Has anyone else encountered the following ... ?

I have 720p59.94 progressive Cineform avi footage on a Premiere CS4 timeline. After editing, I send it to AME to export a new Cineform Master clip, specifying 720p59.94 in AME's video settings.

But the footage that comes out is 60.00 framerate!!

That's strange....

I mean, you have 720P footage, which is clearly progressive, yet 59.94 framerate denotes that you've got an interlaced signal?
Is it perhaps the naming convention that's screwing everything up??

Where is the indication that you've got a true progressive 60fps? Are you loading the clip into third party sofware (MediaInfo) and verifying this??

It's progressive footage, converted from the orginal AVCHD from an HMC40 using HDLink.

If I pull the raw CFHD clip into Virtualdub, it shows up as 59.94 (this is what I would expect - it's what the camera shoots). If I pull the edited and rendered CFHD clip (from AME) into Virtualdub it shows up as 60.00.

I suspect, that somehow, internally, Cineform and/or Premiere is using fields to process the information. Perhaps this is why Vdub shows 59.94.

But the tell tale sign would be audio synch...

I'm confused. From Panasonic rolls out AG-HMC40 AVCCAM handheld camcorder (http://broadcastengineering.com/products/panasonic-rolls-ag-hmc-handheld-camcorder-0428/) :

The HDC40 camcorder records in four professional AVCCAM recording modes: PH mode (average 21Mb/s, max 24Mb/s); HA mode (about 17Mb/s); HG mode (about 13Mb/s); and HE mode (about 6Mb/s). It supports 1080/59.94i in all modes and 1080/29.97p, 1080/23.98p native, 720/59.94p, 720/20.97p, and 720/23.98p native in PH mode only.

"native, 720/59.94p, 720/20.97p"

I've never heard of that kind of native....I suspect the writers were on mushrooms when creating this article...

However i'd rather trust these specs (http://www.videomaker.com/article/14750/2/)..

It would confirm my suspicions that yes, it records 720P at 60fps, transfers and edits in 59.94 fields, and reexports out to the native 60fps output..
Although, i don't know what device plays out 60fps....

Anyways.....Good luck my friend!!!

Wait, wait, wait.

Fields and timecode are different.
60p and 60i are different, but the drop frame timecode for 60p is 59.94. Just like 30p is 29.97 and 24p is 23.976.

This may actually be a problem with Premiere as if you aren't careful, it will automatically assume the wrong timecode base. For instance, 24p (frame rate) will sometimes end up as 23.980 (timecode) instead of 23.976. For some reason now, Adobe allows you to make up your own timecode base. People in AE have had this problem before too.

Sorry, this wasn't a solution, but an idea of where the problem might be.

There seems to be Cineform aspect to this - I've redirected the question to their forum: http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/cineform-software-showcase/473099-rendering-cfhd-ame-changes-clips-59-94-60-00-ame.html