Re-inserting3:2 pulldown on FCP
 

Working on a project shot in 35mm. The telecine transfer (29.97)was reverse telecined and edited on a 23.98. Using FCP 4.1 on G4.

The cut looks good, when we go to print to ntsc tape, we receive the warning "This computer is not fast enough to do the 3:2 pulldown". Nonethelss it will output to tape with some slight motion artifacts. (This is the best we get). It looks better simply playing it on the monitor, without outputting it to tape.

Is there some way to re-insert the pulldown in FCP before outputting to tape? All efforts so far have resulted in unsatisfactory dubs.

Thanks

Richard

Richard,
I've never worked on telecine material so feel free to call me all wet.

But could you perhaps export the sequence as NTSC DV then import the file back into your project, dropping it into a new sequence for export to tape?

Tried that, it looks really really bad. So far, simply pressing "play' and crash recording off the 23.98 timeline yields the best results, but still not what I'd call adequate. Had to send it off to SXSW today as a deadline was looming.

I'm not a FCP user, I'm not much help to my associate here, as I cut with Avid.

Final Cut Pro 4.1 has broken 3:2 pulldown. In order to get real 3:2 back into your footage, you'll need to upgrade from 4.1 to 4.0 (yes, I said upgrade). Apple refuses to fix this problem. It's not like professionals use FCP or anything, so why should they care? Apple is quite often retarded.

Other than that, your best bet is to output a 23.98 fps FCP Movie (export to QUICKTIME from FCP, not "Using Quicktime Conversion"). Import into Adobe After Effects. Make a new composition. Put the clip into the timeline but don't make any changes to it. Now go to Make Movie (under Composition) and you'll get a window with more options to click. Under Current Settings choose Best quality, Full resolution and All effects on. Ignore the Proxy setting. Set the length of your output movie here as well. On Field Render select LOWER FIRST (I think that's how DV works... if it looks messed up after export try UPPER FIRST). The 3:2 option will light up. Select a setting... it doesn't matter which one you choose. You are done in here. On Output Module select Quicktime movie and the compression you'd like it to export at (DVNTSCPRO or something like that). Be sure to set the frame rate to 29.97 as well. Exit that screen. On the last screen you select where it will save itself and what it will be named. Press RENDER. After Effects runs kind of slow on a Mac but it shouldn't take too long before you have a proper DV Quicktime movie. These instructions will also work on the PC version of After Effects.

Ted
Thanks for the advice, Don't have After Effects. (I cut on Avid and have Boris, and my associate cuts on FCP and has some version of commotion I believe.) Not sure I follow you on the UPGRADE to 4.0? He had to upgrade to 4.1 to vercome conflicts with his cinewave card... whats up with that?

I'm not sure what a cinewave card is.

I was implying that 4.1 is more of a downgrade from 4.0 since they broke a few features with the "upgrade".

I don't know anything about Boris. Not sure if that can re-insert 3:2. How big is your project? Upload the FCP Movie to me and I'll reinsert the 3:2 for you (for free of course). Serious.

Ted,
The cinewave Targa board was the only way to do full digibeta and betacam before the new Aja IO came out. We still use it for bringing in betacam and exporting it.

The project as it stands right now is about ten minutes long, we still have another twenty to shoot. But waiting for the funds to schedule. (35mm aint exactly cheap.)