Stills grabbed from EX ok for print?
 

We have a number of corporate clients who in addition to video require photos for brochures; while I'm sure that pro photography will always have a place, I'm aware that the resolution of XDCAM EX should, it seems to me, make stills grabbed from footage acceptable for print at 300 dpi - where SD video grabs were never good enough.

Do other EX-ers have experience of this in a professional context?

The ex1 has 2 megapixels and makes almost the best out of them possible. Compared to photocameras the ex1 has TRUE 2 rgb-megapixels, because there're 2 for each color-channel (so it actually has 6 individual megapixel). Photocameras with 2 megapixels don't have 2 for each channel but 2 total. For getting color they're using a bayer-filter and interpolate. So the 2 megapixels of the ex1 have to be rated higher than 2 of a photocamera. Perhaps comparable to photocameras with 3 megapixels?

I have used HD screen grabs as elements of DVD cover designs. They look great @ 300 dpi from commercial printers, as good as the stills from DSLR cameras. Should be fine for brochures as well IMO.

I'm sure you've done the math and figured that 1920x1080P @ 300dpi gives you a print image size of 6.4" x 3.6"... Not really enough for letter size with a full bleed , but as an inset image, not bad at all.

Overall quality of the image, like anything, is based on how good you've shot it... And converting to CMYK shouldn't be anything out of the ordinary. (same as converting a 3d rendering)

If you are going to a proper 4-colour press, there should be proper press checks done by proper print people monitoring for QC. Otherwise if it a mass produced laser print, then 150dpi should suffice.

what would be the best workflow to export 1080i50 stills (qualitywise)?

Only use 1920x1080p or 1280x720p for exporting stills.

cheers Dennis,

but I am not changing my shooting format because of that ;) and the results of exported stills (shot interlaced) with a deinterlacing filter are actually not as bad.

Or did you want to say that I should drop my images in a progressive timeline?
This, indeed, works even better!

720p50p is broadcast standard in europe: high temporal resolution (looks still better than 1080i when there's no motion)
1080p24p is standard for Bluray movies: high resolution (1080p25p could be used, too)

So why still use interlace?

There are various reasons to shoot interlaced. (fast motion, avoiding juddering and so on)

But this has been discussed in many other threads here in this forum.

I am shooting 1080i50 for the moment because of my client, besides from that I am having a lot of pans and was personally very unsatisfied in 1080p25 with the rolling shutter or juddering effect or whatsoever. 720p50 might be better regarding PANS, but the clients wish is Full HD. A part from that the picture quality of this camera is still stunning even when shooting interlaced.

But the next project could be well in one of the progressive modes, depending of the client wishes and the type of the shoot.

Interlaced-combs and fast motion together means a lot of stress for the mpeg2-codec leading to more compression-artifacts. Also interlaced-recording includes vertical lowpass-filtering for reducing flickering. That leads to a vertical resolution-drop, even if there's no movement. If there's movement the vertical resolution drops to 540 lines.
Also downconverting 720p50 to SD works better (converting 50p to 50i or 25p is an easy task. Deinterlacing is always a trade-off).
So I would always prefer 720p50 over 1080i, if I'm not contraint to a special format by the client.

I would say you've answered your own question, deinterlace filter in Photoshop, and/or dropping footage into a progressive timeline.

I think I'll mount a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTI on my EX1 for 10.1 megapixel stills. :)