[Fmpro] Best utility to convert DVD to Quicktime?

[Eric Goetz]

On Fri, Apr 25, 2008 at 8:17 AM, <chris at alpiar.com> wrote:

> Almost exclusively quicktime movies or a DVD.


That's been my experience, as well.  And I usually have to beg to get the
editor or director to print the timecode burn-in on it.  I've done
feature-length films, and never had a syncing problem with Quicktime playing
from inside Logic or DP, even when they give me a crappy framerate like
15fps.   But I use a different session for each individual cue, setting my
DAW to think measure 1 is at whatever SMPTE frame my cue is starting at.
The only trick then, is that I have to tell the music editor which frame to
start each cue at, but since they gave me a timecode burn, I know the start
will be frame-accurate.  Beyond that, I've never had a problem with drift,
but my cues have never been over 5 minutes, and they are usually much
shorter.

In theory, no matter how inaccurate your computers clock is, all the DAW has
to do is show a new frame for every 2000 samples it sends to your sound card
during playback (assuming 24fps with 48khz audio), so if there's drift, the
video and audio will drift by the same amount, and you'll be fine.  At
least, I think...  This stuff makes my head spin.

I do worry about the dvd ripping software dropping frames or messing with
the frame-rate, but so far I've never had a problem (using Handbrake).

You know what I wish someone would make: a piece of software that will play
back QT movies in sync with LTC coming in through an input.  I always find
myself recording in studios without sync machines (or engineers that know
how to use them).  I would love to just stripe a track of LTC (I wish my DAW
would do that for me), along with my prerecords and clicks, before I come
into the studio, and then just plug my laptop into a free snake channel with
LTC going through it and have it show the QT movie in sync with Protools.
In theory, I guess my DAW would do that, but it seems like overkill.  I want
something really simple, so I don't have to think too hard, when the clock
is running.

Eric



-- 
Eric Goetz -- musician and film composer
(206) 818-2546
http://ericgoetz.com/