Understanding 24p Workflow

I chose to attend this session at the last day of NAB New York 2006 with a 1 SESSION FREE pass they sent me along with my ID card. The session was led by Gary Adcock, who claimed that he was fortunate to work with only HD stuff for last five years. Although I did work with 24p, SD & HD stuff, hit the books and read articles related to this field, I felt that there were some details/facts that eluded me. Fortunately, I was right.

Mr. Adcock had great personality and great enthusiasm to part his experience and knowledge about 24p HD workflow to eager attendants who were mostly doc filmmakers and editors like myself. Everyone had a different camera to capture images, but they all used same FCP program and somewhat mystified of the post process, just like me. Mr. Adcock essentially demystified the whole process with great authority and knowledge.

Basically, biggest thing I gained from the session was that 24p is NOT 24.0 frames. Although 24p is non-drop frames, 24p = 23.98 (!!!) If you set 24p to 24.0 frames, your audio will NOT match up. This is the exactly the problem I had when I was editing 24p stuff last year and NOW I know why. He also mentioned that because default CinemaTool setting is at 24.0, you need to launch the program and change the setting. When I was using CinemaTool to advance pulldowns, the short clips were fine, but the longer clips had audio drifting apart. I think my problem kinda went away, without knowing exactly why, when I began to use DVFilm Maker program to do advance pulldowns.

Minor notes like, SD is mostly 29.97 fps, but HD is 59.94 fps for 60i. You should always shoot advance 24p mode whenever you can to maximize the quality. HD and PAL (Peace At Last) use UPPER field, but SD uses LOWER field.

Needless to say, I came out as a better editor after that session and I'll definitely come back for next year's NAB NYC sessions. It does cost good money, but the access to the experience and the knowledge you could gain from industry professionals are vital to improve my skills in the fast-changing post field. Since I'm currently a freelance editor on my own without an experienced mentor, I could use all the advices I can get at these sessions. If you are budding editors and filmmakers, I strongly urge you to attend these sessions to compliment your knowledge and skill sets. And networking with these experienced industry professionals can't hurt, either.