i shot some footage on my HDR-FX1 using the preset for CF24. why would anyone want this footage? to me it looks rather choppy nothing like film.

can someone shed some light for me? what am i missing here?

Like any other frame rate, CF24 is an aesthetic -- a stylistic choice. Some folks will like the way it looks and some won't.

I think the only thing you're missing is Sony's marketing leads people to think that CineFrame 24 would be a film simulation. It clearly isn't a very good one.

As Chris said, the CF24 can be thought of as a digital effect. If you like it, use it, if you don't, don't. But it's not really filmlike at all, that is true.

well i also have a GL2 and when i shoot in frame mode @ 30fps its rather nice. i like it, but this CF24 is really not even close. i was hoping for a non interlaced look with that CF24 but oh well.

I'm totally in agreement, CF24 might work for a talking-head interview shot, but nothing else -- the motion rendition is very erratic.

CF30 should give you a similar effect to frame mode on the GL2 though.

My student wants to use the CF24 for his film on Sunday. I'm thinking he should nix the idea and just use some software to go to 24p.

Thoughts?

heath

I've seen enough CF24 to say that nobody should ever use it who's trying to get a filmlike feel. It just doesn't work.

For software 24P conversion, what software are you thinking of -- is there one out yet? DVFilm's working on theirs but it's not out yet. I guess the full version of MB should be able to do it. Thing is, if you don't have existing software you may not be able to do it.

CF30 looks pretty good, and it gives a sort-of-filmlike feel, so CF30 may be an option to consider.

Thanks, Barry!

heath

I did some FX1 60i to 24p conversions using Film Effects, www.nattress.com and the results looked very good - very 16mm film like. The results looked a lot better than the inbuilt 24p look, which to my mind is wrong because it doesn't put the right amount of motion blur into the simulation, which makes everything it shoots look like a battle scene from Gladiator.

Graeme

Yeah, I finally got the chance to view CineFrame 24 on a large-screen HD 1080i monitor.

It's useless.

CineFrame 24 is not, in any way, a film-look effect. It's a bodge of fields that produces a stutter effect, if that's what you want, but it looks completely un-filmlike. We shot 24P on the XL2 and the DVX side-by-side with CineFrame 24 on the FX1, and the difference is jarring (as was the weird strobing double-imaging mess that is CineFrame 24).

I've heard good reports from both Graeme and Marcus about their 60i->24 conversion software, so that warrants further investigation.

But if you want to make video with a film look in-camera, forget about CineFrame 24, it's not what you want and I think it was a mistake for Sony to include it in the camera -- they probably did it for marketing purposes, to "claim" it shoots at 24fps, but it most certainly does not.

Thanks for confirming what I saw. It looked like judder-city to me. I'm pretty good at looking at a Film Look now and telling how it was done, and spotting when it's wrong. CF24 is wrong. It's very, very un-film-like. Now, how can I get Sony to buy my algorithm?? Or is it a case of "not invented here" with Sony.

Most likely it's just a quick thing they added in for the marketing dept.

Graeme

<<<-- Originally posted by Barry Green : Yeah, I finally got the chance to view CineFrame 24 on a large-screen HD 1080i monitor.

It's useless. -->>>

There are a lot of people saying this, yet I've noticed most everyone complaining about CF24 has not done the 2:3 pulldown in post to convert to 24p. CF24 is not intended to be viewed without conversion to 24fps, so I'm a little puzzled as to why people are complaining so loudly about it as they stream it out of the camera to an HDTV monitor... Of course it's going to stutter and look like crap. :?

Now, that said, I've borrowed an FX1 and have been playing with it a bunch the past few days. I'm actually getting some decent results with CF24, however, I'm getting better results with 60i to 24p conversion. The CF24 seems to over-soften the image and the blur length doesn't look right. Doing a 60i to 24p conversion still isn't as filmic as true 24p, but I can get a lot more control and detail out of the footage this way.

As I have said before in other posts, I'm going to hold off buying at least until the Z1 arrives. I'll probably wait for NAB and see if Panasonic announces anything before committing... But I think that I will be buying either a Z1 or a PAL FX1 so I can shoot in 50i. The 50i video is still the same resolution and still encoded into the same 25Mbps data rate. But with 17% fewer frames/second, the actual compression level should be noticeably lower. I'd love to get my hands on some 50i footage to play with or a 50i capable camera to test my theories.

BTW: Love your DVX book, Barry.

Glad you liked the book, Jeff!

As far as CF24 and extracting 24P -- I know what you're saying, and I've heard that argument before, but frankly that argument just doesn't work. I know people are saying it, but I just can't agree.

CF24 is an in-camera simulation of 24P that's then written to tape with 3:2 pulldown, to approximate the look of 24fps film after it's been telecine'd to tape. Both the XL2 and the DVX shoot actual 24P, then implement 2:3 pulldown and write the footage to tape simulating how film would look after having been telecine'd.

Watched side-by-side, the DVX and the XL2 look like film. The FX1 CF24 looks "wrong". It isn't in any way filmlike. Furthermore, it gets much worse: CF24 introduces a pulsing, waving quality to the video -- shoot a resolution chart and you'll see that not only doesn't CF24 render motion properly, it can't even render a still frame properly.

No matter what you do or how you use it, CF24 is not at all filmlike. It's a weird stuttery digital effect, and if you want to use it for some "gladiator"-like weird look, then that's probably okay, but as a "film simulation" it simply doesn't work.

Viewing it at raw 24P wouldn't improve things any, because it's the creation of the 24 frames where the errors occur.

As far as you getting more success with 60i->24P, that's exactly what I'd expect. Trying to convert 60i to 24p real-time, in the camera, is asking way too much, apparently. But Graeme's or Marcus' programs can take all the time they need to do the best job possible.

And as far as Z1/CF25/50i, that's where the hope for the in-camera film simulation crowd lies. CF30 looks a lot better than CF24 does, so CF25 should look very nice indeed, and the slowdown to 24P isn't much of a big deal at all. Until JVC, Panasonic or Canon introduce a high-def 24P camera, CF25->24P is the high-def way to go.

got this from mullens site http://home.earthlink.net/~dvcnyc/Sony%20HDR-FX1.htm

try this out and let us know if it fixes the "Strobing", I highlighted the most pertinant in BOLD below:


8. According to Sony USA, in CineFrame 24 mode, the camcorder uses DXP (i.e., DSP) to “synthesize a 24Hz temporal rate video from 1080i60.” According to Sony, the same intelligent deinterlacing employed in CineFrame 30, is used to create 1080 video with 30 frames-per-second. Then, according to Sony, 24fps is synthesized from the 30fps video. (Region 50 camcorders do not offer CineFrame 24.)

To record 24fps video to tape as 1080i60, pulldown must be applied. When 2:3:2:3 pulldown is applied to the 24 samples, 1080i60 video is generated. As shown in Diagram 11, 2:3:2:3 pulldown is applied to the 24 samples to generate 1080i60 video. (Six times each second, four samples are converted to five frames, yielding 30 frames.) By applying pulldown, 24fps video is carried as 1080i60 HDV video. With 2:3:2:3 pulldown, two judder frames (number 3 and number 4) are included within every five video frames.


Given the difficulty of converting 30fps to 24fps, it is possible that Sony has not yet fully disclosed how 24fps video is generated. (That may await a presentation at Sundance.) There are several alternate schemes that could be used:

a) The imaging system could be clocked at 48Hz, rather than 50Hz or 60Hz, yielding 1080i48 interlaced video. Then intelligent deinterlacing would be used to create 24 frames-per-second video that has no interlace artifacts. Once 24fps is obtained, 2:3:2:3 pull-down is applied. This would yield frames that are exactly 1/24th second apart. However, were the Sony to use this method, the available shutter-speed should be either 1/48th or 1/50th second. It is not.

b) A very intriguing possibility is that deinterlacing, rate conversion, and 2:3:2:3 pulldown are done during MPEG-2 encoding. By measuring motion between fields—using the encoder’s motion tracking logic—the following can occur:

I-frame: if “objects” do not move between fields—both even and odd lines within such objects are encoded thereby supplying these objects with full effective vertical resolution. When objects move—only their odd field is encoded so such objects have half their possible resolution.

P and B-frame: if “objects” do not move between fields—they simply are not encoded. When objects move—only their odd or even field are encoded so the objects have half their possible resolution. Fields are distributed via 2:3:2:3 pulldown in a way that results in moving objects having a frame-rate of 24fps. Naturally, the encoded video can be played on 1080i60 monitors—or down-converted to 480i or 480p. The Table below shows how this could be done.


Green text indicates fields that are copies of odd fields. Blue text indicates fields that are copies of even fields. Red text indicates judder (split) frames. The pattern of BPB above is repeated three additional times (plus a final B) in every 15-frame GOP (IBBPB BPB BPB BPB B-I).

By choosing fields from 60i interlace video that temporally match where 24fps would occur—60i video is converted to 24fps video. The period between samples that should be exactly 1/24th second apart—are not perfectly equally spaced in this implementation.

When CineFrame 24 is selected, you can must a shutter-speed 1/60th. You should not shoot in AUTO or use AE mode as the shutter-speed may rise above 1/60th and cause excessive strobing. (Unfortunately, the FX1 and Z1 do not offer the option of a 1/30th shutter-speed option.)

The advantages of Sony’s approach to 24fps video are twofold: light sensitivity is increased by 6dB (1 stop) while image noise is reduced compared to utilizing progressive scanning. It remains to be seen how the relatively high shutter-speed of 1/60th second will affect shooting for film. Shooting CineFrame 25 has the advantage of a 1/50th shutter-speed, which is very close to the typical film shutter-speed of 1/48th second.

While some may feel CineFrame 24 has a film look, the mode may best used with reverse 2:3:2:3 pulldown that can be used to recover 24 frames in each second of video.

In theory, the eye will not notice the loss of resolution because moving objects are blurred anyway. However, it remains to seen how the deinterlacer handles diagonal-lines that are in motion. Typically, these lines take on a staircase look.

Diagram 12 shows how Reverse 2:3:2:3 pulldown can be applied to CineFrame 24 video. Clearly, the four samples can be recovered.

1/60th is the slowest shutter speed the FX1 allows when shooting in CF24. Any faster would certainly make the problem worse.

I prefer the clean look that I can mess around with in post, much like I NEVER used Frame Mode or whatever on my old XL-1.

heath

I figured out a way to get the full frames out of HDR-FX1 Cineframe 24 footage.
I was able to take out the 2:3 pulldown of the m2t stream. The result of the test is dissapointing.

The result is downloadable (7.5 meg):
http://home.comcast.net/~chalbers/fx1_24ptest.mov

This is what I did:

1. I moved the m2t clip one frame-line up because hdv streams are upper field first (I have no clue why it's different from DV). This way I changed it so that lower field are first for futher tests.
2. I seperated both fields and resized them to 720*240
3. I interlaced the fields back together to 720*480 with lower field first.
4. I imported to Vegas 5.0b and changed it into a 29.9i DV avi file.
5. Then I changed my Vegas scene to 24p, imported the DV file I just created and took out the 2:3 pulldown of the footage.
6. I Exported the result into a quicktime file to view

I right away noticed the strobing on the passing biker in the 24p footage. At first I thought it was shutter speed strobing since it was probably shot with 1/60 th. But then after walking through the frames I noticed that the motion distances between frames of the biker was different and not constant. This pretty much shows it's not really shot in a 24p time base.

So much for my FX1 excitement !

Frank

It's not completely unusable, it just doesn't look like 24p. It's kind of a cool effect.

In fact, that reminded me of how directors are making battle scenes in movies these days, like Gladiator or Gangs of New York, fast and jittery.

Agreed. How "usable" CF24 is will be an individual decision each shooter makes. Some folks will choose not to use it -- yet others will. CF24 is simply an aesthetic choice and nothing more. It's a particular look. Some people will like it and some will not. It is misleading and inaccurate to call it "unusable." It is there to be used if the shooter so chooses.

OK,

Here's the part I don't get.

Sony, and just about everyone on this list have stated this camera is not a 24p camera.

Yet some how, people still like to prove that it is 24p.

READ THIS: THE CAMERA IS A 1080i - 60 CAMERA IT IS NOT 24 FRAMES, IT IS NOT PROGRESSIVE. IT IS NOT A FILM CAMERA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What the camera is is the best choice to record the highest definition image you can for a price that is unbelievable!

Celebrate what it does, don't belittle it for what it doesn't do!

DBK

Soon both Mac and PC's will have support for changing the footage from 60i to 24p. DVFilm offers Windows users 24p HDV Maker support. (www.dvfilm.com)

heath

did you read this thread about how to use CF24?

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=35776

<<<-- Originally posted by John Gaspain : got this from mullens site http://home.earthlink.net/~dvcnyc/Sony%20HDR-FX1.htm

try this out and let us know if it fixes the "Strobing", I highlighted the most pertinant in BOLD below: -->>>

I posted this before somewhere else . But since this thread is so close to it. Here are my results and attempts to take out the 24p info of the C24 in the 2:3 pulldown data.

I figured out a way to get the full frames out of HDR-FX1 Cineframe 24 footage.
I was able to take out the 2:3 pulldown of the m2t stream. The result of the test is dissapointing.

The result is downloadable (7.5 meg):
http://home.comcast.net/~chalbers/fx1_24ptest.mov

This is what I did:

1. I moved the m2t clip one frame-line up because hdv streams are upper field first (I have no clue why it's different from DV). This way I changed it so that lower field are first for futher tests.
2. I seperated both fields and resized them to 720*240
3. I interlaced the fields back together to 720*480 with lower field first.
4. I imported to Vegas 5.0b and changed it into a 29.9i DV avi file.
5. Then I changed my Vegas scene to 24p, imported the DV file I just created and took out the 2:3 pulldown of the footage.
6. I Exported the result into a quicktime file to view

I right away noticed the strobing on the passing biker in the 24p footage. It is the shutter speed strobing since it was probably shot with 1/60 th. But then after walking through the frames I noticed there was more to it. The motion distances between frames of the biker was different and not constant. This pretty much shows it's not really shot in a 24p time base.

So much for my FX1 excitement !

Frank

<<<-- Originally posted by John Gaspain : did you read this thread about how to use CF24?

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=35776 -->>>

I added this thread to that one.

What Darren said is the truth. The FX1 is an interlaced 1080i camera designed to shoot 60i. And as that, it does a really nice job -- the footage viewed on a 1080i HD monitor is very impressive. Certainly more impressive than standard-def footage up-rezzed to 1080i.

The problem is, everyone's waiting for that magical 1080/24P camera. And the FX1 isn't it, no matter how much people want it to be. And Sony's inclusion of the bogus Cineframe 24 isn't helping matters.

After several days with the camera my conclusion was: if you want to shoot interlaced "looking through a window" HDV, the FX1 is a very impressive camera for a very low price. If you want to make film-looking video, make standard-def DVD's, or other purposes, the FX1 is not the best camera for that. But if your goal is to make eye-popping high-def interlaced video, the FX1 is here now and it can make you say "wow" when used for that purpose.

The problem is not the shutter speed! There's nothing wrong or excessively stroby about shooting XL2 24P at 1/60th, or DVX 24P at 1/60th, or film at 1/60th. I've got two film cameras with 150-degree shutters, both of which deliver approximately a 1/60th shutter speed, and they look fine -- they look like film.

It's not the pulldown scheme: there's nothing about reversing the pulldown out of CineFrame 24 that's going to make it look any better. Every hollywood film is shown on NTSC televisions with 2:3 pulldown. The DVX and XL2 both add 2:3 pulldown and look plenty filmlike.

The problem is the way that CineFrame 24 tries to create its 24 frames. And there's nothing that can be done about it. Cineframe 24 is not usable for a film look.

I do think people pursuing the film look from this camera will be more satisfied with Graeme or Marcus' post solutions rather than trying to use CineFrame 24.

Ive researched this question a lot recently.

The following is the current best way to get 1080P/24 in reverse price/angst order

1 Buy FX1E, use Algolith or Procoder 2 to use Adaptive De-interlace (ADI) and slow down to 24P

cf see the stars and stripes ADI'd in the pictures in the following white paper
http://www.algolith.com/fileadmin/documents/AlgolithPlugInPR.pdf

2 Buy FX1, use Algolith or Procoder 2 to use Adaptive De-interlace to 30P, then use Algolith Timewarper (awesome) to improve frame blending when converting to 24P, see flash demo here

http://www.algolith.com/fileadmin/flash_demos/TWP/TWPDF.swf


3 Buy Cine Alta

As always I would suggest after conversion of a few frames, take them to your local print shop and have some laser printed slides made and screen them on your carousel for a resolution check.


PS CF30 and CF25 are only worthwhile for SD DVD targets

<<<-- Originally posted by John Jay :
PS CF30 and CF25 are only worthwhile for SD DVD targets -->>>

Why?

its my opinion , thats all

Or buy the 900 camera from Panasonic that does 24p SD and up-rez it to HD.

Or shoot in 1080i60 HDV and convert it using most kinds of software, like DVFilm Maker, etc.

heath

Cineframe24 sounds horrible. I'm glad we have cineframe25! It looks quite good. I have to try to capture some footage, as I've only been able to look at it on an SD television and an HD LCD monitor (the colors and motion we're poor, as usual for an LCD).

The cineframe25 at 1/50 has maybe a little bit more motion blur than progressive from DVX or XL2, but it does give it a nice film look. I used to work for a couple of months transferring film to video so I've seen a lot of real "film looks".
I usually think that progressive material is missing that feel of a mechanical shutter. Currently I think that this cineframe25 gives a little bit like a mechanical shutter feel to the picture. Ofcourse when you raise the shutter speed, you can have that jerky progressive look, but it will cost some light.

I have never before used a frame mode in a camera. I've always done some good deinterlacing in post. But it's really annoying to edit interlaced (you don't get the feel of the final movie), and this time I just might be willing to use cineframe25. But I'll just have to do some more tests and comparisons.

I'm not that worried about losing resolution, (which the cineframe25 propably does), but we'll have to test if the resolution is lost only during motion. Is cineframe25 a form of adaptive deinterlacing, where only moving stuff is deinterlaced. Isn't the cineframe25 done in the same DSP (DXP) as the MPEG encoding? This might lead me to think that it would have the info about whether there's movement on each pixel, so that it might do some sort of adaptive deinterlacing. Any thoughts?

Well, atleast everything that I've shot so far is cineframe25, cinematonegamma on, sharpness set to zero (I don't like digital sharpening).

I think it's very important to look at the facts, all the facts and nothing but the facts if we want fair comparisons for the options of the fx1 in the film-simulation field (we already know that it can make good interlace footage).
We know that CF24 is not going to do it. But I don't think that because of that we have to write the fx1 off and certainly not the whole hdv-thing. Now for the ones that have not lost all their hopes after the CF24-dissapointment, there might be a ray of hope in the CF25 function, for PAL-landers already in the FX1E, and later also for the rest of the world in the Z1. Now I think there are some important things to know from this function;

- Is it going to eat half your resolution, or is it smarter than that. I don't think we have had a definitive answer to that already. I am assuming (always dangerous!) that it works the same as CF30, but it might also not. We just need someone with a FX1E to make a good comparison test of a chart, and if you don't have one, just film something with a lot of detail with CF25 both ON and OFF (still shot - tripod).

- How is the motion. Someone reasoned that when the normal interlace video is giving problems with pans etc., the image will only be further degraded when using CF25. While this might be very true, it's still an assumption, because someone else said that because the video is de-interlaced first and then compressed to mpeg-2 (because you have the CF25 effect also on uncompressed component-out), and since mpeg-2 is better in compressing progressive footage than interlaced footage (assumption?) that the image-quality is going to benefit from this. Bottom-line is, we need comparison from someone with a fx1E here as well. To answer this problem we need some moving shots (pans) as well as still shots with moving elements with CF25 ON and OFF again.

I have the feeling that, although there was one or two posts about it, the interest to get some footage in CF25 was not very big. Probably because it's only the "pal" people who can really use this function right now, but because a lot of you Americans and other ntsc-ers are considering (or even pre-ordering) a Z1, that I assume they are also looking for some CF25 footage with great anticipation.

So the real question is: which one of you fx1E-owners is going to be a hero and will post some footage?

Hoping i'm not talking too long (or too much nonsense :)

Steven

> and since mpeg-2 is better in compressing progressive
> footage than interlaced footage (assumption?)

Yes. 4:2:0 color encoding seems to have trouble with video, but handles progressive video better. I Wonder why HDV in interlaced mode is 4:2:0 instead of 4:1:1... perhaps just to keep hardware costs lower.

Here is Adam Wilt on color sampling: http://www.adamwilt.com/DV-FAQ-tech.html#colorSampling