Sorry if I'm just a tad bit confused about this issue. I'm looking for some verification or clarification on this issue, and this post is probably most pertinent to folks who don't have a 24p native camera.

I've been reading almost nonstop on these modes of shooting for the past week, and I've come to some conclusions:



60i seems to be the preferred method for shooting DV when you are going to transfer to 35MM film, and also has the advantage of being easily watchable on TV without having to mess with deinterlacing. The only disadvantage here is that you have a very distinct 'video look' without deinterlacing and converting to 24p or 30p.

60i can be converted to 24p using a deinterlacer program, which you would only do if you wanted the sought after 'film look' to reproduced on TV, and has absolutely no value for 35mm considering they usually request the video in 60i format and will do their own deinterlacing and converting.

Furthermore it seems that watching a movie on your television is 30i which means the 60i to 24p you just converted to must be re-converted to 30i by using a 3:2 pulldown to be viewable on your television.

60i can also be deinterlaced and converted to 30p, although it also appears that deinterlacing 60i to 30p isn't the smoothest operation for fast moving scenes.
60i to 30P can be done 'In camera' by a few prosumer camcorders, however you lose the 60i format then and are subjected to the limitations of 30p.

This 60i to 30p can be watched on your television without any further converting, and offers a slightly different look compared to the 24p to 30i reconversion.

Of course if you happen to have a DVX100 or the 100a version, you can shoot in 24P or 24Pa which can then be sent to a 35mm film format 'as-is', which is very convenient.

24P can also be watched on the television after being reconverted to 30i as stated above.

30P is great for television, but appears to be a headache for 35mm film conversion. I've so far heard very few film companies will convert 30P to 35mm film. What happens if you shoot a movie in 30P and suddenly find it has huge appeal and you want to see it on a theatre screen? It seems you options are a bit more limited.

Overall it looks as though 60i gives the best flexability with the single drawback of extra processing time if you wish to add the 'film-look' for television viewing.

You always have the option to send your movie to 35mm, you can convert it to 24p or 30p so it can be viewed on television if you need the 'film look', or you can simply watch it 'as-is'.

Does this seem like a reasonable summary of the issue?

Arrrgh. All of this technical speak takes the fun out of it.

What camera are you using/plan to use?

What are your intentions?

Everyone seems so concerned about blowing up to 35mm prints. I own a DVX and always shoot in 24p mode but do not have any intent (yet) or plans to get it on a 35mm big screen.

as you already know 60 i converts to 30p, 24p, 25pal , 24fps /25fps film very good ( with good software/hardware).

30p is excellent viewing on NTSC or digital projection .. but is problem converting to film , PAL , 24p ... if you shot someting 30p and it needs to go to film then it will come out the best it can - if there is alot of motion or camera movement then you'll have alot of artifacts .. if it is talking heads then there will be very few artifacts ... IMO the future is digital projection and digital projectors can play all formats so 30p would play excellent at 30fps- infact i'll even state that after veiwing 24p projected at 24fps VS 30p projected at 30fps i'll go with 30p - i found motion/movement smoother then 24fps ( 24p) ...
remember that when you view FILM on the big screen the projectors have either 2 or 3 bladed shutters so the light is broken ( flashed) 48 or 72 times per second

Isn't there a confusion here? 30i is 15fps or 15p if it's progressive frames. No ones using that. Regular NTSC is 60i or approx 29,97fps. Are you confusing 60i with 60fps? There are two fields interlaced for each video frame -- hence the 60i/30fps expression.

The best way to get video on to film is to shoot 24p. The second best is to shoot PAL/50i/25fps. Getting 29,97 onto film is the hardest of them all and ultimately a bad equation.

Hi Martin,

Yes, there definitely is a bit of confusion here. Some people refer to interlaced NTSC television as "30i". That is a misnomer, as far as I'm concerned, and the major manufacturers seem to have all adopted "60i" as the proper nomenclature. The "30i" name seems to be popular among Avid users and Avid software, but Panasonic and Sony both call it "60i", and I believe 60i is the more accurate term.

30P = 30 Progressive-scanned frames per second
60i = 60 interlaced fields per second
30i = confusion. But, to interpret, usually when people say 30i they're meaning the same thing as 60i. They phrase it as "30 interlaced FRAMES per second".

Now, to be picky, your usage of 29.97 also adds a little confusion, since that number is typically understood to be the NTSC video rate (which historically has been interlaced). Basically all editing programs have referred to an NTSC 29.97 timeline, and it's always been interlaced video. So 29.97 carries all the connotations of being the same as 60i. And 60i is not hard to transfer to film at all -- it transfers very well. 30P is the one that doesn't transfer worth a darn. (I know you knew that, and I know that's what you meant when you said 29.97, but again, just trying to clear a path through the potential confusion here!)