What frame rate is this? Every frame duped?
 

Hi!

Hoping this might be simple for you guys to figure out. I have some old raw DV footage that was captured quite a while back from a Digital8 tape, but it appears every other frame is duplicated.

I'm trying to edit it in Final Cut Pro (I'm on a Mac), but can't figure out what to do to get rid of the duplicated frames. I've tried all custom frame rates it lets you try and none get ride of duplicated frames. Any clue what is up with these files? Here is the mediainfo from the file:

Were they de-interlaced at some point of time, Maybe a bad de-interlacing job where fields are turned into frames by creating even lines from odd lines, I think it's called bob de-interlacing if I'm not mistaken. Without a full history of these files I'm afraid no one can help you, But do post a short sample maybe someone will have a clue.

Thanks for the idea!

I'm not sure of the specific camera that recorded it, but this is footage taken directly from a D8 tape that was given to me about 20ish years ago. The import was done a while back though, most likely using iMovie? It's footage from some basement gig.

Here is a link to a short clip (Careful, the audio is LOUD)... maybe someone knows how to fix it properly:
https://we.tl/t-8Y7C5LZt5Dn

I'm afraid there is no magical fix for this, You can use some script that does some AI frame temporal interpolation to smooth out the jerkiness but half of the video information is lost forever, you can't get it back. If you still have the tape you can redo it properly on a PC platform, Mac was never intended for this kind of work.

Big bummer to hear this.

I do indeed still have the tape, and I just tried importing it again using a TRV130 w/ firewire to my MacBook Pro to Final Cut X and also tried with Quicktime 7 Pro, both imports show the same doubled frames.

Do you suspect the tape has the other frames, and my Mac is just ignoring them? What kind of things would you try on a PC to import this differently?

I'm thinking it was shot that way.

Me too, I started to think the original material is progressive at half the legal frame rate of NTSC.

Are there camcorders that film like this? I’m trying to figure out why this happened to this footage in the first place..

Yes, and many other res/framerates. SLR cameras, camcorders, phones, etc. Many codecs, but generally DV, MJPEG, H.264, few others.

The original material must have been 24p and mastered into DV 30i, or shot with a semi pro DV camcorder that had the option 24p in a scheme called progressive segmented frame (PsF), Basically it records interlaced fields from a progressive frame, The best thing you can really do is leave alone in my opinion.

Thank you all for your insight, I appreciate it! Now I know that it just is what it is and to move onto other things. Thanks again!!

Its a stretch, but...

I don't know if there were any D8 camcorders that recorded in a "progressive" mode into the interlaced DV format, but I know there were miniDV camcorders that did. I think (not really sure) this could have given the effect you are seeing. Once recorded onto a miniDV tape the DV "file" could have been directly transferred to a D8 tape, digital to digital via direct firewire/i-Link/IEEE1394 cable.

Here's a brochure for one such miniDV camcorder:

Ya know, maybe you’re onto something! I would be surprised if the guy who gave me this tape gave me his master… maybe he did a transfer like that for me? He forgot he even gave me a tape when I asked him if he still had any old tapes around (he does not, said he trashed them, sadly)