I have a 30 fps composition, with 30 fps DXV clips, no alpha, outputting to a 60 Hz screen, 30 fps SMPTE coming in through a Focusrite Scarlett interface, 30 fps SMPTE set in preferences.
When playing the clips in Timeline mode, everything works great. Unfortunately, I need to use SMPTE, and that's where my problems start.
1. Offset calculation
For instance, I set the SMPTE start offset to 00:00:00.27. When I trigger a different clip and go back to my previous one the offset now reads 00:00:00.22 - even though I have not changed anything. Interestingly, when I click the + button it changes from 22 to 28, so it's like it remembers that it's really 27, just displays it incorrectly. It also seems to work OK, so it's not that big of an issue.
However, when I restart Resolume, things go sideways. It still claims that the offset is 00:00:00.22, but now when I click + it goes 23,24, and... 00:00:01.00. So somehow, it treats the video as 25 fps offset-wise, and it's not possible to set the offset to 26th-29th frame. The first 25 frames are still correctly timed in the 30 fps video, so if I need an offset smaller than 25th frame - everything works great. The only way to fix this is to reimport the video.
Whenever I need an offset in the range of 25-29th frame I just set the in point of the video to 0.15 (fortunately, I can do that as the videos are not looped), and than recalculate the offset. So instead of 00:00:00.27 (which would be interpreted as 00:00:01.02) I set the in point to 0.15 and then the trigger to 00:00:01.12 - it's a quick hack, but it does the job, everything plays in sync.
This tells me that there is something wrong "under the hood" regarding SMPTE frame rates, and my second problem seems to confirm that.
2. SMPTE playback smoothness
When playing a 30 fps clip locked to a 30 fps SMPTE I can see some stuttering, a couple frames dropped every second, pretty much like it was playing it as a 25 fps video. SMPTE is properly received as 30 fps, and the "clip time" counter also "goes through" all 30 fps - there are no obvious dropped frames here. Sometimes, after many restarts, copying, pasting the clip etc I can get the playback to be ultra-smooth, just like it should be, so it definitely is possible
But then, when I copy the clip, and paste it onto a new layer, with the same settings - it stutters again. I can even mix between layers with same settings, same clips, same SMPTE signal, and on one layer where the clip "magically" started working it works OK, on the other one - it doesn't.Am I missing something here? Is there any other place where 25 fps can be set, causing all this trouble and confusion?
Thank you for your help!