Can I have FCP X do pulldown on export?

I have a project with footage that is both 23.98 and 29.97. The 29.97 footage comes from a Canon XA-10 in it 24PF mode which means it's 24fps but, when I bring it into FCP, it becomes 29.97i. Ideally, I'd have done reverse telecine before editing.....but I didn't do that. I'm ready to export now, and I'm wondering if, upon doing so, the program does a clean job of a reverse telecine or if it wont look nearly as good as if I do that to the footage first (with Cinema Tools) and then reimport? That'll be super laborious, since I'd need to then go to every single shot, find in and out points, and replace. Ideally, on exporting from FCP X, the program can do it for me.

can it?

Just export, I bet it looks fine.

I did export but the 29.97 footage definitely looks a little different

Yep, depends on how much movement is in the content. When you select the clip, go to the Inspector, in the Video section, what is Frame Sampling set to? From the user manual, here's an explanation of the settings.

"Floor: The default setting. Final Cut Pro rounds down to the nearest integer during its calculation to match the clip’s frame rate to the project’s frame rate.

Nearest Neighbor: Final Cut Pro rounds to the nearest integer during its calculation to match the clip’s frame rate to the project’s frame rate. This setting reduces artifacts at the expense of visual stuttering. Rendering is required.

Frame Blending: Creates in-between frames by blending individual pixels of neighboring frames. Slow-motion clips created with Frame Blending appear to play back more smoothly than those created with the Floor or Nearest Neighbor setting. This setting provides better reduction of visual stuttering, but you may see some visual artifacts. Rendering is required.

Optical Flow: A type of frame blending that uses an optical flow algorithm to create new in-between frames. Final Cut Pro analyzes the clip to determine the directional movement of pixels, and then draws portions of the new frames based on the optical flow analysis. The Optical Flow setting results in better reduction of visual stuttering, and Final Cut Pro spends a significant amount of time to fix visual artifacts."

You didn't say what your timeline framerate was, though. Is it 23.976 or 29.97? I'm guessing it's 23.976 since you mention that you should have done a reverse telecine, but that's not necessarily the case cause you can cut 24p footage into a 29.97 timeline ok.

ALSO, what a lot of people don't know is that you can actually cut 24p footage that has pulldown in it (so it's actually 29.97i with pulldown) into a 23.976 timeline properly as long as your IN point is on a proper A frame so that you get the cadence correct. It's just that you have to make sure you do this EVERY time you cut one of those shots in. If it's off, you'll see that it plays very choppy, so you should try recutting that shot in with an IN point one frame later. Note that once you cut it in and it's choppy, you can't correct it with slipping the shot... the cadence will always be off. You have to reset a new IN point in the source and recut it in to see if you got it right. For this reason, it's definitely best to do a reverse telecine on this sort of footage.

Lastly you can sort of use optical flow to make it "smoother" if you want, but that can introduce weird artifacts, and if you really have true 24p footage with pulldown, you're better off putting the REAL frames in there by doing what I outlined above. The only real use for optical flow in this case is when you're cutting native 60i or 30p footage into a 23.976 timeline... it will be choppy unless use some kind of optical flow on it.

Btw guys, I'm using 29.97i and 60i interchangeably cause they are the same. Same with 24p and 23.976... hope it's not too confusing.

How can I tell what is an A frame?

Yes, what is an "A" frame? Do you mean "I" frame? FCPX rearranges frame orders to conform to the edit points automatically in the background.

The A frame is the first frame in the 3:2 cadence.

How can I tell which frame is an A frame? By looking at it? Time code?

oxband wrote: How can I tell which frame is an A frame? By looking at it? Time code?

You can't really tell by the timecode, and it's somewhat hard to do it if don't know what you're looking for and can't see the interlacing on your display. If you want an explanation of 3:2 pulldown, just google it or see here:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-two_pull_down

Suffice it to say, if you want to cut this type of footage into a 24p timeline, you'll have to do a bit of trial-and-error. If you cut it in and playback looks choppy, shift-f to go back to the IN point and shift the IN point one frame later and recut it in. Repeat if necessary until you see that it plays smooth... by smooth, you'll know also by stepping through it one frame at a time and seeing that each frame advances one frame properly and that there are not weird things like repeated or skipped frames.

You must be able to step field by field ... and identify -> 2:3 pulldown or if it is 3:2 pulldown

How to identify a pulldown frame

Identify a single frame of film (hole punch, a single frame in leader, a speck of dust,...) and scroll field by field through the video watching the time code. (each scroll bar that rolls across the screen indicates a new field, not a new frame)
If the selected frame is represented by only two fields, it is either an "A" or "C" frame.
"A" - if the timecode changes after the 2nd field it is an "A" frame.
"C" - if the timecode changes after the first field, it is a "C" frame.
If there are three fields representing the selected frame, it is either a "B" or "D" frame.
"B" - if the timecode changes after the 2nd field it is a "B" frame.
"D" - if the timecode changes after the 1st field it is a "D" frame.

Check this useful info : www.zerocut.com/tech/pulldown.html
Great illustrations and details here: documentation.apple.com/en/cinematools/u...apter=13%26section=3

Hope it helps