Canon VIXIA PF24 to 24p conversion

[David Tamés]

I've been shooting with a Canon VIXIA in PF24 mode as one of the B cameras on my current documentary.

I'd like to convert this footage for use in a 23.976p timeline in Premiere and/or Final Cut Pro 7 in order to mix the footage with our primary camera footage (Panasonic HPX170 in 24p mode). I understand Canon uses a non-standard cadence, so standard Reverse Telecine is not going to do the proper unravelling. Simple reverse telecine conversions using Adobe Media Encoder and Apple Compressor yield unsatisfactory results.

Is there a conversion utility that can be run on a Mac running Mac OS X 10.9 is available to do this? Or is there some magical combination of settings that would allow this to be done with Adobe Media Encoder or Apple's Compressor?

Can you help me with this challenge? Usually a Google search or a scan of this fine forum results in an answer to my questions, but alas, I'm not able to put my finger on a definitive answer to this one after reading through many threads. A lot of the advice out there points to software no longer available.

David.

[Nate Haustein]

Try this compressor setting. I believe it worked for my HF M41 a while back, and it does work for my C100 when recording 24p through HDMI out to a 60i recorder like the Hyperdeck. The file is zipped by the way, you want the ".setting" file.

[David Tamés]

I did a preliminary test and this seems to work. Unlike other reverse telecine settings I tried in various programs this recipe looks like it produces clean 24p footage without incorrect field to frame conversions from the canon PF24 footage. I think the secret sauce is you specify, in addition to "Reverse Telecine" in the Frame Controls, Compressor: Interlaced and Frame Rate (Custom) 23.976 in the Compressor Type settings under the Encoder tab. I'll do some more testing but my first test looks good. All other attempts showed a pattern of doubled frames on pans and this results in pans that look smooth. Thank you!

[Nate Haustein]

Glad I could help - This seems to be a common issue and it's really a rather simple solution once you figure out the right settings. A better solution, however, would be for Canon to eliminate the "PF" modes!

[Tim Lewis]

Interestingly, perhaps, the PAL land version of Vixia is the Legria. This does not come with a PF24 option, but a PF25 option, so at least it fits in with other 25p footage.

[Noam Osband]

I'm about to do this same thing with footage from my Canon XA-10 that I accidentally shot in PF24. Question: after this maneuver, is the footage as high resolution as if I shot in 24P. Is there any difference after i do this Compressor move?

[Nate Haustein]

It should be. You're really just combining fields and removing duplicate frames. It's not like you're changing the frame rate, you're just extracting it from a 60i container.