Davinci Resolve and 8mm Transfer

[Bradley Moon]

Hi,
I have 2 choices when editing with Resolve - I'm wondering which is the better approach.
The project settings are 24fps
A) Import clips that are at 16fps, no change in properties, edit and then export whole project at 24fps.
B) Import clips that are at 30fps, then use the speed percentage to slow down the footage to approximately 16fps and then export the whole project at 24fps.

Thanks!

[Nantawat Kittiwarakul]

So that's essentially the frame rate difference issue - one of the most complicated thing to handle during editing process.

Putting 16/18 fps clip into 24 fps timeline will eventually cause duplicated frames and jerky motion no matter what. There are tools such as optical flow (is that the name?) in Adobe Premier that might help reducing it somewhat. Not too sure about Davinci Resolve however.

BTW is it possible to set the project to 60 fps instead? that would make all 16/18/24 fps clips look equally well at the output.

[Bradley Moon]

Putting 16/18 fps clip into 24 fps timeline will eventually cause duplicated frames and jerky motion no matter what. There are tools such as optical flow (is that the name?) in Adobe Premier that might help reducing it somewhat. Not too sure about Davinci Resolve however.

BTW is it possible to set the project to 60 fps instead? that would make all 16/18/24 fps clips look equally well at the output.

Davinci does have Optical Flow for retiming clips.
I could do 30fps timeline, but not 60fps. Delivery would then be 30fps. It looks like using method B, at 30fps instead of 24fps would be the best option?

[Stan Jelavic]

In the following readme towards the bottom I provide instruction on how to change the FPS using optical flow in Resolve.
https://github.com/vintagefilmograph..._video_capture
The instructions are for the clips exported from VirtualDub but it can work on any video.

[Chuck Tsocanos]

I followed Stan's guide and it works great in Davinci Resolve's optical flow and its much faster than Avisynth plugin interpolation. Motion pictures are filmed at 24fps dating back 100 years (separate discussion on why). TV is shot at 29.97/30fps. My opinion is that film has a distinct look at 24fps that I like. 60 fps and possibly 30fps will give an more artificial "TV soap opera" feel. 8mm is 16fps and Super 8mm is 18fps and some people like the nostalgic feel. I personally like 24fps best to keep the film feel but smooth the motion better. If you use Avisynth for stabilization (like I do), remember to turn stabilization off in Davinci or you will get artifacts doing it twice.

[Thomas Dafnides]

16fps was the standard for Silent 35mm theatrical films. 24 fps was adopted with the adaption of sound motion pictures.

[Brian Fretwell]

16 fps was far from standard in the hand cranked camera days and I believe that in later years that silent film could have been up to 27 fps. I recently projected the silent "The General" with Buster Keaton at 24 fps and that looked to be the right speed it was muck too slow at 18fps. It was sound that standardised the 35mm filming speed.