25 Frame Rate PAL Mixing Question

SaintAudio87 · 14th October 2011

i'm really hoping someone on here can answer my question because i am not to familiar with working with PAL.

I was giving a Quicktime to mix to with a frame rate of 25 (which is PAL format) The problem is the guy needs it to be 24 in the long haul.

He's telling me to mix to the 25 Frame rate, then give him the mix and he will converted his 25 Frame rate Final cut session to 24. For whatever reason hes telling me he can't give me a quicktime now at 24 i've tried to get it.

I'm scared that down the line we are going to run into sync issues. I mean hes starting the project in PAL then coverting it to NTSC with the final mix. Is this going to be a problem?

i'm lost on the subject and scared because this is charity work so if anybody can please help me and help me fast please do!

Takeshi · 15th October 2011

Hi,

First of all, sync is going to be your responsibility in a way, so you should be provided with what you ask for, what you think is necessary to warrant the film's sync. Usually when you as an expert say that if you're not given the tools you need, you can not be responsible for sync, producers find a way to make it happen. Anyway, the scenario's not totally clear for me, but it looks like there are these two chances:

1) they've shot at 25 FPS (PAL video), they're postproducing at 25 FPS, and they'll be projecting at film standard 24 FPS.

2) they've shot at 25 FPS (PAL video), they'll be projecting at 29.97 FPS (NTSC video).

For the first scenario I can think of two ways of dealing with it: you should have a 24 FPS copy. This is not difficult, since you can have a 25 FPS quicktime and then conform it to 24 FPS using Cinema Tools. If that's the case, and later on they're transfer that video to film, you should ask for a telecine of that film in order to confirm everything is exactly the same lenght (many people will tell you it's impossible to have differences, but it's not). You could ask for a 25 FPS telecine and then conform it to 24 FPS as before with the digital cut.
No matter how, at one point or the other you should have a 24 FPS copy. Then, you can time expand all of your production sound to match that speed, or sample rate convert it and then correct the pitch, or even edit the whole thing at 25 FPS and later on time expand your stems or print master to match the final length. [Tools for doing this have been discussed on other topics you can find here at GS]. I'd recommend the first option, since you'll just be expanding production sound, but the rest of the tracks (Music, BGs, Effects, Foley, ADR) would be originally recorded at 24 FPS.

For the second one (PAL video to NTSC video), the first thing you need to know is how they're converting video, because there are different methods and they mess with sync and speed. You could end up having an NTSC copy running at 29.97 FPS, but being the exact same length as your 25 FPS copy, or the opposite way, you'll end up having a 4.1% slower/longer video that you'll have use as a guide to time expand your tracks.

Best,

matt-o- · 15th October 2011

I would ask first hand, which speed they shot the movie. You normally do the postpro in the speed, the material was shot. Delivery framerates are dealt with at a later point. It's never a good idea to change framerates during different stages of the postpro (total chaos promised). Do you only do the mix or the soundediting as well? There are a lot of pitfalls in these matters.

Good luck

apple-q · 15th October 2011

Quote:

Originally Posted by SaintAudio87

i'm really hoping someone on here can answer my question because i am not to familiar with working with PAL.

I was giving a Quicktime to mix to with a frame rate of 25 (which is PAL format) The problem is the guy needs it to be 24 in the long haul.

He's telling me to mix to the 25 Frame rate, then give him the mix and he will converted his 25 Frame rate Final cut session to 24. For whatever reason hes telling me he can't give me a quicktime now at 24 i've tried to get it.

I'm scared that down the line we are going to run into sync issues. I mean hes starting the project in PAL then coverting it to NTSC with the final mix. Is this going to be a problem?

i'm lost on the subject and scared because this is charity work so if anybody can please help me and help me fast please do!

confusing info here.

Why are they converting to ntsc when they want 24fps?
NTSC is 29.97

Ntsc isn't 24fps. Ask what they REALLY want and why they shot at 25 when they want to land on planet NTSC?

Jorge Valtuena · 16th October 2011

It sounds like they what to do two masters from your mix. One for tv and the other for film.
You will not have any sincro problems working at 25fps. Your master is the pal QuickTime and that is what you are going to give them. The problem is going to be for them when they try to convert the 25fps to 24fps in the finalcut. What the program will do is take away a frame per second. You will not notice this in sound, but yes for the image.
They should do the transfer to a post production place that does conversions for tv and film. If not it's going to be a disaster.

Hope this helps.
Jorge

14th October 2011	#1
SaintAudio87 Gear Head Joined: Jul 2009 Posts: 52 Thread Starter	25 Frame Rate PAL Mixing Question i'm really hoping someone on here can answer my question because i am not to familiar with working with PAL. I was giving a Quicktime to mix to with a frame rate of 25 (which is PAL format) The problem is the guy needs it to be 24 in the long haul. He's telling me to mix to the 25 Frame rate, then give him the mix and he will converted his 25 Frame rate Final cut session to 24. For whatever reason hes telling me he can't give me a quicktime now at 24 i've tried to get it. I'm scared that down the line we are going to run into sync issues. I mean hes starting the project in PAL then coverting it to NTSC with the final mix. Is this going to be a problem? i'm lost on the subject and scared because this is charity work so if anybody can please help me and help me fast please do!

15th October 2011	#3
matt-o- Gear Head Joined: Sep 2007 Location: Bonn, Germany Posts: 62	I would ask first hand, which speed they shot the movie. You normally do the postpro in the speed, the material was shot. Delivery framerates are dealt with at a later point. It's never a good idea to change framerates during different stages of the postpro (total chaos promised). Do you only do the mix or the soundediting as well? There are a lot of pitfalls in these matters. Good luck __________________ http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0501611/

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version Email this Page	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

15th October 2011	#2
Takeshi Gear Head Joined: Aug 2005 Location: Argentina Posts: 47	Hi, First of all, sync is going to be your responsibility in a way, so you should be provided with what you ask for, what you think is necessary to warrant the film's sync. Usually when you as an expert say that if you're not given the tools you need, you can not be responsible for sync, producers find a way to make it happen. Anyway, the scenario's not totally clear for me, but it looks like there are these two chances: 1) they've shot at 25 FPS (PAL video), they're postproducing at 25 FPS, and they'll be projecting at film standard 24 FPS. 2) they've shot at 25 FPS (PAL video), they'll be projecting at 29.97 FPS (NTSC video). For the first scenario I can think of two ways of dealing with it: you should have a 24 FPS copy. This is not difficult, since you can have a 25 FPS quicktime and then conform it to 24 FPS using Cinema Tools. If that's the case, and later on they're transfer that video to film, you should ask for a telecine of that film in order to confirm everything is exactly the same lenght (many people will tell you it's impossible to have differences, but it's not). You could ask for a 25 FPS telecine and then conform it to 24 FPS as before with the digital cut. No matter how, at one point or the other you should have a 24 FPS copy. Then, you can time expand all of your production sound to match that speed, or sample rate convert it and then correct the pitch, or even edit the whole thing at 25 FPS and later on time expand your stems or print master to match the final length. [Tools for doing this have been discussed on other topics you can find here at GS]. I'd recommend the first option, since you'll just be expanding production sound, but the rest of the tracks (Music, BGs, Effects, Foley, ADR) would be originally recorded at 24 FPS. For the second one (PAL video to NTSC video), the first thing you need to know is how they're converting video, because there are different methods and they mess with sync and speed. You could end up having an NTSC copy running at 29.97 FPS, but being the exact same length as your 25 FPS copy, or the opposite way, you'll end up having a 4.1% slower/longer video that you'll have use as a guide to time expand your tracks. Best,

16th October 2011	#5
Jorge Valtuena Gear interested Joined: Sep 2011 Posts: 11	It sounds like they what to do two masters from your mix. One for tv and the other for film. You will not have any sincro problems working at 25fps. Your master is the pal QuickTime and that is what you are going to give them. The problem is going to be for them when they try to convert the 25fps to 24fps in the finalcut. What the program will do is take away a frame per second. You will not notice this in sound, but yes for the image. They should do the transfer to a post production place that does conversions for tv and film. If not it's going to be a disaster. Hope this helps. Jorge