25f or 24f modes, usable footage???

[Didi Schoeman]

I've just received my new XL-H1 this week and have been testing some of it's features before I leave on a months documentary shoot to Zimbabwe on Thursday.

The image quality is incredible, it completely blew me away!!!
I would go as far as to say that it's better than the Digital Betacams (Sony 700 series) that I've used on a number of documentaries over the past 7 years.

The viewfinder, well it's even worse than I anticipated, I don't know what Canon was thinking when they put that on the camera. As far as the microphone shoe is concerned, it's a vast improvement on the XL1s!!! The rubber isolators should solve the zoom-lens noise that was so prevalent on the XL1s.

I think my biggest disappointment in the camera is the 25F function, I mean seriously, I've shot over 60 high budget commercials on 35-mil and have never experienced the stutter effect that I've found with the 25F setting on this camera. In my opinion it's completely unusable if there's any camera movement involved. I haven't tested this, but think I'll have better results if I de-interlace the footage in post, at least that way there will be no stuttering effect and the cinema effect can still be imitated to large degree. I've done this on other projects shot on normal interlaced footage and figure that with the XL-H1's superb image quality it should come out pretty amazing, especially with the image control options that come very close to the look and feel you'd get off film stock.

I've tested Steven Dempseys Panalook setting and have decided to shoot the whole documentary using this setting, (Thanks Steven!!!) It's extremely close to film in my opinion, I think de-interlacing in post will give a very real film look to the footage.

Just my thoughts, any opinions would be interesting!

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

That stuttering effect, have you seen it on tape/monitor, or only in the viewfinder?

[Didi Schoeman]

On my monitor and editing system...

[Brad Schreiber]

Could it be that the 3:2 pulldown needs to be removed? Just a thought, let me know what you think.

[Lee Alford]

brad 25f doesn't need pulldown removed.

didi, the stutter you see should not be on the final footage. it should resemeble 25 photos evenly spaced across 1 second in time. same as film. your shutter speed makes a difference too. i think if you want to emulate film that would be shooting 25fps, then shooting 25f is better then shooting 50i and deinterlacing later. have fun

[Brian Critchlow]

Shooting a feature with the H1 as we speak..rolling...

Anyway, the 24f mode DOES create a 3:2 pulldown which will need to be reversed in after effects, etc.
Manual, page 56:
"HD records in 24fps progressive mode. During playback the signals are downconverted to 60fps interlaced using hte 2:3 pulldown method. While recording, if the HDV/DV terminal is set to HDV outpu, the output signal will be in 24fps progressive. The signal output from the HD/SDI terminal and the COMPONENT OUT (D-) terminal will be down-converted to 60fps using the 2:3 pulldown method.

If you are seeing the shuddering on an HD/SDI or HD component monitor, it is likely due to this effect. If you are previewing on an composite or s-video monitor, it is likely due to the downconversion to SD. Viewing directly from the firewire interface is the only way to see live progressive signal.

At any rate, on our production, after capturing live with a blackmagic card at 59.94(60i), then doing a 3:2 process in after effects back to 23.976 it is beautiful footage. This process is lossless also.

wiki reference on 3:2 pulldown - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3:2_pulldown

Didi,
while I cant post any of the content from our production yet, I can send you some samples of 24f if you are interested. You can pm me.

[Troy Aitken]

How exactly would you set your preferences in AE and what would be your steps in AE to reverse the pulldown? Also how much footage can you do at a time with your set up?

Thank you

[A. J. deLange]

Something does not compute here. The whole object in the pseudo-progressive mode processing is to get two images that were actually taken 1/50th of a second apart to line up as if they were taken at the same time. If this works properly, and we have been told it does, deinterleaving should not reduce stutter. Conversely if it does reduce stutter then the alignment function is not working and the camera should be looked at by the factory or at least a dealer.
As the whole point of 24/25F is to get images that stutter so they'd look like film if they appear to stutter more than film something isn't kosher.

[Brian Critchlow]

In AE 7, if you bring in a clip and right click on it, one of the options will bring up a settings window which will have a button in it called 'guess 3:2 pulldown' after you do this it will determine the pattern and then you just add the clip to your render queue with your output options and render away.

I dont have any specific documents to reference, but it is my understanding that it is a true progressive frame that is broken up for transport over the given medium, then reversed to restore the true progressive frame, lossless.

[Dana Acciavatti]

Hi, folks. I'm new in these forums. I'm interested in getting one of the new Canons for the 24f mode, as well as the HD, myself. I've never had a video camera that had either feature, so I'm new to this stuff; But, after seeing footage shot with these features, I know I can't live without them anymore.
A co-worker of mine has a Panasonic DVX 100B and has no problem bringing 24p footage into FCP for editing.
Is it really the normal procedure that footage from the Canons have to be "fixed" in AE when using 24f mode as is being suggested here? That sounds like an extra step that could get annoying.

[Brian Critchlow]

We are going through this process because we are importing from HDSDI into blackmagic uncompressed 8 bit. Then we reverse the pulldown, and output photojpeg.
Once Final Cut supports HDV progressive modes, you will have no problem editing 24f nativly with no conversion.

[Dana Acciavatti]

Originally Posted by Brian Critchlow

We are going through this process because we are importing from HDSDI into blackmagic uncompressed 8 bit. Then we reverse the pulldown, and output photojpeg.
Once Final Cut supports HDV progressive modes, you will have no problem editing 24f nativly with no conversion.

Oh, thanks. Sorry, I didn't understand the context.

[Brian Critchlow]

No worries. The forums are here to get your questions answered.

[Jonas Nystrom]

Didi, I can see that you are a really experienced photographer, but as you opened the camera this week; have you turned OIS off? It took me a month to turn it off ;-)

Can also agree 110% on the evf. I'm thinking of buying the marshall 7' now. Anyone know about the resolution in FU-2000?

All the best // JN

[Tom Vandas]

Jonas, what effect would OIS have on the 25F mode?