Mixing frame rates

[Justin Turner]

So now as a new owner to an ea50 i want to shoot in 50p to give me smoother sliding shots etc. Is 50p better then 50i? Our second cameras are nikon dslr d7000 they cant shoot 50p/i . If i want to retain the benifit of shooting 50fps with the ea50 and the nikon i can only choose 24p or 25p at a lower resolution what should i use? Will 25p mix better with the 50p from the ea50. The final output will be mainly for dvd and using edius6.52 i still like to shoot 1920x1080 and just drop it on to a 720 50i tomeline so i can create a dvd but i have never mixed frame rates before. I dont want to convert the 50fps i can get from the ea50 if that is going to lose the smooth motion that come. With the extra frames.

Im thinking ea50 will be set to 50p and nikond7000 set to 25p as this will mix in better but im not sure??? Both dropped onto a 50i timeline?

[Jerome Cloninger]

Hello Justin. I'm in the NTSC land so 60i is your 50i and 30p is your 25p, but the basics are the same. I edit with Sony Vegas Pro 12 and Vegas does REALLY well with different frame rates on the timeline. Sometimes I have to play with disabling resampling and such.

I'm in a similar situation as you. This camera does 1080p60 whereas my Canon 60d will do 720p60 or 1080p30. I am cutting a project where I used both cameras and left the EA50 on p60. I put it on a 30p timeline (its for web delivery only) and disabled resampling on the 60p footage. It matches the 30p from the 60d (motion wise) when all that is done. Based on experience, if I set it to 60i export, they'd still look the same for movement.

NOW, if putting 24p on a 60i or 30p timeline, the motion gets jittery unless you select with pulldown and go through all that. I used to shoot 24p, but I'm liking 60p due to less rolling shutter skew for motion. (I shot 24p on my Canon XH-A1 that used CCD as the sensor so there wasn't ANY skew.) I'll be experimenting sometime of conforming 60p to 24p to get more of a filmic motion look, but haven't had time to do that yet.

Whatever you edit with, make sure the media clips and project is set to give the best results. Sorry, but I don't know much about Premier Pro, Final Cut and Edius....

[Ray Lee]

Thank you, I had the same question coming from NIkon/30p to the Sony/60p.

[Noa Put]

I edit in edius 6.5 and mix 50p with 25p footage a lot, and sometimes also 50i as well, in those case I edit in a 25p timeline and If needed I slow down my 50p footage 50%, I also export as a 1080p 25p hq avi file. After that I import that file into tmpgenc authoring works to make my dvd's and I use tmpgenc video mastering works for my 1080p meg2 or mpeg4 encodes.

[Justin Turner]

Thanks Jerome, that all makes sense plus its good to hear i do need to change the nikon from 24 to 25p it will only be used around 10% for a different angle probably on an unmanned camera. The rest will be shot using the ea50 at 50p.

Thanks Noa, its great you are using Edius but I have never used tmpgenc i have always exported the 24p as an avi and dropped it onto a 50i timeline with pulldown to burn to dvd. Ill have to google tmpgenc and see what it is.

My only question is will i be losing every second frame if i drop the 50p footage onto a 25p timeline? Seeing that 90% will be shot 50p. Im learning but still a bit of a novice with the tech side of exporting and editing in general.

Thanks for you replies!

[Jerome Cloninger]

Originally Posted by Justin Turner

Thanks Jerome....

My only question is will i be losing every second frame if i drop the 50p footage onto a 25p timeline? Seeing that 90% will be shot 50p. Im learning but still a bit of a novice with the tech side of exporting and editing in general.

Thanks for you replies!

You're welcome!

Noa might know better dealing with Edius, but in Vegas, you won't lose any time at all. I don't even understand when some people say that dropping 60p in a 30p/60i timeline that it automatically plays in slow motion. I've never seen that. I have to TELL it to play in slowmo by slowing the velocity of the clip.

[Justin Turner]

Yeah Jerome, I dropped a 50p into a 24p and it didnt do slow motion. But I noticed i could slow it down for slo mo and it was much smoother then trying to slow the 24p down. This was just testing someone else's camera which could shot 50p.

[Jerome Cloninger]

I just heard of people saying it automatically does... but yes, you can get butter smooth slowmo... can't wait to play with it some.

[Robert Moran]

No problem with FCP X.

[James Hobert]

We shoot Weddings exclusively in 60p and edit on a 24p timeline with no issues whatsoever. Been doing it for years. Premiere Pro CS6 handles it all really well. If you drop the footage on a 24p timeline it'll play automatically at full speed and look great. Extra frames are pulled out and it looks nearly identical to if you had shot it at 24p in the first place. If you want to slow it down you can do one of two things:

1) either drop it to 40% for clean slow motion (or 50% if you decide to edit on a 29.97 timeline), or...
2) if you want to not use speed/duration effects on it (some other effects won't work if you have altered the speed of the clip) then an even better way to do it within Premiere Pro is to select MODIFY>INTERPRET FOOTAGE and set it to 23.976 (or for you, whatever the equivalent is in PAL). Then the clip is conformed to 24fps (but it's not a permanent conforming like Cinema Tools used to do to clips in FCP, you can always switch it back, or duplicate the clip and have one of each). Then if you drop that clip on the timeline you can play it and it's clean slow motion without applying any speed/duration changes.

So what does this all mean? It's easy. And it works great.

[Justin Turner]

Thanks for all the info. I used to use prem pro as i have the master suite with adobe cs5. Shooting 24p i was really struggling getting smooth pans. I changed to Edius as it was fairly widly used and cheap. I could output smooter footage but not perfect. With experience i now realise this was a 24p thing and not the software. Anyway im used to edius now and will stick with it.

I did try dropping the 50p onto a 25p timeline mixed with other 25p footage and i must be doing something wrong as i didnt get a smooth output. I changed and started with a 50i timeline and dropped 50p and 25p footage on it and it was really smooth. I dont know why the other way didnt work but ill stick with what works for me. Im getting perfect slow motion this wat to so all is good.... For now.

[Ray Lee]

Found a good explanation of mixing frame rates in FCPX here

Conforming frame rates in Final Cut Pro X - fcp.co

[Serggio Lamas]

from many tests that I have done I notice that the 25p is better from 50p As for the quality in video.
question? I would like to tell me, if I will record with the ea50 in 25p basic camera and second gh3 or gh4 in 50p there will be a problem the final export to make m2v for dvd?
will I have a problem with motion flicker in dvd?
at 25p It has a trembling in the video when moving the camera Left or Right how to avoid this,I shoot with speed 1/50
I am in PAL mode

[Chris Harding]

Hi Serggio

Quite correct .. If you pan fast in 25P the image will stutter ..you have to use 50P or 50i if you have motion or are moving the camera a lot ... I don't like blur so I shoot everything in 50i and have never had issues that guys shooting progressive have like pixellation and highlights that posterize

Chris

[Serggio Lamas]

Hi Chris
We know this but the 25p in this camera have better and crisp video the 50p or 50i in this camera have soft video with more moire and Aliasing