HELP _ frame rate confusion!

I sent the closed captioning company a 23.98 master - I didn't realize my DVD master file would have to be 29.97. So the resulting .scc file gradually drifts pretty far out of sync by the end of the 2 hour program.

Is there anything I can do besides have the closed caption company retime the captions to a 29.97 master?

Is there a way to encode a 23.98 mpeg2 & load it into DVDSP?

Should be 3 clicks for them (open file, change timebase, save file) and another 5 to send the fie to you (open email app, new message, type some text, attach file, send)
So sending the file is way more complicated

- Andreas

Well we tried that but that was out of sync too. They used my 23.98 file but put 29.97 timecode to it? Not sure how captioning software works . . .

Sorry Karl,

I don't know how you created your MPEG2 and what captioning software they are using.

So applying a retimed subtitle track to the original file/project and create a new MPEG2 should be fine.

- Andreas

Did you create the caption file? Those can be tricky.

My question is why does the master file need to be 29.97? DVDs can play back 23.976 progressive, the compression is better, and no pulldown fields.

No I didn't create them - a pro outfit did. I think they just didn't notice that I sent a 23.98 file. I got confused because my m2v files said it was 29.97 in the quicktime inspector window so i thought compressor automatically changed it for some reason. But when I looked at the file in Media Inspector it is in fact 23.98. Then I read all the threads about how DVDSP just says 29.97 even when it is playing 23.98 assets. Confused? Yes I am a bit!

They are retiming the scc file hopefully I'll have this all worked out. Thanks

That makes sense. If I remember correctly, when the content is flagged as 24p to the DVD player, the decoding chip actually adds the pulldown on a non progressive output signal. So it makes sense that the captions would need to be in 29.976 to stay in sync.

Glad it got sorted!

Karl,

Out of curiousity. why didn't they sent you a Spruce STL (or SRT) ?
You can edit both easily and import into FCP X using for example my X-Title Importer. Once in FCP X you can do the retiming by yourself (to any frame rate) just with copy/paste from one timeline to another.
Once you are done you have 2 options: using my X-Title Exporter to extract the subtitle to DVDSP STL or my X-Title Render. Using the latter option gives you high quality subtitles which are independent from the player's font interpretation. This means font will be the font you decided to use and letter kerning will be correct.

- Andreas