Hi guys,

Firstly I'm sorry if this topic already covered, but I couldn't find that would answer my question fully.

I don't understand all the fuss of 25p. I got a 5d mark 2 file from a friend of mine and can successfully:

1. put it directly into a hdv1080i50 timeline (have to render)
2. transcode it to hdv1080p50 using mpegstreamclip and put it into hdv1080i50 (don't have to render)

Can't you just do that and have great footage on dvd? I haven't tried it though. I assume it will be ok.

I'm about to buy the mark 2 but would love to know any challenges that I'm up against.

Thanks in advance

Santo

Santo,

While this will work, it will typically drop frames. The motion will stutter. In some NLEs, rather than drop frames, it will blend them, resulting in too much motion blur and ghosts.

The result might be good enough for you personally (and for many, many users), but it might not be accepted in broadcast or professional applications.

While the quality will be better with the camera shooting 25p, if it looks good to you and your audience, enjoy the results and don't worry about it. :) If it looks good enough, it is!

Play that footage back frame by frame and you will notice every sixth frame is missing (30p has become 25p by simply throwing 5 frames away each second). Depending on the material, the effect ranges from mildly distracting to really unpleasant.

As a test, I tried to sneak a few seconds of material conformed to 25p this way (amongst 9 minutes of material I had painstakingly transfered to 25p using HQ settings in compressor). When the client saw the rough cut, he immediately exclaimed "something's strange about that shot, what is it?" He couldn't put his finger on the problem, but he knew there was something odd about it.