Timecode Questions
 

Hi,

I just finished my first DV project, authoring a family reunion I shot a couple of weekends ago. Took it all the way to DVD. What a learning experience! Two weeks of work for a 15 minute production. : /

However, I'm confused as to the timecode format I should be using. I have a Matrox RT.X100 Extreme, Adobe Premiere 6.5, ReelDVD Studio and a Canon GL2.

My question is whether or not to select Drop Frame or Non-Drop Frame. I understand the difference between the two, and right now the clips in my project are set to drop frame. I don't remember if this was the default, or if I managed to mess something up in my exploring the tools.

I searched through the Canon GL2 manual, but I can't find any reference to wether it uses drop frame or not. Or maybe it's irrelavant on the GL2. Does it record at 29.97 or 30 fps?

I'll be burning my projects onto DVD if that makes any difference.

Thanks!

Does anyone have an answer to my questions? I still haven't figured it out.

Check in the Premiere/ Matrox manual but over here in the UK we don't use any of those *settings*, its only applicable to NTSC.

It all depends on whether you captured at 29.97fps or 30fps, if 29.97 I beleive you choose Drop Frame?

Sorry I can not help any further,

All the best,

Ed

Use Drop Frame. Since NTSC is 29.97 fps, some frames must be dropped periodically in order for time to stay correct.

Thanks, drop frame is what I was thinking. But that raises the question: why is there an option to use non-drop frame with 29.97 fps footage? What's the use of that?

Thanks!

So that you can have exactly 30 frames in each second. However, "time" will be off.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding how drop frame works. I'm sure I read somewhere that with both drop frame and non-drop frame alike, you get exactly 29.97 actual frames of video each second. But with drop frame, extra time is added to the time code to make it come out right. I'll have to find that reference again. I thought it was in the Matrox RT.X100 documentation, or in Premiere.

With either, you will get 29.97. However, if you go to the end of your project and look at the total length, they will give you two different numbers. The drop frame number should be correct.

Ok, I'm almost there. At the risk of driving this discussion too far...

I'm creating my video content with Premiere 6.5 captured from my GL2 using a Matrox RT.X100. Within Premiere I have the option of selecting either drop frame or non-drop frame. I believe the Canon GL2 uses drop frame.

Then I export my project to an MPEG-2 file for DVD, I can export it with drop frame or non-drop frame time code, regardless of what it was captured with. When importing the MPEG-2 files into ReelDVD, I have the option again of selecting drop frame or non-drop frame.

Here's my question (and where my original confusion began): Do I select the timecode format in ReelDVD regardless of the original? For example: if all my video from Premiere was set to non-drop frame, I could set it to drop frame when importing into ReelDVD to get clock-accurate counters on my DVD. Or do I have to choose the same timecode format all along? I don't think that I do, as I'll have the same number of actual video frames regardless. I think I can just pick the format I want within ReelDVD, just before burning to a DVD, and therefore use any format in Premiere, as it won't make any difference.

Am I correct?

Thanks for your patience as I try to understand this.