Can someone explain the 24fps process for H1?

[Joe Desmond]

I don't get this whole 24F stuff. I've been looking, have searched here, have read bits from the owners manual.

I want 24p, or 24 frames per second. And I want to shoot at 1/48th.

What settings would I use if I wanted to shoot on MiniDV tape?

24F with HDV?

Then what are my options to edit it? I understand FCP doesn't have many options. What about any PC solutions?

I just want to shoot with the highest/best resolution and quality that I can and not have to worry about shooting with the wrong settings.

Can someone simply explain to me the basic options? Thanks. Sorry in advance :0

[John Cordell]

Because of the CCDs of the XL-H1 are interlaced, Canon doesn't call its 24P mode 24P -- they call it 24F. Which is short for 24 frames per second. Everyone who's seen it seems to be happy that it's motion characteristics are indistinguishable from 24P. There is an open question as to how they get 24F. It's known to start with 48i, which is why the mode does so well, and isn't at all like the jumpy in-camera pseudo-24p that a 60i based camera might try and pass off as 24p.

Anyway, the 24F mode is basially 24P. Looks like it, works like it. You can shoot with the camera in that mode and get a miniDV tape with an HDV 24F signal on it. At the moment you'll need to capture such a tape using the camera itself, because the format for Canon's 24F HDV on tape isn't supported by any other decks/cameras.

Us FCP users are also waiting for native 24F support from an upcoming update to FCP. No news as to when that might happen. In the mean time, there are several workarounds to getting that footage into FCP and onto a 24fps timeline that doesn't require rendering.

a) FCP can read the 24F mode if you capture with FCP using the "HDV Apple intermediate codec" method of capturing.

b) There are some free utilities that can capture 24P and convert it into any coded you'd like to edit on. DVCPRO HD seems to be a commonly liked solution.

c) If you have an HD capture card (Kona, Decklink) that takes HD-SDI, you can capture using that signal and encode into the codec of your choice.

d) There is a non-free utility HDVxDV that can capture 24F as well.

As far as PC solutions, I haven't been following that so much, but I know they exist.

Hope this helps. To all: if I've made any mis-statements above please chime in and correct them.

[Peter Moore]

Sounds like the answer is it starts with 48i and then uses intelligent de-interlacing which probably incorporates a very small amount of motion blur to get 24"p". So you lose some effective resolution. But it's far better than anything else out there right now in the price range and I'm sure it's better resolution than JVC's 720/24p.

[John Benton]

Originally Posted by John Cordell

a) FCP can read the 24F mode if you capture with FCP using the "HDV Apple intermediate codec" method of capturing.

John -
How do you Capture 24F in FCP?
I am recording in 24F, Streaming into Final Cut -
I use the HDV Apple intermediate codec under the Captur preset
But the Sequence preset I have a choice of HDV 1080/60i....or 720/30
neithe of which is working on the latest FCP
...or are you putting it into a different kind of sequence?
Thanks,
J

[John Cordell]

Originally Posted by John Benton

John -
How do you Capture 24F in FCP?
J

You know, it's not something that I've been doing regularly, it was just one of a fairly large matrix of things I've tried at one point or another. Basically I set capture to "HDV Apple Intermediate Codec" and capture worked. What I don't remember, or may not even have tried, is what sequence settings might be required in order to edit such footage. As I recall, I tried it because someone else on this board had posted the info.

[Barlow Elton]

From my experiences, you can't actually capture 24F in the FCP 60i HDV capture preset. The capture window shows skippy footage and it's unworkable. I haven't tried AIC yet, although because it's transcoding the m2t's via Firewire, I wouldn't be too surprised if it actually works.

Some people have had some success using HDVxDV to capture the m2t streams off of HDV tape, then using MPEG Streamclip or HDVxDV to convert it to a Quicktime intra-frame codec like DVCPRO HD, AIC, PhotoJPEG or even uncompressed.

MPEG Streamclip will take the m2t's and convert them to 23.98 DVCPRO HD or other codecs. This is probably the cheapest and most effective way of getting 24F material into a proper 24p timeline.

I cut one of my Sundance pieces in a 1080i DVCPRO HD timeline, even though the material was 24F within a 1080i stream. It looked fine .

Bottom line: There's no simple solution for 24F editing in FCP right now. There are fairly solid workarounds, but as of right now there is no way to ingest the 24F directly into the computer as 24p footage. It's always in that 1080i wrapper no matter what, but you can get around this barrier fairly easily if you're willing to put up with some transcoding time.

[Xavier Etown]

"Some people have had some success using HDVxDV to capture the m2t streams off of HDV tape, then using MPEG Streamclip or HDVxDV to convert it to a Quicktime intra-frame codec like DVCPRO HD, AIC, PhotoJPEG or even uncompressed.

MPEG Streamclip will take the m2t's and convert them to 23.98 DVCPRO HD or other codecs. This is probably the cheapest and most effective way of getting 24F material into a proper 24p timeline."

Barlow,

How would getting a DVCPRO-HD file via MPEG Streamclip differ versus using the Kona card via component output? I assume the file properties would differ significantly, but will both be 4:2:2? DVCPRO-HD via component output and Kona would seem to be the cleanest, easiest, fastest way to achieve this.

[John Cordell]

Originally Posted by Xavier Etown

How would getting a DVCPRO-HD file via MPEG Streamclip differ versus using the Kona card via component output?

One big difference is that the video will have gone through an entire DA and then AD round trip (because the component outputs are an analog signal), something that you'd really want to avoid. Using the HD-SDI output, however would stay in the digital domain and would be fine.

[Joe Desmond]

Originally Posted by John Cordell

It's known to start with 48i, which is why the mode does so well, and isn't at all like the jumpy in-camera pseudo-24p that a 60i based camera might try and pass off as 24p.

JOHN, Do you mean the XL-2?

I just jumped on buying the XL-2 because I certainly feel the price was right and that my limited skillset as of now (as well as equipment) would be best tapped by the XL-2...

How would you describe the 24p mode on the XL-2? Does it "try to pass off as 24p" as I'm pretty sure it does record it in 60i mode. Did I make a mistake and get the wrong camera... All I want is decent looking 24p mode for DVD delivery.

Thanks a lot EVERYONE, this HAS cleared up a lot of things and I'm sure this post is going to be helpful to who knows how many others who are just as confused as I am (was, mostly, now)...

Cheers!

[John Cordell]

Originally Posted by Joe Desmond

JOHN, Do you mean the XL-2?

No, I was talking about Sony FX1 cineframe mode. Note that it's not something I've personal experience with, just regurgitating the info I've seen repeatedly elsewhere.

[Joe Desmond]

Originally Posted by John Cordell

No, I was talking about Sony FX1 cineframe mode. Note that it's not something I've personal experience with, just regurgitating the info I've seen repeatedly elsewhere.

How do you feel about the XL-2 in 16x9 24p mode, though? Bad decision?

Cheers.

[John Cordell]

Originally Posted by Joe Desmond

How do you feel about the XL-2 in 16x9 24p mode, though? Bad decision?

Cheers.

Not a bad decision at all. XL2 scans it's CCDs progressively, so its 24p is real-deal 24p. The cameras that scan at 60i and try to make a pseudo-24p are the ones that people seem to denigrate. the XL-H1 which scans at 48i looks just like perfect 24p, but it's not known exactly what it's doing to acheive it.

NOTE: I edited the above. Originally I had falsely claimed that XL2 had interlaced CCD. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

[Barlow Elton]

Originally Posted by John Cordell

Not a bad decision at all. Like the XL-H1, the XL-2 scan it's CCDs at 48i, same as XL-H1. So the word on the street, I believe, is that the XL-2 24p mode is considered quite good. The cameras that scan at 60i and try to make a pseudo-24p are the ones that people seem to denigrate.

Just a few minor corrections:

--The XL2 is TRUE 24p all the way. It scans 24p and embeds the progressive frames within an NTSC 60i signal--

It does the same thing as the DVX as it also has true progressive CCD's (higher res) and implements a 24p advanced mode within a 60i stream. This means that the frames are flagged a certain way so that NLE's like FCP can recognize the progressive frames and ingest them without the added pulldown. It isn't 48i at all, and truthfully, no one knows if the H1 is even that as further research would seem to indicate that there is virtually no temporal displacement in 24F material that even high-end "smart deinterlaces" like Algolith or Nattress would likely show here and there.

The XL2's a great camera, and if you feel like you're not ready to jump onto the HD bandwagon, it's a great choice for 16x9 progressive DVD's.

[Chris Hurd]

Try shooting with the XL2 in 24P mode side by side with the XL H1 in standard definition 24F mode. Can anyone detect any difference in the results?

[Barlow Elton]

Chris,

I did something like this up at Sundance with an XL2 shooter.

There really isn't a difference in SD 24F/P. I shot SD DV 24F and HDV 24F and downconverted for comparison. Captured XL2 material also.

No detectable difference. The H1 however, downconverts to NTSC formats through SDI or software into formats like DVCPRO 50 amazingly well, with added color information you simply don't get with standard DV.

I believe you can get a better SD chroma key via HDV downconversion into better SD formats (DVCPRO 50, etc.) than to simply shoot DV.

That is to take away nothing from the XL2, but it does help to understand some of the little-known benefits of the XL-H1 and HD acquisition--for NTSC delivery.