25fps footage in a 23.976 project

Here's something that has been puzzling me recently. I recently worked on a project that used some 25fps stock footage, but my project is 23.976fps. I assumed that the proper thing to do was to apply Automatic Speed to the footage after I cut it in, and sure enough, it slows it down to 96% speed. However, if you step through the shot frame by frame, there will be a few instances of a repeated frame!

To get around this, I actually just cut the 25fps footage in WITHOUT applying Automatic Speed, and then they play without repeating frames. This just seems odd to me that it would work without reconforming the speed. It's almost like FCPX does that automatically for 25fps footage, but for any other framerate like 29.97 or 60 or whatever else, you have to apply Automatic Speed to get it to play frame-for-frame in a different speed timeline.

Is anyone else getting this result? I resorted to using Cinema Tools to reconform the 25fps footage before I discovered that it worked right without applying anything.

If you drop 25fps clips into a 24fps timeline, you automatically get 24fps video. You don't need to do anything. This is basically how all NLE's work.

Automatic Speed is purely a slow/fast motion effect, to get in-camera fast/slow motion playback using original frames.

Yes, you get 24fps video, but you don't get an automatic reconform where it plays it all frame-for-frame. Try it in FCP7, for example. Drop a 25fps into a 23.976fps timeline, and you'll get a green bar or have to render. It will pay back at the same speed, but you'll get subtly jerky playback because FCP7 does a poor job of framerate conversion. In the FCP7 days, 9 times out of 10, I will reconform 25fps footage in Cinema Tools if it's going to be used in a 23.976 timeline.

I thought Automatic Speed was just a reconform to the current framerate of the project. It did used to be called "conform" after all. It does result in either slowing down or speeding up the clip, of course, but I don't think it's to solely to get slow or fast motion. For example, I use it all the time to reconform 29.97 footage to a 23.976 timeline. Yes, this results in the clip playing a bit more slowly, but I'm more interested in it playing smoothly usually, because it will play frame-for-frame and not try to crunch the 29.97 footage. Using 29.97 footage in a 23.976 timeline will make it play jerky, so that's why I will usually conform it (unless it appears too-obviously slow).

So my question is: Automatic Speed works properly as a conform for other framerates, but I have seen it not work right for 25fps footage. Can anyone else confirm this?

I restored a film that was shot 24fps and we had to deliver a PAL version at 25fps. In FCP X 10.0.9 I believe I had to put a 25p clip on the timeline or it would automatically change the project settings without telling you. After that, the 24fps prores file played back one frame faster, with perfect motion and pitch correction.

I confirmed this by also making a 23.98 project, and sure enough the running times were exactly what you would expect by playing the film faster.

Initially I tried to do the automatic conform option, and it really messed things up. It took me a while to figure out that FCP X had already done that all for me!

I don't have any 25p footage right now so I can't be sure if Apple changed this for the current version. I think they changed the need to have to put a fakeout clip in the project first.

BTW, FCP 7 never actually did any frame rate conversion, it would just drop one frame per second going 25 to 23.976. So many doc projects I did the finishing on I had to reconform the frame rate in cinema tools, then hope they relinked ok. Was a lot of crappy hard work. This is way easier.

You're right that it's a lot easier now, but I wish that they would tell you that it automatically conforms 25fps footage; that would have saved me a lot of trouble! I'm not sure I would consider it a bug, the more I think about it, but it is certainly inconsistent behavior that's not immediately obvious. Also, what it SHOULD do if you happen to try to use Automatic Speed on a 25fps clip in a 23.976 timeline is not actually affect it at all, if it already conformed it. Instead, it changes the speed to 96% and then incorrectly repeats a frame every second! I would actually consider this a bug, since there's no way anyone would actually want this behavior.

I don't believe FCPX will automatically change project settings without telling you anymore, at least as far as I've seen. As for FCP7, yeah, that's definitely what I consider "poor framerate conversion."