25p to DVD, that clunky power zoom and slow motion

[James Hollingsworth]

I have recently acquired an EA50 and a VG30. I am pleased with how they are working although can't seem to get the power zoom to start smoothly when using the rocker so the nice slow zoom is pretty pointless if it starts off with a clunk. Anyone have any tips to avoid this? My second question is regarding shooting in 25p and then outputting to DVD. I shot some footage in 25p that looks great and is fine when viewed as an mp4 or on blu ray but on DVD on a couple of shots I get some horrid jagged edges. I used FCP7 and Pros Res LT to edit before exporting from the timeline as per the sequence settings and then using compressor to create a 90 min optimum quality file for use with DVD Studio Pro. I am guessing the problem is something to do with the 25p and that perhaps I wouldn't have the same problem if I had shot 50i. Any solutions for outputting 25p to DVD?
Last question I have is if I plan on slowing down footage to 50% speed, am I best using 25p or 50i or doesn't it make any difference. I know 50p is obviously best but I don't think my FCP7 would like it!

[James Manford]

I asked the same question.

Which is more intensive 50p 1080p or 50p 720p for that specific reason as I've come to the realisation I actually use a lot of slow motion. But I don't know if my PC will be able to handle it and if it can't handle 1080p 50p ... considering I give DVDs will recording in 720p make a significant difference in quality?

[James Hollingsworth]

What about between 25p and 1080i. Is one better than the other for slow motion?

[Justin Turner]

We only got our ea50 the other day and i spent the last couple of hours shooting pans and sliding shots as well as normal shots on 1920x1080 in both 50i and 50p then making a clip in normal speed and 50% slow motion. All put on a 1920x1080 50i timeline. I also added some footage from a dslr which can only shoot 25p i put this on the same 50i timeline.

This was exported in Edius as a 1920x1080 50i avi then that file was opened as a new project at 720x576 50i which i could then burn straight to dvd.

The 25p footage when slowed down 50% falls apart and both 50i and 50p looks great at normal speed and 50% slow motion.

So if you are wanting slow motion stay away from 25p. Im no expert just testing same thing today. I just cant see the difference in the 50i to 50p i thought 50p would be better but maybe because its getting converted to interlaced it doesnt matter if going to dvd? I would say if you are only exporting to dvd then the 720 size would look fine but shooting hd would allow you to have a higher res file in case needed for bd etc.

Again im learning as i go but hope this helps.

[James Hollingsworth]

Thanks for your post Justin, interesting to hear about your tests, I will no doubt be discovering the same sort of thing as I go on. I have always shot 50i using a Z1 up until now and have always had brilliant results when slowing the footage down. However, I was hoping to start shooting 25p now as I prefer the look when the footage has not been slowed down, but it seems that one can't have the best of both worlds. Does anyone out there regularly shoot at 25p and have no problem in slowing the footage when required?

[Chris Harding]

I still shoot everything in 50i and have no issues with either quality nor slowmo ...I slow my stedicam shoots down just a small amount and the end result is always nice.

My worry for high motion footage in 25P would be blur!! On the stedicam I'm doing 360 runarounds and I suspect that would blur a bit ...If you want to shoot progressive then simply go to 50P for slomo stuff

Chris

[Mike Beckett]

+1 for what Chris says.

50p is surely better for slow-mo? If you shoot 25p, getting slow motion will require frames to be interpolated/blended, effectively the software has to "make up" what isn't there. OK, you can get better results with Twixtor or other software, but that's not exactly drag and drop, and it's still having to generate what it thinks the in-between frames are.

Shooting 50p and putting it in a 25p timeline (at 50% speed) should give you slower motion at good quality. It's not "making up" the in-between frames. You can just drop the 50p footage straight onto a 25p timeline anyway for normal footage and it should still look as good as native 25p footage.

It's always worked for me!

[James Manford]

Sounds re-assuring.

Think I will start filming at 50p from now then for the sake of slow motion.

I do provide blurays so need the best quality possible.

[Peter Rush]

Originally Posted by James Hollingsworth

I have recently acquired an EA50 and a VG30. I am pleased with how they are working although can't seem to get the power zoom to start smoothly when using the rocker so the nice slow zoom is pretty pointless if it starts off with a clunk. Anyone have any tips to avoid this? My second question is regarding shooting in 25p and then outputting to DVD. I shot some footage in 25p that looks great and is fine when viewed as an mp4 or on blu ray but on DVD on a couple of shots I get some horrid jagged edges. I used FCP7 and Pros Res LT to edit before exporting from the timeline as per the sequence settings and then using compressor to create a 90 min optimum quality file for use with DVD Studio Pro. I am guessing the problem is something to do with the 25p and that perhaps I wouldn't have the same problem if I had shot 50i. Any solutions for outputting 25p to DVD?
Last question I have is if I plan on slowing down footage to 50% speed, am I best using 25p or 50i or doesn't it make any difference. I know 50p is obviously best but I don't think my FCP7 would like it!

James - frame your shot a little tighter than you need it - zoom out just a touch (to get over the clunk) and start your shot from there - when you zoom out now it will be a smooth start - works for me every time.

Regarding your second question don't shoot 25p if wanting to slow it down - that's one of the reason's I tried and then dumped the 5D3 - you want to shoot either 50p (which I do) or 50i

[James Hollingsworth]

Thank you Peter. Was out on a shoot yesterday and didn't have as many problems as I thought with the zoom, I will have a go at what you mentioned though. Noted your points on frame rate, guess slowing down 25p would just create too much blur. In reference to my first question, has anyone had trouble burning 1080 25p to DVD?

[Chris Harding]

Hi James

In most NLE's the footage would need to be de-interlaced if it was 50i and in Sony Vegas I let the program do that for me so effectively the footage on the timeline is 25P anyway ..I also mix in GoPro footage which is straight 1080 25P and gives me no issues at all.

In Vegas what I do is always add a Sony Sharpen plugin to the whole timeline but leave the sharpening at zero! I have no idea how this helps with going down to MPEG2 SD but shucks it works a treat and I alway get stunning MPEG2's for DVD output. Other NLE's might be different but that's the way I have always done it and the results are always way better than I imagine .... brides will often tell me how clear the picture is. That's just my way of doing things but it IS important to strip interlacing if you shoot anything in 50i cos the field order in HD is opposite to SD and the last thing you need is interlacing lines resized along with the SD footage ..you will end up with jaggies all over!! I have no idea how FPC7 does it at all!!

Chris

[Marlon Martins]

used my camera today for the first sime, everything went well, except the power zoom lever. sometimes it give a very fast zoom then slow down out of nowhere. trying to start with a smooth zoom does not always work.

all the times happens with the lens on wide, like, at 18mm and slowly press the zoom lever, it give a "kick" zoom then slow down. sometimes, if i press the lever very fast it go very fast (faster then the max speed) to about 15% of the zoom range and stop. keep pressing the lever does not keep the zoom going. releasing and pressing again make it work.

tried using the lever in fixed speed, same thing. using the lens "zoom slider" (on the side of the lens) works fine, in any of the 3 speeds. the handle zoom also works fine. only the hand rocker does this.

hope is something fixable via firmware, cause really would sucks a brand new camera with a hardware defect :(

[Chris Harding]

Hi Marlon

What menu settings do you have for the power zoom??? My zoom rocker is smooth as silk on both cameras ..however I have noticed that compared to last year's Panasonics, you need to press the rocker down a lot further to start zooming ...after that mine is very controllable ..I do however ONLY do very slow creep zooms and only at wedding cake cutting and document signing ..other than that my zoom is only used for framing shots

Chris

[Craig Marshall]

BluRay is an 8 bit 4:2:0 50i medium so for best picture quality for BD release with the VG20/30ir EA50, shoot HD 50i, not 50 P. The best way to explain this technically, is to quote from an engineering friend of mine:

"This (ie: 50p/60p) is what gives it that tiny bit of jerkiness. It is tied up with shutter speeds and is apparent in all moderately priced electronic cameras. The higher end and thus more expensive ARRI Alexa and RED cameras apply an electronic shutter filter to the image. This has the effect of dissolving, if you will, between the original and the filtered image, resulting in a more smoother transition between the on/off shutter or exposure. This is done I believe around the 12Hz region.

One of the advantages of 50i/60i material is the fact that any movement of the frame through say panning is shared across 2 fields albeit half vertical resolution per field but the movement is smoother so I think you will get far better results using 50i/60i as your record format and less encoding artefacts during BD production. Temporal aliasing is not anywhere as noticeable using 50i/60i as well which is why broadcasters prefer it. Full resolution Progressive frames or Progressive Sequential Field recordings both exhibit the problem but interlacing results in a halving of the movement within a frame over 2 fields.

"...high frequency details (trees and leaves particularly) really pushes the ability of the sensor to charge and discharge at 50p/60p whereas halving this high frequency with 50i/60i recordings, minimises the aliasing requirements. 50P/60P recordings are wonderful, don't get me wrong but they really shine as static images rather than pans or where there is fast action contained within the frame. This is why the higher end cameras use shutter filtering circuits."

[James Hollingsworth]

Hi Craig,

Thanks for your coherent reply. I am currently shooting 50i but it all seems a little disappointing to me. Sure the image is fine but all those years shooting with a Z1 and then waiting for the moment to get new equipment and hopefully be able to achieve a more filmic look with 25p and it seems it is plagued with trouble and I end up going back to 50i anyhow. Do you think there is a workflow possible in 25p for a final outcome on both DVD and Blu-ray? Does anyone regularly shoot 25p? I feel I might as well have stayed with the Z1.