Odd Sync Issue

[JoeMilner]

Hi there,
In 18 years in post, I've never ONCE done a project at 30fps. It just doesn't happen, not since the days of black & white TV.
I'd bet that your pix editor is working in 29.97 or 23.98, and so if your audio (possibly production dialog recorded at 30fps referenced to 24fps film?) is really at 30/48, then you should set up your session either at 29.97 with the 0.1% audio pulldown engaged (which gives you the 47952 sample rate that you said worked) or 23.98 with the pulldown.
Try that, see if it works!
Best,
Joe

[Bsmith19354]

Hi Joe,

I know it's an unusual frame rate. But I checked with the editor, (several times) and it's absolutely 30 FPS. I tried your suggestion of doing 29.97 with a 0.1% pulldown and that is off as well.

[JoeMilner]

Hmmmm,
What is the nature of the project?

Seriously, I have never heard of (modern-day) video running at 30fps.
Sometimes people will say 30 when they actually mean 29.97, but your editor seems pretty certain......but again, that's just SO weird. I can't imagine that it won't cause as many problems down the road, as it is already.

[Andrew Mottl]

Hey there, this comes up every few weeks

Do a search on here, one solution might be checking his FC FPS preferences and the project FPS settings are both set to the same value.
Or opening and saving the mixdown in Quicktime.

Hope you solve it!

[Bsmith19354]

It is an animation for web. Around three minutes. Delivered in a quicktime not OMF. The client specifically requested 30 FPS for some reason, otherwise there would be no way we'd be doing it in this rate. Like I said, when I do a bounce to quicktime mix it works fine but a standard bounce (24, 48) doesn't work at all.

I can't imagine another time that I would be using 30 but this is an ongoing project (we're scheduled to do about 2 videos a week) so I want to figure it out before it gets too bad.

[Bsmith19354]

Hey Andrew,

I checked with him and he says that his video, session and FPS preferences are all set 30. :(

[JoeMilner]

Have you tried printing your mix to tracks within your session, rather than bouncing?
Also, where are you getting your word clock signal from?

[ggegan]

I just had my first project that was delivered to me at 30fps, not 29.97. The picture editor insisted on staying at the native HD frame rate at which the picture was shot. It's unusual, but it happens. Eventually it will have to switch to 29.97, but in the mean time, as long as everyone works to the same frame rate, the sound and picture should stay in sync after the change, with an identical .1% change in overall length.

If you are experiencing a constant drift in sync when the picture editor imports your tracks back into his/her system, the problem is almost assuredly either that you and the editor are working at two different frame rates as Joe suspects, or else the editor erred when setting up the import options, which is very easy to do. Calculate the percentage of the difference in length of the picture and sound. If it comes out to .1%, that is the difference between 30fps and 29.97fps nominal frame rates.

[Sonsey@mac.com]

If the project is REALLY at 30FPS (and I can see that in animation it might be), then you have been bitten by the FCP "bug/feature". In a nutshell FCP tries to be helpful and pulls down your audio when you have a pulldown capture setting (29.97, 23.98) and a non-pulldown sequence rate (24,25,30), thereby making it out of sync. The details are here but in a nutshell, use the Sebsky tools (should be a link in that thread) to create a Quicktime Movie from the WAV with a frame rate of 30fps. That will import just fine. Or you can try and get your editor to change his settings, but that's way more work!

[Jedisteph]

Originally Posted by Sonsey@mac.com

you can try and get your editor to change his settings, but that's way more work!

Ha!