What's the workFlow in this situation?

[Stuart P.]

Jim,

That was my understanding, that the quicktime picture got its positional infomation from PT's sample rate clock. So, when you digitize video that will go back to film speed during layback to mag or HD (telecine process = 3:2 pulled down video speed), then you needed to conform that picture to 30fps or risk pulling video speed down a second time in PT.

Because if the video you're working with is already slower than the film speed, by nature of being video in the first place, then engaging a pulldown in PT would result in two pull downs. I guess this is right... Gotta be careful with guide tracks, too, because you want them at film speed as well, if you're working w/ pulldown. Made that mistake once.

It sure is weird that digi wouldn't be clearer on this, though. Part of the problem is that there is no modern utility to conform quicktime movies in a way that makes sense (no three hour exports from QT Pro). I still have to use Premiere 4.2 to do it. Let's hope we get some anwers from digi on this cause' now I'm a bit nervous.
S.

[Stuart P.]

digi?

[charles maynes]

that digi document is not really representing it self well-

Or most people here in Hollywood are making it work somehow-

I regularly work with 30fps pulldown movies with no sync problems.

I use 5.1.3.

charles maynes

[DigiTechSupt]

Let me see if I can shed some light...

In Pro Tools 5.0 and 5.0.1, there was an issue where engaging pull down would slow the video as well as the audio. This is not desirable behavior for most as it results in a double pull down of the video.

In Pro Tools 5.1 - 5.1.3 the above issue was fixed, but another was introduced. Here, in a 29.97 session with 29.97 QT video, audio is out of sync during playback ONLY when pull down is engaged. When stopped, you can click anywhere in the timeline and see that audio and video are in sync, but the moment playback is engaged it jumps out. What's actually happening is that the QT is jumping ahead by a few frames. The further into the session you get, the bigger the drift. Remember that for pull down to actually take effect, you must have a USD, SYNC I/O, or other capable peripheral connected as clock master.

Regarding conforming a 29.97 movie to 30, I have heard that this works with older versions of Premiere, but not in current versions?

This was all resolved with Pro Tools 5.3 for HD, and will be fixed for Mix systems (and HD) with Pro Tools 6.0.

-Jordan

[F.J.]

Interesting topic!
So at present I am working on a film project that that we received 3/4 work tapes and an OMF for the dialogue. I exported the OMF to Pt's with DT and then checked the pull down button in protools and everything syncs. However, we captured the video in Virtual VTR at 29.97 and now when I import the QT movie into a protools 5.0.1 session it drifts. So I guess my QT is being pulled down. If I capture the video at 30fps and then import it into the session will this solve the problem?

[Stuart P.]

Wait, this is really weird. I know of a bunch of big post houses (Soundstorm for one) using pull downs every day, with 5.1 and above. I myself import tracks from dialog editors with PT 4 systems all the time (and their stuff lines up). Sync is not off by a few frames. It's working. This is going by the supposedly old guidelines of using 30 fps picture with a session running at 29.97 w/pulldown. If you say it doesn't work, why the heck is it working? The DA88's and PCM-800's are locking for long periods, and all seems to be well. I just don't understand, digi. If my laybacks were all f****d up, then I would have heard from the clients by now. I'm just sure other people are using 5.1 and later for film and haven't run into this problem.
G4 450 dual
USD
Horita BSG-50
Fuse
5.1.3cs3
IDE & firewire

& I just finished a mix tonight with all the things that you indicated would not work. Am I insane? I'm starting to think that there's something being overlooked.

S.
[img]images/icons/rolleyes.gif[/img]

[F.J.]

Stuart if it's working, dont be too alarmed [img]images/icons/shocked.gif[/img] A few years ago when the B&W G3 first came out,I was using it with post conform for 1 year on a TV series, while all the time Digi was saying it wouldn't work. [img]images/icons/rolleyes.gif[/img] I guess in their efforts to get products approved, they cant cover all the ways people work