Okay folks,

After two full days of intense experimentation, I think I have come up
with
a system that I will be using to conform my feature film, without using
expensive software like Film Composer, getting expensive keycode burnins,
etc.

I have been having my dailies transferred to NTSC mini DV (supposedly
uninterrupted, but the black punch doesn't always end on the right
sequence...), from 35mm negative. No time or keycode burn ins...

I took my dailies, and through a Sony mini DV camcorder digitized them
using
Adobe Premiere 6.5 onto my hard drive. I then took the scratch audio
(we're
post dubbing all the sound) and synced it up using a large non
professional
TV monitor (a large monitor is a HUGE help - esp. when you dub). The
"stretch" tool is very useful for stretching/compressing audio that drifts
(as we are using an Arri II c with its very varying variable speed motor).
I
created files that began at the first frame of picture (TC is 0), and
ended
at the last frame of picture for each 1000' flat.

Now, I decided to see how, after I am done editing and post dubbing, shall
I
go through the issue of making a cut list that actually works and doesn't
loose frames.

The logic here was to do an "inverse telecine" operation on my mini DV
files
(remove the 3:2 pulldown inherent with NTSC), in order to have a 1:1
correlation between a video and film frame.

This I accomplished by using Virtual Dub (a great, fast, versatile, and
professional freeware video processing program for those who don't know -
http://www.virtualdub.org), which has its own built in inverse telecine
filter. One problem I had off the bat was the fact that Virtual Dub
doesn't
accept DirectShow format DV files - which is the format that Premiere
digitized my files in.

I initially broke my head converting the files to Video For Windows DV
format, trying to find a good codec and experimenting with various
sharewares, until I found Matrox's DV codec which is free
(http://www.rt2500.tv/download/goodies.html , click here to DL it:
http://www.rt2500.tv/files/VFWSoftwareCodec.zip). Once I DL'ed and
installed
that file, my mini DV files open up fine in Virtual Dub - no time
consuming
conversions necessary.

Next, I went into Virtual Dub and opened my original mini DV file, which
runs at 29.97 and has the 3:2 pattern from telecine. I went into
"Framerate"
and had it do "inverse telecine", having it automatically detect the
correct
telecine pattern (using the Matrox Mini DV codec). It worked pretty well.

Then I had to burn in frame numbers (Adobe, regrettably, stopped including
the "burn in timecode" filter after 4.2). I took the new processed DV
file,
which is effectively 23.976 fps and telecine pattern free (in other words,
1
frame of video corresponds to 1 frame of film - which is what the PAL
people
get from their telecine), and opened it in Virtual Dub. I downloaded the
plugin that Alvin suggested to me, http://toonarchive.com/addframenumbers/
,
which lets you add frame numbers to your file. I had the plugin burn the
frame numbers (it doesn't do feet, just raw frames) on the upper right
corner of the 1.85 cropping mask.

Since the burn-in plugin is not optimized for film purposes I gerry-rigged
it to discern different flats, which I usually discern by date and number
(i.e. 05.05.03.1 is flat #1 that was transferred on May 5th, 2003). The
plugin does let you burn in a "date" next to the frames (it also permits
you
to burn in "time" in hrs mins secs). Using the yyyy.mm.dd format (out of
the
several it lets you choose), I put both month and day for "year" (i.e.
0505), then for "month" I put the year (i.e. 03) and for "day" I put the
flat number, (i.e. 01). So, for footage I got transferred on May the 5th,
2003, flat 1, it would read 0505.03.01 on the burn in.

I once again used the Matrox mini DV codec, not altering the frame rate
this
time. The reason I didn't add frame numbers while doing inverse telecine
is
because I believe Virtual Dub renders the inverse telecine AFTER it uses
the
filters. This wouldn't give me an accurate frame for frame correspondance.

Then I created a new project in Adobe Premiere 6.5 (DV, Realtime Preview).
I
imported the burned in 24 fps (well, really 23.976 fps)DV file and then
right clicked it. I went to "Advanced" and selected "Interpret", then
entered 29.97 fps under frame rate. Then I had Premiere render the entire
file (was pretty quick), and I got to watch a completely uninterlaced
video
of my footage on my TV monitor, with a 1:1 relationship to the negative
and
a corresponding frame/flat number on top. Of course, the sound was fast,
but
I can view this footage on my desktop with sound at its native 24fps if I
wish by having Premiere interpret it that way.

Now, what I intend to do is to edit the regular 29.97 files with the 3:2
pulldown. After that, I will conform that edit to the uninterlaced 23.97
fps
video file, and then using the new 23.97 cut, create a cut list from the
frame and flat numbers burned in.

Using a free timecode calculator like WTCC II
(http://www.sssm.com/tools/tools.html), the frame numbers can be converted
to feet/frames for 35mm (enter the numbers in Decimal mode and then switch
to 35mm), and I can create a cut list.

In order to verify that Premiere didn't do anything funny with the frames
(and Premiere does love to screw around sometimes), I can display the
timecode in any format I wish, including pure frames.

Using the factor of 1.25 as the difference between 24 and 30 fps, I can
use
the original source file - say it has a total frame count of 11760 in the
24
fps file, I multiply that by 1.25 and find that my original 29.97 mini DV
file should have 14700 frames - or else I have a problem. I have noticed,
btw, that Virtual Dub will drop the last frame in the file, so I will make
a
handle at the end of my original 29.97 DV files prior to conversion.

I am hoping to get a 35mm synchronizer in the near future and test this
all
out. A lot of this is contingent on how well Premiere behaves, because it
does get awfully fussy sometimes with any framerate other than
25/29.97/30.
I particularly noticed a problem with the 23.97/24 fps interfacing. Some
codecs like Canopus would also encourage problems with frame sync. Matrox
thusfar seems to be the best.

I feel that this system, if it is a success, is an inexpensive alternative
to more expensive methods which require more costly decks and systems
(i.e.
Avid's Film Composer).

- G.

After two full days of intense experimentation, I think I have come up with
a system that I will be using to conform my feature film, without using
expensive software like Film Composer, getting expensive keycode burnins,
etc.
--------------------------------snip----------------------------------

Are getting keycode burn-ins THAT expensive?

David Mullen

"George Selinsky" <gselinskyspamsucks@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:_8QGb.407808$655.96947188@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net...
Okay folks,

After two full days of intense experimentation, I think I have come up
with
a system that I will be using to conform my feature film, without using
expensive software like Film Composer, getting expensive keycode
burnins,
etc.

I have been having my dailies transferred to NTSC mini DV (supposedly
uninterrupted, but the black punch doesn't always end on the right
sequence...), from 35mm negative. No time or keycode burn ins...

I took my dailies, and through a Sony mini DV camcorder digitized them
using
Adobe Premiere 6.5 onto my hard drive. I then took the scratch audio
(we're
post dubbing all the sound) and synced it up using a large non
professional
TV monitor (a large monitor is a HUGE help - esp. when you dub). The
"stretch" tool is very useful for stretching/compressing audio that
drifts
(as we are using an Arri II c with its very varying variable speed
motor).
I
created files that began at the first frame of picture (TC is 0), and
ended
at the last frame of picture for each 1000' flat.

Now, I decided to see how, after I am done editing and post dubbing,
shall
I
go through the issue of making a cut list that actually works and
doesn't
loose frames.

The logic here was to do an "inverse telecine" operation on my mini DV
files
(remove the 3:2 pulldown inherent with NTSC), in order to have a 1:1
correlation between a video and film frame.

This I accomplished by using Virtual Dub (a great, fast, versatile, and
professional freeware video processing program for those who don't
know -
http://www.virtualdub.org), which has its own built in inverse telecine
filter. One problem I had off the bat was the fact that Virtual Dub
doesn't
accept DirectShow format DV files - which is the format that Premiere
digitized my files in.

I initially broke my head converting the files to Video For Windows DV
format, trying to find a good codec and experimenting with various
sharewares, until I found Matrox's DV codec which is free
(http://www.rt2500.tv/download/goodies.html , click here to DL it:
http://www.rt2500.tv/files/VFWSoftwareCodec.zip). Once I DL'ed and
installed
that file, my mini DV files open up fine in Virtual Dub - no time
consuming
conversions necessary.

Next, I went into Virtual Dub and opened my original mini DV file, which
runs at 29.97 and has the 3:2 pattern from telecine. I went into
"Framerate"
and had it do "inverse telecine", having it automatically detect the
correct
telecine pattern (using the Matrox Mini DV codec). It worked pretty
well.

Then I had to burn in frame numbers (Adobe, regrettably, stopped
including
the "burn in timecode" filter after 4.2). I took the new processed DV
file,
which is effectively 23.976 fps and telecine pattern free (in other
words,
1
frame of video corresponds to 1 frame of film - which is what the PAL
people
get from their telecine), and opened it in Virtual Dub. I downloaded the
plugin that Alvin suggested to me,
http://toonarchive.com/addframenumbers/
,
which lets you add frame numbers to your file. I had the plugin burn the
frame numbers (it doesn't do feet, just raw frames) on the upper right
corner of the 1.85 cropping mask.

Since the burn-in plugin is not optimized for film purposes I
gerry-rigged
it to discern different flats, which I usually discern by date and
number
(i.e. 05.05.03.1 is flat #1 that was transferred on May 5th, 2003). The
plugin does let you burn in a "date" next to the frames (it also permits
you
to burn in "time" in hrs mins secs). Using the yyyy.mm.dd format (out of
the
several it lets you choose), I put both month and day for "year" (i.e.
0505), then for "month" I put the year (i.e. 03) and for "day" I put the
flat number, (i.e. 01). So, for footage I got transferred on May the
5th,
2003, flat 1, it would read 0505.03.01 on the burn in.

I once again used the Matrox mini DV codec, not altering the frame rate
this
time. The reason I didn't add frame numbers while doing inverse telecine
is
because I believe Virtual Dub renders the inverse telecine AFTER it uses
the
filters. This wouldn't give me an accurate frame for frame
correspondance.

Then I created a new project in Adobe Premiere 6.5 (DV, Realtime
Preview).
I
imported the burned in 24 fps (well, really 23.976 fps)DV file and then
right clicked it. I went to "Advanced" and selected "Interpret", then
entered 29.97 fps under frame rate. Then I had Premiere render the
entire
file (was pretty quick), and I got to watch a completely uninterlaced
video
of my footage on my TV monitor, with a 1:1 relationship to the negative
and
a corresponding frame/flat number on top. Of course, the sound was fast,
but
I can view this footage on my desktop with sound at its native 24fps if
I
wish by having Premiere interpret it that way.

Now, what I intend to do is to edit the regular 29.97 files with the 3:2
pulldown. After that, I will conform that edit to the uninterlaced 23.97
fps
video file, and then using the new 23.97 cut, create a cut list from the
frame and flat numbers burned in.

Using a free timecode calculator like WTCC II
(http://www.sssm.com/tools/tools.html), the frame numbers can be
converted
to feet/frames for 35mm (enter the numbers in Decimal mode and then
switch
to 35mm), and I can create a cut list.

In order to verify that Premiere didn't do anything funny with the
frames
(and Premiere does love to screw around sometimes), I can display the
timecode in any format I wish, including pure frames.

Using the factor of 1.25 as the difference between 24 and 30 fps, I can
use
the original source file - say it has a total frame count of 11760 in
the
24
fps file, I multiply that by 1.25 and find that my original 29.97 mini
DV
file should have 14700 frames - or else I have a problem. I have
noticed,
btw, that Virtual Dub will drop the last frame in the file, so I will
make
a
handle at the end of my original 29.97 DV files prior to conversion.

I am hoping to get a 35mm synchronizer in the near future and test this
all
out. A lot of this is contingent on how well Premiere behaves, because
it
does get awfully fussy sometimes with any framerate other than
25/29.97/30.
I particularly noticed a problem with the 23.97/24 fps interfacing. Some
codecs like Canopus would also encourage problems with frame sync.
Matrox
thusfar seems to be the best.

I feel that this system, if it is a success, is an inexpensive
alternative
to more expensive methods which require more costly decks and systems
(i.e.
Avid's Film Composer).

- G.

Getting window-keycode transfers is not expensive. In fact, we generally
throw that in for FREE in LA (at least, at three out of the last few
places
I've worked at). We're talking one button push to get this running.

And Final Cut Pro 4.0 software ain't gonna break the bank at a grand.
There's enough people out there that own that -- which includes Apple's
film-conforming software built-in.

Sounds to me like you're trying to reinvent the wheel here. Doing dailies
transfers without proper keycode and timecode to DV tape is very
foolhardy,
in my opinion. The time to ask for advice on projects like this is before
you shoot and before you transfer; do that, and many helpful people on the
Net can save you lots of time and money -- without you having to go to
extraordinary amounts of trouble, at the risk of coming up with bad
negative-cut numbers.

Well, I was advised by the lab that keycodes are pretty much a waste of
time, since they're only 90% accurate. I don't see how they're that much
superior to what I'm doing right now.

- G.

Shooting short
ends makes keycode more important, not less. You have to find those rolls
and
if you worked in the normal way we do in Hollywood, you would break down
all
your negative by key number (which IS keycode) and then assemble from the
cut
list and check against a cassette.

Looks like you have opted for the age old system (before key numbers)
called
eye matching. It can be done, it was done for years, but the rest of it
seems
to be a waste of time.

Labs may charge for Key Code numbers to pay for the equipment used to read
the
key code. Once you have the file that comes with the dailies, you have
your key
code, audio time code and video time code and the editing system keeps
track of
all three.

Looks like it's a little late to be working on this now, don't quite know
how a
synchronizer is going to help you unless you have a way to pick out a
"start"
frame from each cut that will reference back to the negative and if you
do,
what happens once you remove a piece from that roll? Do you then slug it
back
to length?

"David Mullen" <davidm2@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:2sQGb.20039$Pg1.4255@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net...
Are getting keycode burn-ins THAT expensive?

David Mullen

Hi Dave,

Well, I was advised by the lab that keycodes are pretty much a waste of
time, since they're only 90% accurate. I don't see how they're that much
superior to what I'm doing right now.

Okay folks,

After two full days of intense experimentation, I think I have come up with
a system that I will be using to conform my feature film, without using
expensive software like Film Composer, getting expensive keycode burnins,
etc.

George, I'm not flaming you, just relating years of hard experience. You
have embarked on a fool's errand. Keycode is not expensive, it really is
a one button operation as told to you by others here. Without
Keycode, you will quickly become lost and one bad edit when you get to
the negative conform will only snowball into a blizzard of regrets.

As far as Keycode appearing on a cut that you want to show to investors,
there
are 2 options. Option 1 which we have used is burn the Keycode
as low as possible in the fram, then slightly letterbox the frame.

Option 2 is let the Keycode
go. The people you want to reach see lots of rough cuts with Keycode
and it's
not a big deal in the long run.

What I want to do is conform in pure 24 fps, so I don't have to worry about
NTSC related issues at all.

All the software that automatically deinterlaces, keeps track of all the
keycode info, spits out cut lists, etc. is priced above my range.

Option 1 which we have used is burn the Keycode
as low as possible in the fram, then slightly letterbox the frame.

That requires recompression, which will degrade the quality - I wanted to
avoid it for that reason.

What I want to do is conform in pure 24 fps, so I don't have to worry about
NTSC related issues at all.

All the software that automatically deinterlaces, keeps track of all the
keycode info, spits out cut lists, etc. is priced above my range.

As far as Keycode appearing on a cut that you want to show to investors,
there
are 2 options. Option 1 which we have used is burn the Keycode
as low as possible in the fram, then slightly letterbox the frame.

That requires recompression, which will degrade the quality - I wanted to
avoid it for that reason.

The people I am targeting have never seen a rough cut before, so the idea
was to present them with something decent as opposed to a blurry Avid style
output with TC and all that - even if it's below the crop mask.

Most places in NY charge extra, sometimes as much as $0.02/ft to do it. I
have no idea why if it's a one button push they do that - unless the wear
and tear on the system is so great, which I doubt.
--------------------------------snip----------------------------------

Unfortunately I don't have a strong enough Mac to run FCP on, which would
set me back a few thousand (I built my own PC using all Intel for almost
half of what I would pay for a comparable mac). I've never tried the 24 fps
editing on that though, would be interested....
--------------------------------snip----------------------------------

My laboratory advised me not to bother with keycode, and since I have a lot
of short ends I'm shooting on (200' and under sometimes), the keycode could
be even more inconsistent than it is with regular flats. Besides, I need to
get some extra software to convert the keycode to edge numbers, from what I
understand.
--------------------------------snip----------------------------------

What concerns timecode, I wanted the image to be TC free so I could show
investors/sponsors something without running numbers - which used to always
annoy me whenever I'd see a cut. To blot them out in post would mean
recompressing the DV signal. Besides, I also think that they charge extra
for this.
--------------------------------snip----------------------------------

I intend to try and conform my own negative, so I'll be able to check
everything visually with a synchronizer before making a cut. I actually
believe this method is going to be MORE reliable than the more conventional
methods.
--------------------------------snip----------------------------------

Then don't transfer in NY! There's a million places all over the country
that will do reasonable dailies transfers -- particularly in the off-hours,
unsupervised, to standard-def formats like Beta SP or 3/4" (or even timecoded
DVCam).

Have you ever cut negative before? I have, and it's harder than you think.
I do agree that it's good to make a visual check before making any negative
cut. But I would strongly suggest you call up some experienced post
supervisors and negative cutters and ask for some advice before proceeding
much further. And listen to what they say.

BTW, I dunno if you're cutting 16mm or 35mm, but it's actually a lot harder
to cut 16. Be careful!