FX1000, HDV and 24p

[Cesar Ruiz]

My own conclusion??? If you're going to deliver 24p and have an FX1000, do NOT shoot 24pScan unless you're going to remove pulldown.

Deliver 24p - shoot in???? on Vimeo

enjoy.

[Barron Thompson]

What render template did you use? Vimeo usually has a little HD icon on the right if it's HD. Below is a screenshot of your Vimeo clip and one that I've uploaded.

And, I'm not really understanding your comment/recommendation. I shoot 24p and render it out to YouTubeHD or Vimeo selecting the proper project properties (in Vegas) and appropriate render settings. Vegas does it all. I don't do anything specific or *special* to remove pulldown. As I've said countless times now, the combination of the FX1000 and Vegas Pro 8.0c makes 24p delivery effortless.
Btw Cesar, the biggest reason for shooting 24p is to get the film cadence. You have to couple that with a 1/48 shutter, not 1/60 that's shown on your Vimeo clip.

[Cesar Ruiz]

I had already uploaded an HD file this week, so I'm "maxed out" with my free vimeo account.

The difference among the clips is definitely more visible in HD on a bigger screen.

It is totally possible that you would shoot 24fps at a higher shutter than 1/24 or 1/48. I wanted to use a shutter of 1/60 so that all modes and cameras could use the same shutter. You would still have 24 frames per second, but each frame was exposed for 1/60 second.

Dragging the shutter will only cause more motion blur regardless of the camera.

You will note that *if* Vegas removed pulldown from the 24pScan (FX1000) clip, it would look the same as the 24F (XHA1) clip. It does not. Shooting 60i on the FX1000 and then letting Vegas render a 24p clip, actually generates an image that is much closer. Pause the image during the 24pScan clip and you can see that the crisp clean images are there just "doubled."

I'm sure that running the 24pScan through Cineform's converter would get me a clip that looks like the 24F stuff. Right now I don't want to think about adding more processing to the workflow. If I'm going to do that, I might as well get an HMC-150 and say good-bye to tape and drop outs.

Everything was placed on an HDV 24p timeline, set up just the way DSE specifies.

I rendered using this template
http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/images/mainconcept.png

The only difference is that since the test is a 24p deliverable, I set the framerate to 24.

Regarding other differences between the XH-A1 and the FX-1000. The FX1000 puts out a sharper, less noisy image (both were at 12db gain), and has better ergonomics. When delivering 24p, the Canon puts out a crisper image of objects in motion. Dragging the shutter to 1/48 on the Canon would have likely made an image closer to the FX-1000's 60i->24p.

[Barron Thompson]

Yes, I'm with you on the Vimeo "max out". :(
Now you have me counting frames Cesar. There seems to be *doubles* in my 24p timeline but when I render to the settings pictured below, there are NO DOUBLE FRAMES. I forget which template I modified but it's all there for you to duplicate if you wish.

[Cesar Ruiz]

same project settings?

How do you render for DVD? Blu-ray?

I rendered to an MP4 file ...WMV render must be removing pulldown then.

I can tell you taht rendering to DVD 24p template and 60i template made no difference.

[Barron Thompson]

I've only rendered to dvd. Here are the Project properties and render settings to dvd.

[Cesar Ruiz]

Barron,

You're delivering 60i, so that's why your DVDs look ok. I assume that with a good enough DVD player, or TV, it can detect the pulldown and remove it on the fly (even if there aren't any flags encoded).

However, if you wanted to deliver a true 24p DVD, you will likely get images that look like the sample I put up on vimeo...that's what I get anyway.

I like delivering 24p 1080p. It would seem that in order to do that I should shoot in 60i on my FX1000. If anyone has another way (that doesn't involve software other than vegas), please do tell.

later.
-Cesar

[Barron Thompson]

Cesar
You're confusing me. TV is interlaced, the computer display is not. My 24p DVDs look great on the television. My 24p progressive uploads to Vimeo and YouTube viewed with a computer monitor also look wonderful.
What am I doing that isn't "true"?

[Tim Akin]

Originally Posted by Barron Thompson

What am I doing that isn't "true"?

I just guessing here, but I would say 29.970 - interlaced.

[Cesar Ruiz]

OK, I rendered the 24pScan to 60i DVD and it played perfectly. My LCD tv removed pulldown just fine, so did the DVD player (DVD player has progressive switch).

Haven't tried Blu-Ray since I don't have an RW (should definitely get one), but I assume it works the same way.

Still doesn't feel right to make a 60i file. May end up buying neoScene....we'll see.

[Cesar Ruiz]

Barron,

I'll keep the wmv creation for posting to web if I use 24pScan. It seems like that gets converted correctly whereas the mp4 doesn't. It could also be that vimeo's converter didn't detect pulldown in the first few frames given that I started with true 24p.

[Douglas R Wagner]

Going back to the FX1000 issue of putting its 24p through 2:3 pulldown as it records it as 60i, there's an important issue that hasn't been focused on yet.

The FX1000 is positioned by Sony purposely to NOT encode the 2:3 pulldown phasing flag information. Otherwise, it would probably compete too closely with its professional big brother, the HVR-Z5U which offers several flavors of 24p recording in HDV.

Looking at the fine print on the HVR-Z5U technical brochure, under the section about recording 24p HDV, you'll see it has two flavors of what Sony calls "24p Scan". Very tricky. Flavor #1 is the "24" sub setting of "24p Scan". This is what the FX1000 is doing. In this mode, there are no flags about where the 2:3 cadence (phasing) information is in the 60i signal.

Whereas, flavor #2 is the "24A" sub setting of "24p Scan". Wow . . . , NOW it says that the 2:3 cadence flag information is stored in the mpeg stream to tell an NLE where the 2:3 timing is so that the NLE can return the video back to a true 24p clip.

So that's the deal!

With the FX1000, since there's no flag info, you'll need to use an application that allows you to guess at the 2:3 pulldown timing on the 60i 2:3 pulldown video in order to restore the video to have true 24p progessive frames.

Two options seem to be available. I have Adobe After Effects CS4 -- it has an "Interpret Footage" dialogue which allows you to try various guesses at the cadence (some call it the "phase") of the pulldown. You try different settings until you get a sharp image where there is significant horizontal motion on screen.

The other has been mentioned before, and that is to use CineForm Neo Scene to do it before importing into your NLE.

Vegas, Premiere, etc -- the various NLE's won't know how to do reverse pulldown on the FX1000, because Sony doesn't give them the flags to know how to do it. After Effects is sophisticated enough to allow guessing at the cadence. Cineform Neo Scene provides a similarly flexible tool.

Of course, the PMW-EX1, or the HVR-Z5U offer the advanced "24p Scan, type 24A" for HDV resolutions with the cadence flags inserted so that Vegas, Premiere and others can do the reverse pulldown directly.

The pro cameras, like PMW-EX1 and HVR-Z5U also offer a direct mode for progressive recording, so that in capture, the video clips are already natively at 24p progressive (no pulldown).

[Cesar Ruiz]

You got it Doug!

If you're looking to do pure 24p production go with the Canon XH-A1. That's real bang for the buck.

[Cesar Ruiz]

So I tried something else....

ignore the audio... in fact just mute it. I recycled audio and it misleads the actual picture

24p Test - No resampling of 24pScan (FX1000) on Vimeo

The big difference in this test is that I selected "Disable Resample" on the FX1000 24pScan clip. I also did some color correction to try to match up the FX1000 to the XHA1.

Obviously the true 60i clip was resampled. I wish I had tried it at the time, but my guess is that this (resampled 60i) looks close to what a 24p clip would look if shot at 1/48 or 1/24 shutter.

All clips were placed on a 24p timeline (selected HDV 24p template). Interpolate was selected in project properties.

Rendered to 24p MP4.

Curious if you notice a difference or not. If so, which one is more pleasing to the eye?