If you’re shooting 24fps video with a device like a Nikon D90, an old DVX-100, or some other camera that can shoot 24fps, and trying to 3D track it with PFHoe, you may get crappy results when importing the .ma file into AE. Here’s a quick fix that may work for you.

The problem I kept having with this footage, is that the track looked perfect in PFHoe, but then when I exported to AE, something was off. The track lined up perfectly with the shot on frame one, but then got gradually worse, until it was totally off. I discovered that the problem is with how PFHoe exports .ma files. Apparently for 24fps footage, it defaults to exporting the .ma file tagged as if it were 29.97 NTSC footage.

Here’s how to manually fix the .ma file:

Open the .ma file in notepad, and look at the top few lines:

//Maya ASCII 4.0 scene
// Generated by PFHoe-Pro 2.2r2-100325

requires maya “4.0″;
currentUnit -l m -a deg -t ntsc;

Change the above bold line to this:

currentUnit -l m -a deg -t 24;

Now import your footage to AE again. You should see the track sync up perfectly with your footage now. Please let me know in the comments below if this has helped any of you get your 24fps footage exported from PFHoe to After Effects.