Looking for best way to edit 29.97 and 25 fps footage together.

[Arginsky]

Hi everyone.

I've looked on the boards, but haven't found exactly what I'm looking for.. any help is appreciated.

I'm starting a job shot in Argentina, and they shot both 25fps and 29.97fps.  I believe they used DSLR cameras.

I think the delivery format is web only, but am awaiting final word.

Questions-

Do I need to convert the footage to one frame rate, or will PPro handle the different rates in the same timeline without the footage looking awkward? 

Can I just have PPro interpret the media as a different frame rate? 

If I need to convert, would you please recommend best software?

Would you recommend converting to 29.97 or 25?

Thanks all. Much appreciated.

Michael

[Guest]

Hey,

When you import your video files into the project manager, and drag the clip onto your sequence timeline, Adobe SHOULD tell you if the sequence settings are not correct for the fps your clips are, and ask you if you want it to be changed, if not, you can always go to Sequence>Sequence Settings, and change the timebase to 29.97 / fps... if you have both 29.7fps and 25fps clips in one time line, i think you can just export it as 29.97 and enable frame blending.

[Biggles Lamb]

HI

this has been asked before and the general thought is that if at all possible do not mix frame rates.

if you must do advise the client that there is a compromise  be agreed in the finished ovie.

That said use a 25fps Sequence and either let PP conform the 29.97 footage, or use AME to export each 29.97 clip to a 25 fps video file and then use these in the project.

going from 25 to 29.97 will produce horrible results.

good luck

[Steven L. Gotz]

I am inclined to say edit 25fps and then the dropped frames of the 29.97 should not look too bad with most footage. You mileage may vary. It really depends on the footage. It could make it look choppy. But maybe better than 25 played at 29.97 using frame blending to make new frames out of thin air.

Create your 25fps sequence from the 25fps footage. Then when you drop the 29.97 on it, it will automatically drop the frames necessary to make it 25fps.

If, however, you are going to write it to DVD, you want to do that in the PAL or NTSC settings you would normally use for wherever it is that you live.

By the way, if you interpret the 29.97 as 25 it will play back slower. Slightly slow motion. If you interpret the 25 as 29.97 it will appear fast.  Once again, it depends on the footage. If you shot objects (like travel stuff), then speed is not a huge deal, but if you shot people or animals it could make a huge difference.

[jstrawn]

If you know what framerate you want for the final exported movie, then you should create a master sequence based on that and just let Pr add or drop frames as needed. Otherwise, just use the lower of the 2. You could use nested sequences (one for each different set of framerate media) if you want an easy way to keep track of what's what, but that will get confusing to edit with if the media is all spread out and not clumped up by framerate. And it doesn't affect the way it adds/drops frames for playback or export anyways. The best thing is to stick with one framerate in production expect when it;s needed specifically for a certain effect. But what's done is done, and the visual impact won't be huge, and it may be fine depending on what the end usage of the video is intended to be.

[Arginsky]

Thank you so much everybody for all the feedback. Very much appreciated!

[GWR1971]

*Definitely* convert the 29.97 to 25fps before you start, and edit the entire project as 25fps. And do the conversion *properly*. Final Cut Studio comes with excellent tools for doing this; Cinema Tools will allow you to reverse telecine the 29.97 to 23.98, and then up to 25fps. That way you will have no dropped or repeated frames or pulldown artefacts.