18th August 2003
>>>The only thing I could 
                think of would be if the Clockit was jamming at 29.97 into a 23.98 
                Camera. Has anyone else seen this or has any suggestions as to how 
                this mistake could have been made that would cause the problem to 
                occur<<<
                
                I don't use a Clockit Box
                
                But I was asked by a producer that told me about a problem
                that she had on a HD Shoot.
                
                Post said that Timecode was being laid down but it was jumping and 
                skipping frames :01, :03, :05, :07, etc
                
                Only thing I could think of would be if the Clockit was jamming 
                at 29.97 into a 23.98 Camera. Has anyone else seen this or has any 
                suggestions as to how this mistake could have been made that would 
                cause the problem to occur.
                
                I suggested to Clone the Tapes with New Timecode, That is what they 
                will be doing to fix it.
                
                B. Sean Fairburn SOC
                Director of Photography
                Castaic Ca
                
>The only thing I could think 
                of would be if the Clockit was jamming at >29.97 into a 23.98 
                Camera. Has anyone else seen this or has any >suggestions as 
                to how this mistake could have been made that would >cause the 
                problem to occur.
                
                To the best of my knowledge "23.97" and "23.98" 
                are the same thing. That is, the actual frame rate is close to halfway 
                between 23.97 and 23.98, and is therefore randomly referred to in 
                technical literature as both "23.97" and/or "23.98" 
                
                
                Lew Comenetz - Video Engineer, USA.
                
                (I forgot the exact frequency. Perhaps someone else could write 
                in with it? Its a big long fraction, as in: "23.975465454 etc.") 
                LC. 
                
>Post said that Timecode was 
                being laid down but it was jumping and >skipping frames :01, 
                :03, :05, :07, etc
                
                Sean,
                
                Is it skipping every other frame consistently, or is it seemingly 
                random?
                
                Lucas Wilson
                --------------------
                Master of Widgets
                Los Angeles
                
              Sadly, Americans and Japanese already know this stuff, but for the 
                rest of the world that wonders why in the hell NTSC is the way it 
                is...
                
                [bizarre NTSC history lesson on]
                
                In NTSC, the color subcarrier frequency is 3.579545... MHz. There 
                are 227.5 subcarrier cycles per video line. Where Fsc is the color 
                subcarrier, the horizontal line frequency (Fh) is 2/455 * Fsc.
                
                2/455 * Fsc = 15,734.265... Hz
                
                The field frequency is 2/525 * Fh = 59.94005994...
                
                This can also be represented as 60 * (1000/1001)
                
                Originally, NTSC B&W TV was locked to the power frequency of 
                60Hz. When Color TV came along, the amount of information that needed 
                to be added to the signal came out to be 1/1000 bigger than 60hz, 
                resulting in a slightly slower framerate.
                
                Applying the same math to 24fps...
                
                24 * (1000/1001) = 23.0976023976...
                
                [bizarre NTSC history lesson off]
                
                sigh. Maybe if I click my heels 3 times, everybody in the world 
                will use 24fps as a standard and all this NTSC nonsense will go 
                away...
                
                Lucas Wilson
                HD/2K Online
                Los Angeles
                
>24 * (1000/1001) = 23.0976023976...
                
                I think you meant 23.976... fps? (it's confusing enough without 
                typos!)
                
                Tim Sassoon
                Sassoon Film Design
                
              Argh... yes, of course. thanks...
                
                Lucas
                ---------
                2K/4K/8K a dollar...
                Los Angeles
                
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