How PsF video from the V1 is different than "p" or "F" video

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Thomas Smet

There is always 24p and 25p DVD. It is SD of course but even the sony site states that a great use of the V1 is to create true 24p DVD's. This has usually been the delivery format of those shooting 24p with the DVX100 or Canon XL2 camera.

HD-DVD sadly only supports 1080 24p sitting inside of a 60i stream with flags sort of like how 24p DVD works.

I understand that many people still deliver in SD. But, HDV has been around for about 4 years -- some claim it will be "replaced" by AVCHD within another year. There are those who bought into HDV because they must deliver HD. The lack of support NLE support is horrible. Given Bob's "how to do it post" I find it amazing that that Sony software and Sony video have not worked together to promote this capability.

As far as I know both BR and HD DVD movies are on the disc at 24p.

[Tony Tremble]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

I understand that many people still deliver in SD. But, HDV has been around for about 4 years -- some claim it will be "replaced" by AVCHD within another year. There are those who bought into HDV because they must deliver HD. The lack of support NLE support is horrible. Given Bob's "how to do it post" I find it amazing that that Sony software and Sony video have not worked together to promote this capability.

As far as I know both BR and HD DVD movies are on the disc at 24p.

HD-DVD supports 25P movies. This caused an outcry actually. BD supports 25P through Psf. Just like HD broadcasts support 25P.

What is so difficult to understand Steve?

TT

[Bob Grant]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

I didn't see your link, but I did see Piotr post that he couldn't do it. Is this output process documented in Vegas? Like in a readme that came with Vegas?

I'll delete my post as I think I have figured out a wy to fool the hd dvd burning software to do 24. No point in doing this for 25p if the players can't play it.

The process is documented in the manual. Also from way back when the DVX100 came out the Vegas team had a white paper on handling 24p and converting between 24p and 25p.

The trick with adding pulldown for HDV is it's done in the MC encoder, under the Video tab > Frame Rate Select 23.976 + 2-3 Pulldown. There's no template as such but a simple task to create your own, again explained in the manual. I believe the manual can be downloaded by anyone and the white papers are also freely available from the Sony Vegas site with a little digging in the Knowledgebase

I'd suspect the reason we can't get a 25PsF or 30PsF file out of Vegas is a limitation of the Main Concept encoder rather than Vegas itself. I'd not be in the least surprised to see that option becoming available at some time. It's hardly a pressing need though, we've been coping with film telecined to DB etc for a long time.

[Thomas Smet]

http://pixeltools.com/tech_hd_dvd.html

Specs are very hard to find but here is a $3,000 HD encoding tool that lists the formats supported by HD-DVD. This list has nothing to do with what the current HD-DVD authoring programs can support. For example Pinnacle Studio HD-DVD authoring I'm pretty sure wouldn't support any form of 24p since Studio itself doesn't support 24p. It seems as though Pal users are kind of left out in the cold when it comes to 720p HD-DVD. Your options seem to be to either encode with duplicate frames to make it 50p or convert time shifted to 24p. I have no clue if 24p would even work in a Pal region but I assume it would. The 50p wouldn't be all that bad either because due to the GOP compression the every other frame would be a 100% duplicate so it would take up very few bits if any at all. Has anybody tried just encoding 720p 25p into a 720p 50p to see if that would work in their HD-DVD authoring program? The same would work for 24p as well. 2 out of every 5 frames would be total duplicates and wouldn't need to take up any bits so the encoding should look just as good as if it were just 24p encoded using the same bitrate. The amount of space used should be pretty much the same as well so encoding 24p, 25p or 30p as 50p or 60p should look almost exactly the same. The only difference is that instead of the player having to add in the extra frames to make it fit within the 50p or 60p specs the video is already fit to those specs.

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Tony Tremble

HD-DVD supports 25P movies. This caused an outcry actually. BD supports 25P through Psf. Just like HD broadcasts support 25P.

What is so difficult to understand Steve?

TT

The only HD DVD player does NOT until a firmware update at some point in the future. I posted the exact quote fromToshiba a few weeks ago. If you really have any interest -- you can go look for it.

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Bob Grant

The trick with adding pulldown for HDV is it's done in the MC encoder, under the Video tab > Frame Rate Select 23.976 + 2-3 Pulldown. There's no template as such but a simple task to create your own, again explained in the manual. I believe the manual can be downloaded by anyone and the white papers are also freely available from the Sony Vegas site with a little digging in the Knowledgebase.

I found your post, but you said you not actually done a PTT. So have you actually had your V1 write a Vegas made file to tape?

That's where my friend is stuck. The V1 will not write the the Vegas 24p timeline to tape.

Spot should it do so? How?

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Steve, after you open Print to tape from Vegas Tools, when it detects the V1 connected it only offers the choice between 1080/50i or 1080/60i. These optins are not fixed, and only show after a camera is recognized - so probably there is a possibility to PTT 24/25p to some other cameras?

[Tony Tremble]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

The only HD DVD player does NOT until a firmware update at some point in the future. I posted the exact quote fromToshiba a few weeks ago. If you really have any interest -- you can go look for it.

That is irrelevant. The HD DVD specs allow 25P (i.e. progressive) as an option for studio film delivery. BD mandates 24P for film delivery across all regions.

25P will/can be delivered as Psf in 50i on both formats.

TT

[Bob Grant]

Originally Posted by Piotr Wozniacki

Steve, after you open Print to tape from Vegas Tools, when it detects the V1 connected it only offers the choice between 1080/50i or 1080/60i. These optins are not fixed, and only show after a camera is recognized - so probably there is a possibility to PPT 24/25p to some other cameras?

Once you've had the encoder add the pulldown to 60i and produce a m2t file, you simply PTT as 60i.
I didn't physically try this, I can if you like but I can think of no earthly reason why it will not work.
I can take that m2t file back into Vegas with pulldown removal enabled and get back the 24p on a 24p T/L.

Or I can disable pulldown removal, take it into a 60i T/L and edit as such.

As far as I know this is what has been done with DV for years.

You can PTT 25p as 50i also, exactly the same as 25PsF, all that's missing is the flags. When you capture it back this is even easier to deal with on the T/L, you just change the Field Order to None - Progresssive and presto, you have your 25p back again.

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Originally Posted by Bob Grant

You can PTT 25p as 50i also, exactly the same as 25PsF, all that's missing is the flags. When you capture it back this is even easier to deal with on the T/L, you just change the Field Order to None - Progresssive and presto, you have your 25p back again.

Exactly, this is what I did. So the workflow for the 25PsF is there; the only thing still missing in this puzzle is: how to tell a HDTV to weave instead of bobbing!

[Bob Grant]

Originally Posted by Piotr Wozniacki

Exactly, this is what I did. So the workflow for the 25PsF is there; the only thing still missing in this puzzle is: how to tell a HDTV to weave instead of bobbing!

I wish there was an easy answer to that one but until everything goes progressive somehow I don't think we're going to see a solution. Consummers expect things to be Plug 'n Play but even with the most intelligent displays trying to work out how to display what they're being fed they would potentially be getting video that's interlaced for a few frames and then progressive etc. With playback from DVDs the problem should be solveable but OTA and cable signals could and will contain anything.

Last night I watched a video game on the PS3 hooked up to the latest Sony Full HD TV of monsterous proportions. The fine detail in the game had line twitter.

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Since the Sony's advice to the R50 V1 users of turning down sharpness to 3 is not only very superficial and non-technical, but also uneffective (there is still some twitter of fine, contrasty, horizontal lines) - I went all the way today and shot a couple of scenes with sharpness at 0 (zero). I have also set everything for the most "filmic" look possible (cinegamma 2, cinecolour etc). The result is a very pleasing, filmic look - with still enough resolution to call it HD!

But of course Sony cannot demand the V1E/P users to use the lowest sharpness possible in order to create video that is watchable not only with a computer software (where de-interlacing can be switched off, thus eliminating line twitter even with sharpness as high as 9 and above), but also from the camera itself or a Blu-Ray/HD DVD connected with HDMI/Component to a HDTV. I can't imagine Sony is not aware of this fact, so if they are still selling the V1 in Europe as a true progressive camcorder, they must have some solution up the sleeve. So far however, the only thing they have to say is:

“Whilst the progressive shooting capability may not be needed by all users, those who want to see the true film like quality that is capable from this camera should use a progressive monitor.”

(the above is an excerpt from this article: http://www.sonybiz.net/biz/view/Show...=1171641886621)

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Originally Posted by Bob Grant

With playback from DVDs the problem should be solveable

What do you mean by that, Bob? Do you think our 25PsF will play all right from a BD or HD DVD "as is" within 1080/50i, or shall we convert it to 24p the way you showed is possible with Vegas? Frankly, my clips converted to 24p behave exactly like the 25PsF original when played with VLC, i.e. they twitter like hell when bobbing is truned on. So, unless a HDTV recognize them as progressive when played from a BD/HD player, I still don't see a clear solution...

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Originally Posted by Piotr Wozniacki

So, coming back to the topic. I have blurred with Premiere Gaussian filter (V=2.5%) all the default (7) sharpness clips from the V1E, and compared them to the clips I captured earlier with the XH-A1 (same scenery, lighting, 25F mode). Bottom line:

The post-processed picture from the V1E - while freed from virtually any liny twitter - is still sharper and (visually, as I have no means to measure that) higher resolution than the raw video from the Canon.

Which doesn't change the fact that A1 is a wonderful machine, and probably can be tweaked to produce sharper images than those I shot during my short testing period.

The rest is just a matter of personal preferrences. Even more off topic is a question of the price/value ratio for the two cameras; it is arguably better for the Canon and this has always been the most important reason for me to still consider it.

I peeked to the Canon XH forum, and there is this post in the presets thread:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost....3&postcount=37

It proves my point that the A1 can indeed produce an image similar to the Sony's in sharpness and colour vividity, but only with its sharpness and colour gain taken to the very limits. I wish I had shot my garage with similar settings; wonder if aliasing would be visible (perhaps not twittering as the v-rez of the Canon is still lower, but some mosquito noise)?

[Piotr Wozniacki]

OK guys, this thread has provided great help in understanding the V1E/P progressive mode pecularities, once again thanks to the main participants.

However, before I make my final decision, a quick but important question to any PAL version users out there: with the recommended by Sony sharpness at 3, is your component/HDMI output on a full HD display completely twitter free?

Because mine is not; even with sharpness at zero!

I'd appreciate all feedback; TIA