HDV to film project

[Carlos E. Martinez]

Originally Posted by Hornady Setiawan

for film output, i would suggest shooting in 25P Cineframe for easy & fast workflow.

if you need to get slow motion, shoot it in 50i, then separate the fields to 25P (plus scaling up the vert rez). Yes vertical res is half, but you get very nice slomo.

also i suggest using shutter speed of 25 or 50 fps. This will give you closer look to film's 180 degrees shutter.

to get smoother, less strobing movements, eg. to get more motion blur, i suggest to shoot in 50i, with 25fps shutter, then later deinterlace using blend fields.

i myself prefer to use black stretch on & no cinegamma, grade the color later in post. I use the most open aperture to minimise Z1's depth of field, to get it closer to film look.

Here goes another quote from Swiss Effects paper on HDV to film:

Do not use Cine Frame Modes. These modes are not a truly progressive.

The Frame Mode setting works with interpolation and this leads to a worse image quality than using interlaced mode. Transferring from interlaced source material to film is no problem.
Deinterlacing will reduce detail but can improve motion reproduction. It can be done in post production. The quality depends on the calculation.

Film Look gamma settings: Generally gamma settings which are supposed to give a "film look" are made to give the footage on video a filmish look. For a transfer to film it is not very helpful and depending on the camera it should even be avoided.

The question on Cine Frame Modes not being really progressive is an important issue. Both Sony and Canon did not want, as JVC and Panasonic, to have a real 24p mode. But they didnt't dare to say their HDV cameras did not provide for it. So they say (and I heard this at an equipment presentation by Sony, in Buenos Aires) the camera has a 24 frames mode. They do not say it sucks or is not the real thing.

About the motion, I do not want to have slow motion on this short. What I want is to have a dancing movement that flows nicely. Either to move the camera or the dancers. How can I know, when I am shooting, that the movements flow well?

Once again, the problem I may have with DV FilmMaker is that it seems to work fine with PremierePro and Vegas, and I will be using Avid Xpress Pro, which is not mentioned by DV Film. FCP is out too.

[Evan C. King]

I think Raylight is NLE specific. DVFilmmaker the program itself is not. It's a stand alone application so you can just put your clips into whatever.

But don't quote me on that.

[Dick Mays]

[QUOTE=Evan C. King]I think Raylight is NLE specific. DVFilmmaker the program itself is not. It's a stand alone application so you can just put your clips into whatever.
QUOTE]

I am quoting you on that because you're are right! Carlos, try the DV FilmMaker demo on some footage. I'll bet you like the result.

Marcus Van Bavel also answers questions email to him. He also recommends avoiding the CineFrame modes. Hornady, that was the best explaination of "the jaggys" I've ever seen. Thanks for the link!

[Hornady Setiawan]

guys,

if your product will be a 1 hour long movie or more, and if you're going to output to film using HD resolution, i still suggest (for easier & faster workflow) to use cineframe...

why?

- yes, it is not true progressive. it's actually discarding one field. Just like if u deinterlace using interpolate.

- but (this is a big but), if you use interlaced, consider the time to deinterlace the whole 1 hour timeline... how much time would it take? Just like Swiss Effect says, deinterlacing can be done in post, quality depends on calculation (algorithm).

- most film output facility will deinterlace using high quality algo for short movies & commercials (30 or 60 secs). They can use motion estimation deinterlacer or the faster motion compare algo.

- but for long hour movies, most film output facility will use interpolate method, for faster renders. Which is the same quality as cineframe!

- some peeps will say, oh no, it won't take too much time to do 'motion estimation deinterlace', yes, it's true, for SD res. For HD res, it'll take 4 times as much, also 4 times as much space on the harddrive for the uncompressed frames.

- my experience printing feature film, that it takes 1 whole day to deinterlace a 90 minutes movie, and that too using interpolate, not motion estimation. Motion estimation deinterlacing can prolong the processing time by 4 times as much. (HD resolution).

- but again, i may miss something. Swiss Effect may have hardware deinterlacer, which can process in almost realtime, doing the high-quality "motion estimation" deinterlacing, in HD res.

- for a preview image of such 'motion estimation deinterlacer' check this link:
http://www.compression.ru/video/dein.../index_en.html
there u can see some differences between different algorithm of deinterlacers.
the MSU one is 'motion estimation', the smartdeinterlacer is 'motion compare'. There isn't an image from 'interpolate deinterlace' tho....

Cheers!

[Hornady Setiawan]

ow yes, i forgot to add:

- using cineframe will GREATLY reduce the common problems of 'wavy lines' or other interlacing artefacts, especially if you plan to do this in post/editing:
* scale your framing
* move your framing
* rotate your framing
* zoom in / out
* stabilize your shaky shots
* shaking your stable shots
* fast speed or slow speed effect.

etc...

yet oth, it is best to consult the workflow with your film output post house.