I'm just getting started w/ the HV20 and am using Vegas 7c and the demo version of Cineform HDLink. I have tried to remove pulldown by both converting and by direct capture in HDLink. I have very fast-moving footage and I can see significant ghosting. Is this due to interlacing, or could this be motion blur with 24p recording? The frame rate does end up being 24fps, but I really think Cineform is having issues with interlacing or detecting the wrong cadence. What settings are people using for conversion or direct capture with Cineform HDLink? The output 24fps files definitely don't look progressive and ghosting is rediculous.
Thanks for the help in advance.

Marc,

What shutter speed/settings did you use? can you post a frame or a few seconds of footage.

I haven't manually changed many of the settings. From the box, I put the camcorder in 24p mode and used the Cinema setting.

I'll post some frames and/or footage when I get home later tonight. I really don't think it is motion blur, because there are no tails on the image. It is more like seeing a ghost from a analog tv air signal that has been reflected. If I step through the footage, and someone is moving fast I can see where they were the frame before. I am obviously new to this forum, so can you tell me the best way to post attachments?

Marc,

With the 3:2 pulldown filter active, HDLink has been confirmed to work with the HV20. If would like us to see the image, upload a few second long motion clip to yousendit.com as we can see if the issue if the shooting practice or the pulldown removal.

Thanks for the site reference. Like I said, I will definitely do that later tonight. Are the settings regarding interlaced, progressive, or automatic relevant in this situation? Also, do I need to tell it to deinterlace 1080i. I have tried various combinations and am seeing some improvements in different situations, but it still looks like interlaced to me. I guess I will have to just let you experts take a look at my frames. Thanks for the responses!

Marc,

No de-interlace is needed if you shoot progressive. Pulldown has obvious cadence. Capture a short M2T with no conversion, then using the convert tab convert with the pulldown off then convert again with the pulldown on -- then compare. View in a tool that will show you 1:1 pixels like VirtualDub, and you will see the difference.

Okay. I have been using media player classic to step through the frames. I'll let you know the results. Thanks.

Marc

I'm just getting started w/ the HV20 and am using Vegas 7c and the demo version of Cineform HDLink. I have tried to remove pulldown by both converting and by direct capture in HDLink. I have very fast-moving footage and I can see significant ghosting. Is this due to interlacing, or could this be motion blur with 24p recording? The frame rate does end up being 24fps, but I really think Cineform is having issues with interlacing or detecting the wrong cadence. What settings are people using for conversion or direct capture with Cineform HDLink? The output 24fps files definitely don't look progressive and ghosting is rediculous.
Thanks for the help in advance.

Marc, is your playback time line in Vegas is set to 23.976 or 24 frames/sec? You will see ghosting in your video editor if the time line doesn't perfectly match the footage.

Marc, is your playback time line in Vegas is set to 23.976 or 24 frames/sec? You will see ghosting in your video editor if the time line doesn't perfectly match the footage.Derek, which one are you suggesting to use (24 or 23.976)?

Very few camera under $20k shoot 24p exactly, SI-2K mini is the only one I know of, all other "24p" cameras shoot at 23.976p. You timeline should match the camera's frame rate.

I understand to match the frame rate in Sony Vegas.

I did notice the problem after exporting from Vegas, but then went back and was only looking at the .avi files captured/converted with HVLink. I have therefore narrowed down the problem to my camera or software capture/conversion settings. It has nothing to do with Vegas. Thanks for the suggestion though.

Okay, there is some really weird stuff going on. I have a feeling that this problem is due to a scene change and possibly the cadence got tricked or something. I'm about to post the mpeg original, converted avi w/o pulldown removed, and converted avi w/ pulldown removed.

Marc,

With the 3:2 pulldown filter active, HDLink has been confirmed to work with the HV20. If would like us to see the image, upload a few second long motion clip to yousendit.com as we can see if the issue if the shooting practice or the pulldown removal.

Hi David. How do you activate the 3:2 pulldown filter in HD link? I have Aspect 4.3 (I think that's it-just updated last week). Do I have to "activate 3:2 pulldown in Aspect as well? I just had Aspect capture into PPro as progressive. It still shows on the clip properties as 29.97fps. Should it be 23.97? The output to DVD looked very good, very little artifacting. Thanks - PK

Origina mpeg captured in Sony Vegas.
http://download.yousendit.com/717721DD0C954D08

Avi Pulldown Removal Enabled
http://download.yousendit.com/07EC2100006516B8

Avi Pulldown Removal Disabled
http://download.yousendit.com/4DF5768B34FC3DE6

Paul,

In HDLink on the Preferences page, set checkbox for "Remove 3-2 Pulldown ..." Then you will extract 24p (if you shot that way.)

Marc,

The pulldown is working fine. The very first few frames the IVT routine has to hunt for cadence and it will deinterlace during that time (upto 7-8 frames only.) After that you have perfect 24p. If your clip did start with so much motion, you may not even have notice. This IVT is designed for live data, that is way it works so well for HDMI 24P sources, so it doesn't search ahead like AE does (slow.) Try a ranges of clips (and longer ones) and I think you will like it.

I'll try some longer ones, but I really think that these types of artifacts were persistent for a while. They weren't like this for only a few seconds, more like minutes. I'll try it on some other clips. I think this one is just a little odd for some reason.

The image you posted is correct on the 8th frame onwards. Happy to look at other clips.

I'll try to post another shortly. Continuing on this one.

Thanks for your help.

Will you take a look at this one? It is almost 100mb.

It is an extended (funny) version of the short clips I sent you. It was captured in Vegas and then converted in HDLink with pulldown removal enabled.

http://www.yousendit.com/download/WUJaSlIzTmEzS28wTVE9PQ

I don't know if it the media player classic/ffd show I am using to watch it, but I distinctly see artifacts in the wild girl's face. I can see lines where it was in a previous frame. Can anyone else comment?

The pulldown has worked correctly. I single stepped the whole sequence in VirtualDub, there are no blended frame artifacts after frame 7. There are some MPEG compression artifacts that are typical for such a heavy motion sequence. The only slightly frame cross talk is in chroma due to 4:2:0 nature of 60i HDV MPEG. In the Canon XL H1 using 24F mode, the frames are encoded progressively, so the x:2:0 chroma signature, which averages chroma line pair will not introduce any cross talk. In the HV20 the 24p signal is encoded as 60i, yet the chroma is actually encoding as if the data was 30p -- 4:2:0 only has one line of chroma value for each scan line pair. As pairs of scanlines can come from different frames due to the pulldown, this can lead to chroma cross talk. In a 60i sequence, 5 frames are extracted to 4 producing 24p, only one of these 4 frames has a chroma signal with cross talk (need a diagram here.) Check out frame 161, the red of her bottom lip on the right hand edge has some chroma shear or crosstalk. The next frame frames are fine, yet frame 165 has some (harder to see) crosstalk. This is not the fault of the pulldown, it is enherent in 60i encoding of 24p at 4:2:0 -- this is the one case where 4:1:1 would be preferable. More proof can be obtained by viewing the image as luma only, you will no longer see the crosstalk. Fortunately our eyes is such a slave to luma, this not apparent in the final viewing conditions. Now for keying work this can be a pain, for that you should use HDMI from an Intensity card (once Blackmagic has worked out the HV20) and capture live. Also another reason of those on the fence to get NEO HDV or HD. :) The HDMI output is 4:2:2, and therefore doesn't have any chroma frame crosstalk.

Should a write this up with diagrams? May I use your images (with credit of course)?

Thanks for the detailed explanation. I am happy to know that everything is working (as it should) so that I can move forward and start the editing process for my clips. HDMI out will be a great solution assuming someone addresses this with a portable device.

You have my permission to use this clip. A diagram would be interesting and beneficial, but is by no means required. I do have some background in digital video as I took a digital video electrical engineering course at Stanford. So, if you are going to make it for demonstration purposes to show others, I would like to see it as well. Thanks again for your help. Looks like I'll be upgrading to the full version when my trial runs out. Thanks again, Marc

I'm trying to use HDLink to convert HV20 M2T's > cineform (direct capture crashes in Vista). I select pulldown removal, and get 24fps but the video looks interlaced on motion. It only looks right when I also select "deinterlace 1080i and dv sources" and pulldown at the same time.

I shot in 24p, why do I still need to check the deinterlace box? Am I loosing quality by doing this?

Also - is there a noticable quality difference between cineform medium and high quality?

Thanks

Ario,

You should not need to deinterlace progressive footage, and yes that will lower the quality. Post a short M2T clip and I will verify that you have a 24p source. Use yousendit.com or similar. We know this works, we just need to determine why it is not working for you.

Medium vs High, that is up to you; both are designed to look good.

Here's the raw M2T file that I recorded in 24p mode on my Canon HV20 in TV mode (low shutter speed intentional for slow effect). I have to turn on the "remove 1080i interlace" and remove pulldown functions to make it look right when converting to cineform. If I don't check remove interlace and convert - I get bad interlacing.

http://anivo.com/m2t/interlaced24p.m2t (right click save)

OK, seems that shutter at 1/6 of second is throwing off the pulldown removal. Please test with 24p rather than 6p. :) We will investigate the ultra slow frame rate.