Vit Reiter wrote:Often you need to work with different frame rates inside one project.
NLEs do it if the frame rate can be setting for Timeline not for whole project.
When I am wearing my Online/Deliverables hat, there are three main categories that are relevant: Universal, Domestic and International. Typically, Universal = 23.98 fps, Domestic (North America) = 29.97i, and International = 25 fps. Sometimes over-defined as 50i.
And then of course, there is 24.000 DCI for theatrical, which is usually the Universal (Extended) edit, audio adjusted.
These are all export versions of whatever the base source media dictated for the creative edit. Even aspect ratio and output resolution are compromises with the shooting format. Hard to reconcile a 2KFlatDCI with HD footage -- but it's an easy decision... pillarbox to 1998. That's it... but you still have to live with those black sidebars. Sorry, that is the way it is. The math doesn't work.
Looking back to the first NLE grading systems, they were all predicated on image sequences (.cin, .tga, .dpx) and so on, which
do not have an intrinsic frame rate, so you would have to tell the application how fast to play them back. This has not actually changed in the core architecture. Allowing these applications to work with movie containers like .mov and .mxf might have been a great business idea, but it probably was a terrible technical decision. Because they still only start at a trim-in point, and then count one-frame, another frame, another frame at the project setting. That is why it is difficult.
It seems to me to be extremely careless to simply loop up your film without checking what gate it is going to run through. Imagine what would happen if you tried to ram 1000' of 4-perf 35 through a 16mm gate. Except in the digital world, you don't destroy both your stock footage and the equipment. And you get to say, can somebody fix this for me instantly?
Interested to see that there were several suggestions re: washing the timeline through another app, essentially re-conforming to the proper base rate. Frankly this is how we did 29.97 video on-line throughout the latter part of the 20th century for projects shot on 24fps film. Every day. Several times a day.
jPo, CSI