24fps HDV seen on other site....stinks

[Christopher C. Murphy]

Hey, I just saw a 70 meg file of the FX1 converted to 24fps...and it looks bad. The strobbing/drag is horrible and not useable in a real film. I think the only place it would work is a film where everyone stayed perfectly still!

Maybe someone will do an experimental film like that, but not me.

Murph

[Troy Lamont]

What site was the file hosted at?

Thanks

Troy

[Christopher C. Murphy]

I'll email it to you because the site is so bad I don't want to taint this great site here with posting such a horrid name! It's kind of like Scott Farkis...you know. The kid with the rotten name? The site is like that.

[Kyle Edwards]

All depends on how it was converted. Is the sample from the camera's 24i mode (which doesn't sound very good to me) or from someone converting the file themselve?

[John Gaspain]

search for other CF24 topics...yes it sucks. Shoot 60i.

[Chris Hurd]

Thank you Murph for not trashing other sites by name as of course we do not do that here (we're above that sort of behavior). I'd actually prefer it if you guys would just consider this place your home, there's no place like home, there shall be no venturing into other neighborhoods. Stay on your turf! It's much safer here. Wipe out those other bookmarks, ya don't need 'em anymore.

[David Warrilow]

Hi,

a friend of mine just got back from a seminar/presentation thingy by Sony here in Brisbane - they were demo'ing the Z1. One of the improvements on the cam is that the shutter is controllable in all the CF modes down to 1/25th. That means you can shoot CF24 with a 1/50th (or perhaps even 1/48th) shutter.

I'm thinking this is going to improve the look of CF24 footage over what we're seeing now - as the shutter is locked at 1/60th in CF24 on the FX-1. Producing the freaky stuttering effects that we've seen to this point. It could also be the origin of Charlie White's comments in his review of the Z1 having a 'improved' CF24 mode. The execution of the CF modes on both cameras is the same (according to the Sony Rep) but the variable shutter on the Z1 produces a much better film-like cadence in CF24.

I gotta say I've played with CF25@1/50th on the FX1E and it looks veh-nahce...

DW.

[Barry Green]

People keep suggesting that 1/60th is the reason for CF24's odd look, but I just can't fathom how... I've shot plenty of footage on the DVX, on my K-3 and Konvas, on old Auricons and on the early CP16's, all at 1/60th, and it looks just fine -- just like film. (The DVX doesn't default 1/60th, but we had TV's in the shot so we changed to 1/60th to get rid of the banding... works fine, looks like film...)

1/60th isn't the problem. Trying to turn 60 fields into 24 frames, using the method they're using, is the problem. Using a slower shutter speed will make it a little blurrier, but it won't fix the underlying problem.

As for that other rumored footage on some other site, apparently the person who created it used CineFrame 25 footage from an FX1-E and converted it to 24P. Seems reasonable enough of a thing to do. I tried to play it but I didn't have the right codec, I guess.

I might try the same, since DSE has some CF25 footage up on his site; just import it into Vegas and set the playback rate to 96% (I think that'd do it)...

[Christopher C. Murphy]

Chris, I didn't name any names!!

The Z1 will definately have to have a significant improvement...not just a tweak to the 24fps setting. If it's even close I'd say all those extra settings are useless for attempting anything watchable beyond a short film. I'm not trying to sound negative, but practical. If it looks like shit...it's shit and people will be annoyed.

I know this is nuts, but I'd rather watch a feature length film shot on VHS tape than watch a feature shot with strobbing. It's worse than those recent movies that are handheld the entire time! (Black Sunday, Veronica Guertin etc.)

If someone could invent the ultimate 60i or 50i to 24p converter - they'd be a rich person because everyone would buy the FX1 or Z1 and shoot.

What about our buddy Nattress? Those guys at DV Rack recently did a deal with Panny, so I think they're HDV interest was low because of that biz deal. They said their software takes Direct X (not available on OSX), so apparently the DV Rack won't do HDV. But, if there is a will there is way....the ultimate package would be a Z1 shooting and being converted in real time through a DV Rack onto a harddrive ready to edit....the final footage? 24p... Then I woke up!

The #1 rule of business is to "fill a need", so who's going to fill this need? If I had to put my $ on a company for Macs (my computer) it's Apple. They have to be watching this crap and working towards a solution. If Final Cut Pro is truly "HD" for the people and Hollywood-types than they've got to fully support this format....with real time converting while capturing! I'm praying to the video God's.....

Murph

[Kevin Dooley]

I gotta say, when I first hear about CF24 problems, I tried to go through all the reasons--shutter speed, watching raw footage w/o a pulldown applied, blah, blah, blah...but the fact remains that nearly everyone who looked at CF24 (and some people say it's true with the other CF modes) says that it completely doesn't do what it is supposed to be doing. And while it is nice that the Z1 has variable shutter speeds, it still sounds like something I won't be using. The only possible good thing is that if they're still tinkering with the firmware...maybe they'll somehow change the CF modes before the camera goes live...

Holding his breath and trying to roll a snowball in hell...

[Davi Dortas]

How does CF24 look on a HD 1080i display?

[Lawrence Bansbach]

<<<-- Originally posted by Kevin Dooley : . . . The only possible good thing is that if they're still tinkering with the firmware...maybe they'll somehow change the CF modes before the camera goes live... -->>>

Altering the firmware has been suggested elsewhere. Because the Z1 supports both 60i and 50i, it would appear that the camera supports reclocking, and therefore it seems reasonable that it could in theory be reclocked to 48i to yield 24 fps in CF24. Will Sony do this? Who knows? It's been rumored that Sony will show something at the Sundance festival in January, but then again "credible" sources claimed that the Z1 would support 24p!

Sony bungled the marketing and public relations efforts surrounding the Z1. The sad thing is, Sony should have supplied accurate information, particularly to its sales and marketing reps (so that they could talk more intelligently about the cameras, or at least disseminate the material to interested parties). Instead they put out misleading and inaccurate information (e.g., the marketing PDF indicating that there were two CF24 modes). Even now the Sony pro HDV site still says that 24p is being considered for inclusion in the Z1! Sony should do more to provide useful, accurate, in-depth information so that users can make informed decisions.

Then Sony raised the Z1's MSRP from $4,900 to $5,946, claiming that the former figure was actually the street price.

My point is that, considering how they've handled the Z1 heretofore, I don't expect Sony to upgrade the firmware to enable 48i. But, as I said, who knows?

[Barry Green]

<<<-- Originally posted by Davi Dortas : How does CF24 look on a HD 1080i display? -->>>

Awful.

[Barry Green]

the ultimate package would be a Z1 shooting and being converted in real time through a DV Rack onto a harddrive ready to edit....the final footage? 24p... Then I woke up!

The ultimate? You'd still be talking about a frame-blended lower-resolution simulation of progressive footage, chained to a laptop or something, which (while I love DV Rack) limits your flexibility.

I'd rather think the ultimate would be a camera that actually shot true progressive, at a legitimate 24Hz rate, using a non-GOP type of compression, with adequate bandwidth, and recorded directly to hard disk or memory card directly. (and I don't think it's impossible... Panasonic has already teased such a camera with a DVCPRO-HD logo on it).

If Final Cut Pro is truly "HD" for the people and Hollywood-types than they've got to fully support this format....with real time converting while capturing! I'm praying to the video God's.....

It's not going to happen anytime soon, because the sheer processing power required eliminates the idea of real-time... Graeme and Marcus have already produced 60i->24P conversion software, but it doesn't run anywhere near real time.

But back to the "ultimate"... assuming Panasonic does decide to produce the ultimate camera, keep in mind that the "HD" in Final Cut Pro HD is (you guessed it) DVCPRO-HD. Oh, and Panasonic just lined up Avid to support DVCPRO-HD as well. HDV may or may not be the "format of the future" -- it just happens to be the format that Sony's betting on, and (like MicroMV and SACD and Digital8 and Betamax and blu-ray and on and on) that's no guarantee it'll be the format that actually gets adopted by the public.

[Christopher C. Murphy]

At this point, the Panny DVCPRO-HD is looking better and better.....anyone else think that?