you can take from it what you will:

        We shoot 23.976 for a show that broadcasts 29.97i. We cut in 29.97 from start to finish. That decision came from our Post Supervisor, and as she had the experience & wisdom from delivering many shows I put total faith in that decision. It also applied to our post sound and color grading -- we wanted everyone to be on the same page going through post. Visually it's the same, so I see no benefit in cutting at the native framerate especially when it might mess up your running time calculations.

        Premiere Pro will apply the correct pulldown when you drop 23.976 footage into a 29.97 sequence, there's no problem there. It will tax your machine a bit more than native playback, but on our machines (new iMacs, Mac Pros, Macbook Pros) with Thunderbolt RAIDs there are no hiccups or dropped frames. The ONLY issue is if you have to deliver 29.97 INTERLACED (not progressive), which you probably do. You have to have your sequence set to interlaced (Upper Field) BEFORE you export your final. If you cut progressive and switch to interlacing only in the output then it will not have the correct cadence. We went through this with the network and had an episode kicked back by QC because of this.

        HTH,

        JVK

          D
          DanRourkeAuthor
          Participating Frequently
          April 20, 2016

          AHA!  Awesome!  Thanks, so much for your answer, JVK.  I had hoped to grab the attention of someone with the same scenario.  We are running new Mac Pros here too, so hopefully we will have the same experience you did.  Thanks too for the tip on interlacing.  I plan to set the sequence on UPPER from the start of our edits.

          Dan

            E
            excited_Genie16B8
            Legend
            April 19, 2016

            I've never had to do this, but I think my preference would be to edit in a sequence matching my delivery, rather than my footage.

            If nothing else, that would allow me to see any missteps in conversion without waiting for an export.

              D
              DanRourkeAuthor
              Participating Frequently
              April 19, 2016

              Thanks, Jim.  It is my preference as well.  I just wonder about the reliability of the conversion being done correctly.  It seems to be a little too easy to just cut 23.976 in a 29.97 timeline and have it work.  I have edited with Final Cut and Avid as well and you can't just do that.  But if Premiere figured out how to make that work, then Yay Adobe!

              R Neil Haugen
              R Neil Haugen
              Legend
              April 19, 2016

              I'll be at their booth in a bit here at NAB ... I'll run it by one of the folks there.

              Neil

              Everyone's mileage always varies ...
              R Neil Haugen
              R Neil Haugen
              Legend
              April 18, 2016

              Great question ... I've seen this argued both ways, keep it native through all editing and just export to the other f-r, and as you did it, edit on a sequence set for output f-r. One of the things that was noted in one thread I remember, is that when needing to have EXACT timing for commercial breaks & such, editing on a modified f-r timeline allows one to check and remove a frame or three or four to keep timing dead-on. But ... I've not dealt with this personally.

              Maybe shooternz​ or Dave Merchant​ might opine on this ...

              Neil

              Everyone's mileage always varies ...
              shooternz
              shooternz
              Legend
              April 18, 2016

              Sorry...not me.  I am in PAL Land ( thankfully)

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