Scene Locations in Scenarist - to dropframe or not

[D3s7]

After playing with a few different apps I've found the following as far as scene locations.

Apps such as SceneAid / ScenImport (RB's scenarist hook) when importing scene locations take the IFO location for cells (from the IFO or from ifoupdate files or DVD decrypter files) and uses them directly (or applying drop frame in the case of ScenImport) resulting in a new scene location. (Original with drop frame applied)

ScenChap on the other hand takes the same locations and applies a REVERSE drop frame on them.. thus when scenarist imports, drops the scene in the EXACT (+/- iframe locations) location as the original IFO thus nullifying drop frame on the timeline.

I would say based of what I've read/seen - the prior method is correct... the scene locations from original IFO needs to be adjusted for drop frame, however after the year(s) people have been using Ifoupdate+scenchap to import scenes (especially for vobid demux) I have to ask which method is the proper way to do it.

As I can't really find anything one way or the other disputing or agreeing with either method, I'm opening it up here for discussion.

[D3s7]

Well seeing how I started the thread I suppose I should post my findings :)

The following is the 'correct' way of scene locations

1) The scene location in Scenarist should have drop frame applied to them. If it doesn't, the "drop frame" calcs are lost adjusting the scene back - what does this mean? It means if your doing this via script, the scene locations in the scene should be those in the IFO - scenarist will apply drop frame automagically on import- If you are using an app like ScenImport, make sure to check the "Drop Frame" option when importing scene times (the scene/cell locations generated by DVD decrypter and/or ifoupdate are based off 29.97FPS however Scenarist will auto apply drop frame when importing)

2) The Scene locations NEED to be accompanied by the appropriate I-frame placement (based off setting chapter locations in BatchCCE / DoCCE4U) - in the case of ReAuthorist/ ScenAid - these should be done per CELL not just Per CHAPTER which is the default - So what's the trick to this? well the trick to this is you can't just dump in the cell locations for cells/chapters into BatchCCE directly, If your assets are being encoded at 23.976 (requires pull down) then you must adjust your cell locations TO a 23.976 number - this can be done simply by taking CELL_LOC / 1.25 - while this number isn't exact, it's close enough (within 1-3 frames) - why do this? This is so when the encoded asset is 'pulled down' the scene locations are adjusted to the correct location

As a side note (free push for ScenAid) I'm also happy to say that now ScenAid does both of the above resulting in the Authored IFO's scene locations being almost identical to the original IFO (+/- a few frames do to exact I-Frame and drop frame locations)

[HyperYagami]

Just some extra info for you...

These might not be true anymore since I stopped upgrading most of my big3 apps, but AFAIK RA uses drop frame, and Scenarist while importing subtitles uses drop frame as well (even if you set the default to non-drop frame). DVD Decrypter newer version (3.1.5 and above) doesn't match the chapter points given by IFOEdit anymore (which I don't remember which one is which) and several of my 1st projects were totally screwed up because of that (chapter points based on non-drop frame timecodes). I've seen a bunch of "scene-releases" DVD are screwed up just like that as well (Matrix 2 & 3 for example).

[D3s7]

Your right... RA does it correctly and Scenarist does some funky sudo-drop frame application on subs but it's not a pure DF

The timecodes in DVDDecrypter are also correct now.

Biggest issue I was pointing out that I found while tempting is for those of us who use/used IFOUpdate's cell info with ScenChap, that is incorrect

[BBWoof]

As a slight aside, the next version of BatchCCEWS has the option to search for Cell Information text file before looking for the Chapter Information text file. If it's found, it will import the cell positions as chapters.

BBWoof