60i/30CF/24CF

[H.P. Tschupp]

Here some sample clips. See the difference

http://www.audiovisualconcepts.org/m2t

Use VLT player except for the wmv file.

[Peter Moore]

Thanks, though I Still wish someone would post a Cineframe 24 clip that is actually 24 fps, and not telecined.

[Jim Arthurs]

<<<-- Originally posted by Peter Moore : Thanks, though I Still wish someone would post a Cineframe 24 clip that is actually 24 fps, and not telecined. -->>>

Hi Peter... not sure what you mean... if you mean you want to see a clip that doesn't have 3:2 pulldown in it, there's no such thing coming from the camera. All CF24 raw m2t camera footage will have interlaced frames. If you want to remove it yourself, you can using After Effects or Digital Fusion to produce footage without interlacing.

Hopefully whatever changes are being made to Vegas will treat CF24 material the way DVX-100 24p footage is treated; by not displaying the extra frames. Also, hopefully the Cineform plugin won't even bother to encode them for increased efficiency. I don't know.

With the PAL version or the Z1 you could choose CF25 which won't have any interlacing. Of course, in that case, if your final destination will be NTSC or HD 60i, you'll eventually have to ADD 3:2 back in.

Regards,

Jim Arthurs

[Barry Green]

I can't speak for what changes they're making in Vegas, but in the current version of Vegas they have an option for removing 3:2 pulldown from DV files. Hopefully they'll extend that to HDV files in the next release, which would mean that Vegas could automatically inverse-telecine CF24 footage and let you edit on the simulated 24p sequence directly.

[Jim Arthurs]

<<<-- Originally posted by Barry Green : I can't speak for what changes they're making in Vegas, but in the current version of Vegas they have an option for removing 3:2 pulldown from DV files. Hopefully they'll extend that to HDV files in the next release, which would mean that Vegas could automatically inverse-telecine CF24 footage and let you edit on the simulated 24p sequence directly. -->>>

Two things would be nice to see immediately changed in Vegas in this regard;

1.) Automatic or manual 3:2 detection and removal for ANY source material, not just clips with special meta-data like the DVX-100 or downconverts from the HDCAM player decks. Vegas has had support for DVX for 2 versions of software now.. I would have thought this would have been a no-brainer for 5.0. Think After Effects here...

2.) Allow users to ADD 3:2 to any render, not just hard-coded templates for certain cases like DV 23.98 to 29.97 AVI (DV). Again, like After Effects.

Regards,

Jim Arthurs

[Peter Moore]

Yeah, I just wish someone would post waht it looks like with pulldown removed. I guess I could try it but I'm busy. :)

[Dylan Pank]

<<<-- Originally posted by Peter Moore : Yeah, I just wish someone would post waht it looks like with pulldown removed. I guess I could try it but I'm busy. :) -->>>

Wouldn't the problem be the GOP compression? that means that any pulldown removal would mean complete re-encoding and another layer of compression? This isn't a problem with DV 24p because of the intraframe compression.

Dylan

[Peter Moore]

Possibly. The DVD MPEG-2 standard has a "repeat first field" flag that avoids this problem. The best way for the Sony to record CF24 material would be to use these flags. Then pulldown could be removed easily. If the footage is actually 60 fields per second though, with no repeat flags, then it would not be easy to remove the pulldown.

[Dylan Pank]

Peter, as far as I know, this is the point. You are talking about the repeat flags used in 23.976 DVDs to enable them to play at 29.97 fps. The 3:2 pulldown is then put in place by the DVD player hardware.

I think HDV does NOT use these flags, the 3:2 pulldown is printed into the image as it is in DV 24p. The difference is on some DV cameras, (DVX100, XL2) the 24pA setting puts the pulldown into a single frame (as opoosed to spreading it out across 3 frames) which allows firewire based NLEs to drop the offending frames to play back true 24p.

With GOP - as far as I know, this is impossible, and it's likely that a true 24 frame rate with repeat field flags was not done because of the difficulty with getting small enough/powerful enough hardware capable of putting the fulldown into the 24p into such a large image in realtime for playback/monitoring.

(Conspiracy theorists may say that 24p was not included to protect high end sony HDCam sales, and they may have a point.)

It seems like that indie filmmakers wishing to go to 35mm will simply continue to choose PAL equipment or the 50i/25CF mode on the Z1U. The other thing is that more cinemas may install digital projectors, and 30FPS (maybe even 60i) may become a viable theatrical format.

[Shannon Rawls]

I am thinking about purchasing a SOny Z1 in February, or an XL2 today. I am doing as much extensive research as I can before buying.

Question...

I downloaded all those .m2t files to my XPsp2 desktop a few minutes ago, and opened them up in Vegas 5.0b with my Sony RX850 P4 2.4GHz 1.5gig ram computer.

I set the Vegas project properties (since it wasn't in the drop down list) at 1440x1080, (none) Progressive Scan field order, 1.33333 pixel ratio, 23.976 (IVTC Film) frame rate......

Then I put the "cf24_test.m2t" clip in the MEDIA POOL, then dragged it up to the time-line......

RESULTS:
1. Interlacing was gone (but very blurry because of vegas de-interlacing method)....which is a MAJOR problem, because I am a MOVIEMAKER, not a videographer.
Any Suggestions??? Did I do this wrong??

2. My Computers CPU usage skyrocketted, and the clip played back jumpy and unsmooth because the system can't keep up. How the heck are you guys editting your HDV footage like this?? I thought since it supposedly had the same bitrate as DV, it would be able to stream along fine in Vegas the way DV does.
Any Suggestions??? Did I do this wrong as well??


I hope I did things wrong...or XL2, here I come...

- Shannon W. Rawls

[Dennis Adams]

Shannon:

Sorry, Vegas 5.0b does not remove the pulldown from Cineframe24 footage since it does not use the MPEG-2 pulldown flags.

For the time being, you should set your project properties to 1440x1080, 1.3333 PAR, 29.97 fps, Lower First. A future version may remove this pulldown, and then your project can easily be converted to 23.976 progressive.

Just because HDV has the same bitrate as DV doesn't mean it edits as smoothly. Interframe compression is inherently more complicated to decode and there are 6 times as many pixels.

A solution that you might consider is to shoot CF24, but capture as widescreen DV. Vegas can remove the pulldown in that case, so you'd be editing 24p 16:9 DV, just like you'd get from the XL2, but with the option to recapture the HDV later for more resolution.

///d@
Sony Media Software

[Dylan Pank]

I think this is the reason a lot of people intending to shoot for a 35mm blow up will opt for 25fps gear (whether it be gear designed for PAL/SECAM countries or the Z1U set to 25fps) and slow it down 4% at the end. (you'll get the 25CF option on the Z1U anyhow.)

If it's really that important to you there is the 24cinemaframe mode, but some tests demonstrate it looking worse than the 30CF mode in terms of detail, probably as the encoder has to do more work dealing with the pulldown frames.

AS for editing, I don't think many people are editing HD live - almost all HDV editing solutions at the moment involve re-encoding or using an offline format. It may be the same datarate as DV, but it still has to be decompressed and thrown up on a screen. I have a pretty feeble g3 iBook, and it can play back 25FPS DV without any trouble, my aging 450 G4 can play DV fine in High Quality mode set. However it can't play back a DivX of the same size and much smaller datarate because it's more processor work to decompress such and image and throw it up on screen at that resolution with DivX's more complex compression techniques.

Remember, DV involves just I-frames, whereas HDV has more than 5 times the pixels AND has to work at decoding P and B frames too. Your only hope involved a praticularly sturdy hardware card, (along the lines of the CANOPUS for DV) until computers get far more powerful.

As for your problem, you will probably see a significant improvement if you abandon the 23.976 frame rate, if it's de-interlacing on the fly. Edit at 60i and then deinterlace your final output as a rendered effect either in VEGAS or in a third party piece of software (the freeware virtualDub is spretty fast has some good deinterlacing plug ins, and some great re-scaling algorythms).

[Dylan Pank]

Dennis, actually I don't think HDV uses pulldown flags either - HDV has no 23.976 mode - the pulldown flags signal to DVD players in DVD set top boxes to both play slower AND then insert a 2:3 pulldown into the image output to the TV set.

HDV is always 60i and the pulldown is recorded into the image, as pulling out a frame would screw up the P and B frames.

Any software that could pull out the pulldown would need to re-encode the program stream.

[Shannon Rawls]

OK...you guys are great....

So basically...... Buy the Z1's, Shoot at 1080/60i (in cf24 mode), Have the camera downconvert to DV via FireWire into Vegas, edit the regular 60i DV version of the movie, burn it to Widescreen DVD, shop the movie telling all potential buyers that this is just a DV version and that we have it in HiDef, Sell it, and let the distributors worry about the rest??

Do you think it will look cinematically good enough to sell in 60i/cf24, rather then true 24p?? (assuming all other cinematic techniques are coverd like lighting, shooting style, etc...)

*smile*

[Dylan Pank]

Shannon - you need to do a side by side test of CF24 compared to true 60i which has been run through a de-interlacer that re-times from 60i to 24p (such as Magic Bullet) and view it on a big screen (not a computer monitor but at the very least a true 1080 res Hi Def TV - there aren't many around!) to see how it looks.

My guess is that 60i with Magic Bullet will look better than 24CF, but the software is expensive and will take ages to process on even a fairly fast machine, not a problem if a distributor picks up the tab, but then in terms of selling the movie they have to pony up the cost of a 35mm blow up as it is (costing anywhere from $50,000 to $350,000 depending where you go) and any additional hassle/cost will make your movie look less attractive as an investment.

If you shoot 24CF then you're stuck with any effects as it is, and frankly I've seen side by side comparisons where there is an obvious loss of quality between CF24 and CF30, let alone between CF24 and 60i!

Really, if this is your film, you can't make the decision until you've done a side by side test and worked out the highest quality and best production path.

Anyway, when it comes to editing movie I'd just edit in an offline format. DV, or someone recommended Huffyuv at 720*405 - I'm on mac so I'd probably use DV. You'll get all the realtime you need and then you can just slot in the full size files for the online.

"Cinematically" HDV is never going to look like film (HDCAM is pretty darn close) but it will look better than DV which is your other choice.