Authoring a 24FPS DVD

[mikeveli20]

I can't for the life of me figure out how to get my latest project authored as a 24FPS DVD. I've been using TMPGEnc Authoring Works 4 which is what I usually use to author a DVD. I have a 23.976 FPS m2v file (verified several times to in fact be 23.976), but every time I import it into Authoring Works, it defaults to 29.97 and won't let me change it. Even if I select progressive it still stays at 29.97. On top of this, even when it's progressive with 29.97 FPS it still interlaces when I preview it.

I know for a fact that I've created several projects in the past that would let me change the FPS after importing a clip. I also know for a fact that I've authored several DVDs in the past as 23.976. I know my way around the program pretty well and have intermediate knowledge when it comes to video related stuff (codecs, editing, conversion, pulldown, etc. etc.) which is what makes this so frustrating.

All I want is to author my DVD at 23.976 (just like the majority of movie DVDs you would find in a store) and then have the DVD player do the 29.97 conversion for me. I've got an .m2v file and a 6 channel AC3 file. I also have several other authoring programs on my MAC that I have yet to really use since I never had a problem with TMPGEnc before. Those include DVD Studio Pro, iDVD, Toast Titanium and Adobe Encore. I tried to play around with them a bit and as far as I could tell, they too were importing the footage as 29.97 which it definitely is not.

Thanks.

[guns1inger]

You need to add 3:2 pulldown flags to footage first. You cannot author a DVD with pure 3.976 fps footage, as this cannot play back on all devices. You need to add the flags for non-progressive playback. Progressive players will still play it back at 23.976 fps. DGPulldown can add the flags to your video stream.

[manono]

All I want is to author my DVD at 23.976 (just like the majority of movie DVDs you would find in a store)

Nope, they may have been encoded as progressive 23.976fps, but they've all had 3:2 pulldown applied so they all output interlaced 29.97fps. You can't author a progressive 23.976fps video. It has to be 29.97fps. Why not apply pulldown to this 23.976fps M2V (if that's the real framerate) and then import it. Or check the M2V in GSpot or MediaInfo to confirm pulldown hasn't already been applied. If these programs really are taking your 23.976fps footage and changing it to 29.97fps, you can bet they're going to reencode it to make it compliant, something you do not want to happen.

[mikeveli20]

Nope, they may have been encoded as progressive 23.976fps

This is what I meant. Sorry for not being more specific. I'm going to try and use DGPulldown to see if that works. I'll report back if I run into any more issues. I'm guessing that the 23.976 footage I have previously authored already had the pulldown flags in tact and that is why I was able to do it.

Thanks to both of you for the insight.

[guns1inger]

You can (and most do) add the pulldown during encoding, so you get both progressive encoded 23.976 fps video and pulldown flags in the same exercise, which saves you having to add the flags afterward. In this case you have changed your encoding process in some way to omit the pulldown flags being added.

[mikeveli20]

You can (and most do) add the pulldown during encoding, so you get both progressive encoded 23.976 fps video and pulldown flags in the same exercise, which saves you having to add the flags afterward. In this case you have changed your encoding process in some way to omit the pulldown flags being added.

That is exactly what I think happened. I've just started using Final Cut Pro over the past month (always used Premiere before that) so I'm sure I must have unchecked something along the way and just assumed that it was in fact encoding with the pulldown; hence why I was so frustrated that it wasn't working properly

EDIT: Ran into another issue after using DGPulldown. I created two new .m2v files, one using the "No change" option in DGPulldown and one using the 23.976-->29.97 option. The first gave me an .m2v that for some reason comes into TMPGEnc Authoring Works 17 mins shorter than it's actual length. When using the 2nd generated file, I was getting the same thing as before where even though I would select progressive as my source, it would automatically cause interlacing when viewing a preview.

EDIT 2: Went back to my source in Final Cut Pro which I am rendering using Compressor. According to Compressor's help file, it states "Compressor sets internal MPEG-2 frame flags correctly, so DVD players will properly apply the 3:2 pull-down process for display on 29.97 fps interlaced NTSC TV sets." So according to this, my original rendered .m2v file should have already had the proper pulldown flags in it, should it not?

[mikeveli20]

What I don't understand really is why I can take a 23.976 FPS AVI file and drop it into Authoring Works, at which point it shows me the FPS as 23.976. When I click on the track properties (aka Encoding settings), and check the framerate, it says "23.976 fps (internally 29.97 fps)" which is exactly what I want for this .m2v file and what I gather it should be after encoding in Compressor or running it through DGPulldown: 23.976 (internally 29.97).

However, as I stated it either gets A) imported directly as just 29.97 with no way to change it and shows interlaced footage when previewing B) imported as 29.97 with no way to change it, but imports 17 mins shorter and at least maintains progressive frames or C) imported as 29.97 but given the option to convert to 23.976 if I choose to re-encode the video.

I'm really stumped here.

[manono]

Have you actually studied what you have? You might have hard telecine (the repeated fields encoded onto the video creating an interlaced 29.97fps video)). You might have soft telecine (encoded as progressive 23.976 with pulldown to create an interlaced 29.97fps video at output)). Or you might have something else entirely. If you don't know (and from your writings, you're completely clueless) post some short 5-10 second samples for us to have a look.

[mikeveli20]

Have you actually studied what you have? You might have hard telecine (the repeated fields encoded onto the video creating an interlaced 29.97fps video)). You might have soft telecine (encoded as progressive 23.976 with pulldown to create an interlaced 29.97fps video at output)). Or you might have something else entirely. If you don't know (and from your writings, you're completely clueless) post some short 5-10 second samples for us to have a look.

Can't do that. The rights to the footage belong to a client. It doesn't appear to be hard telecine. When scrubbing through the .m2v file in a video player, all of the frames are progressive and there are no duplicate frames. The source footage is film and the rendered .m2v file carries the same characteristics. However, when I've imported the footage into TMPGEnc Authoring Works and scrub through it at this point, the footage appears as soft telecine so every 2 out of 5 frames I'll see interlaced footage.

Also, when running the original .m2v file and the DGPulldown generated .m2v file through MediaInfo they both give me a Scan type of Progressive and a Scan order of 2:3 pulldown. And both these files behave the same way when I do what I described my first paragraph.

I'm not and expert when it comes to this stuff, but I'm not clueless by any means. This isn't my main area of focus career wise and is more of a side project, but I have been exposed to this stuff for over 10 years. As stated before I've recently changed over to using Final Cut Pro after using Premiere for many years so there are a few things I'm still getting used to it (hence why I'm still using my PC to author the DVD). I just can't figure out why the 23.976 progressive (with 2:3 pulldown) .m2v files are not importing as 23.976 (internally 29.97) and displaying progressively instead of interlaced when scrubbing through them in TMPGEnc Authoring Works.