Hi All,

I'm capturing HD-Cam tapes into a 30i NTSC project to later be up-ressed into a 1080i / 59.94 project.  The tapes were shot at 23.98, and I'm wondering how to set the deck for capture to ensure I have no trouble with the online process.  I'm capturing through SD SDI and the deck has options for 23.98 and 23.98 with pulldown.  I assume I want the pulldown setting, but there are also some "Time Data" options for setting 24 F TC A-Frame and 30 F TC A-Frame.  With the pulldown / conversion to new time code, how will I be able to re-capture for the online.  Unfamiliar territory, any help is greatly appreciated.  (The deck is a Sony JH-3)

Dave

I captured about a minute of footage with the 23.98 Pulldown setting, decomposed the clip, and batch captured it, and had no problem.  Again, just need to be sure it also won't be a problem when I go to online -- also, I had to set the deck to non-drop to get the tapes to capture, even though I'm fairly certain the tapes were shot in drop-frame. Unfortunatley, I don't have an HD capable system to test this workflow all the way through.

If you're going to be conforming 23.98p HD make sure you're in a 23.98p project.  The pulldown settings on the deck determine where the additional fields are going to be added to the SD 29.97 signal.  Setting the corresponding pulldown setting in the Avid will assure that you get the correct 23.98p frames from the NTSC signal. ( 23.98 HD material should have non-drop frame code as it keeps the pullin cadence consistent.)  The general rule is that the A frame falls on frames ending in 0 or 5 for HD captured material.  (Telecine transfers generally follow this convention but there are no guarantees so a Flex file specifying the start frame and pullin is generally necessary.)  If the material comes in without any judder or unnatural jerkyness you should be OK.