24P tips in Avid or Final Cut Pro
Both Avid and Final Cut Pro have news ways of dealing with 24P footage.
When it doubt, always use advanced pull down mode within the DV Camera. This mode makes it easier for the software to calculate the original 24 frames when recording your material from mini-dv tape.
Currently Final Cut Pro 4.5 HD supports both normal and advanced pull-down methods. The current version of Avid Xpress Pro HD does not. However, plans to incorporate both methods into Avid Press Pro 5.1 HD has been announced.
If your system is experience dropped frames when recording 24P material, it may be because you did not shoot in the 24P advanced mode, this requiring extra processing power to perform the conversion.
One last note. Most prosumer cameras use the term 24P. However, 24P is not really an option available to the mini-dv format. It is actually 23.976. This is important, because in order to stay in sync with 48K audio, you must shoot at 23.976, NOT 24P. Don’t worry, if you are shooting in the mini-dv format, you won’t have a choice. It will automatically record at 23.976, even though the settings may say 24P.
If you are using a high-end HD camera, such as DVCPro HD, it is important to take note of whether you are shooting at 24P, or 23.976P. DO NOT shoot at 24P unless you are recording your audio as a separate source and you have the ability to speed up your audio .1%. Some professional DAT machines allow you to record audio at 47094kHZ which would stay in sync with video recorded at 24P.
