Shooting progressive video for weddings: thoughts? at DVinfo.net

Bill Edmunds · August 9th, 2006, 04:27 PM

Anyone out there shooting progressive video for weddings? If so, do you tell your client about it (in other words "I'm shooting your wedding progressively")? Have any requested it? What has the reaction been (if any)?

Terry Lyons · August 9th, 2006, 04:30 PM

Hi Bill, we shoot in canons frame mode which looks like progressive I have read. The footage looks more cinematic as opposed to interlaced straight out of the camera. We havent been asked how we capture the footage but the clients like what they see.

Peter Jefferson · August 9th, 2006, 10:46 PM

ALWAYS... one of the main reasons i got the DVX100's was because of the native PS... being that it offers FULL resolution 720x576, as opposed to temporal resolution. To the naked eye, the differece isnt all that nocable, but throw that footage on a plasma or LCD projector and it makes a whopping difference. In addition to that, as mentioned, motion is much more filmic, however there are afew things to take note, such as shutter speed, luminance, and noise levels.

Shutter effects blur, its its too slow, u will get excessive bluring. This means pans, cam motions and zooms can look ugly of not set correctly.. in the old film world, we'd run the cameras shutter at 180degrees, but for digital we use a shutter speed running about twice the speed of the framerate. Another thing to note is that when doing fast action, (like alot of morning preparatoin stuff where grooms go out and have a game of soccer or your getting a fast movign action shot of cars doing burnouts... ) running it at 1/250ths gives u that super sharp, super detailed Gladiator look..
Luminance.. well as soon as u switch to progressive, ur really juicing out the cams CCD range... being that more pixels require more light for that one frame, luminance automatically gets hit by 1 or 2 stops. In normals environments this isnt a problem however in low light, this can get quite dark.
Then there is noise.. more pixels per frame means more noise possibilities.. i wouldnt recomend anything over 9db gain.. any higher and things look rather grainy.. this can be passed off as a film look effect, but people are paying for clean sharp images, not film noise.. let alone digital noise..

WIth the footage you get using DV and native progressive, the camera MUST feed that through an interlaced signal. Now in doing this, u effectivwly have afew obsolete frames for playback, however, when u start to pmanipulate the footage, such as slowmotion, these obsolete frames are tehn used to helpt tehinterpolation algorythms of teh slowmotion in question.
I know for a fact that slowmotion from progressive scan footage absolutely poos on interlaced... with progressive, i can get down to 2% (i kid u not) and still have it run smooth as silk... u do not get that slowmo strobing, flicker, or motion artefacts from high details scenes.
There are some tricks u se can use when shooting progressive and interlaced and use the interlaced temporal frame to assist with some slowmotion work, but to be honest, its still not as good IMO
I dont mean to say this as an arty thing, but to me its a quality thing..

I guess for wedding producers, the biggest differnce is the "feel" of teh video.. as in it doesnt feel or move like home video due to the lack on interlace...
when u watch the 2 side by side, u DO notice teh difference.. as do teh clients..

For the Z1, i use CF25 always.. this is an incam interpolation of the interlaced frames. Its not actual progressive, but it comes close. In editing, the project is set to progressive scan. As there are no temporal resolution issues to worry about, the only real difference ive noticed is sharpness, and choppiness when using slow motion.
If shooting CF or any frame mode for that matter, i would always recomend u boost your sharpness levels up by 1 or 2 steps, depending on the camera. This is due to the softness which is cuased by the interpolation.

August 9th, 2006, 04:27 PM	#1
Bill Edmunds Major Player Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Conway, NH Posts: 574	Shooting progressive video for weddings: thoughts? Anyone out there shooting progressive video for weddings? If so, do you tell your client about it (in other words "I'm shooting your wedding progressively")? Have any requested it? What has the reaction been (if any)?

August 9th, 2006, 04:30 PM	#2
Terry Lyons Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Alta Sierra Posts: 182	Hi Bill, we shoot in canons frame mode which looks like progressive I have read. The footage looks more cinematic as opposed to interlaced straight out of the camera. We havent been asked how we capture the footage but the clients like what they see. __________________ TAG

August 9th, 2006, 10:46 PM	#3
Peter Jefferson Inner Circle Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Aus Posts: 3,884	ALWAYS... one of the main reasons i got the DVX100's was because of the native PS... being that it offers FULL resolution 720x576, as opposed to temporal resolution. To the naked eye, the differece isnt all that nocable, but throw that footage on a plasma or LCD projector and it makes a whopping difference. In addition to that, as mentioned, motion is much more filmic, however there are afew things to take note, such as shutter speed, luminance, and noise levels. Shutter effects blur, its its too slow, u will get excessive bluring. This means pans, cam motions and zooms can look ugly of not set correctly.. in the old film world, we'd run the cameras shutter at 180degrees, but for digital we use a shutter speed running about twice the speed of the framerate. Another thing to note is that when doing fast action, (like alot of morning preparatoin stuff where grooms go out and have a game of soccer or your getting a fast movign action shot of cars doing burnouts... ) running it at 1/250ths gives u that super sharp, super detailed Gladiator look.. Luminance.. well as soon as u switch to progressive, ur really juicing out the cams CCD range... being that more pixels require more light for that one frame, luminance automatically gets hit by 1 or 2 stops. In normals environments this isnt a problem however in low light, this can get quite dark. Then there is noise.. more pixels per frame means more noise possibilities.. i wouldnt recomend anything over 9db gain.. any higher and things look rather grainy.. this can be passed off as a film look effect, but people are paying for clean sharp images, not film noise.. let alone digital noise.. WIth the footage you get using DV and native progressive, the camera MUST feed that through an interlaced signal. Now in doing this, u effectivwly have afew obsolete frames for playback, however, when u start to pmanipulate the footage, such as slowmotion, these obsolete frames are tehn used to helpt tehinterpolation algorythms of teh slowmotion in question. I know for a fact that slowmotion from progressive scan footage absolutely poos on interlaced... with progressive, i can get down to 2% (i kid u not) and still have it run smooth as silk... u do not get that slowmo strobing, flicker, or motion artefacts from high details scenes. There are some tricks u se can use when shooting progressive and interlaced and use the interlaced temporal frame to assist with some slowmotion work, but to be honest, its still not as good IMO I dont mean to say this as an arty thing, but to me its a quality thing.. I guess for wedding producers, the biggest differnce is the "feel" of teh video.. as in it doesnt feel or move like home video due to the lack on interlace... when u watch the 2 side by side, u DO notice teh difference.. as do teh clients.. For the Z1, i use CF25 always.. this is an incam interpolation of the interlaced frames. Its not actual progressive, but it comes close. In editing, the project is set to progressive scan. As there are no temporal resolution issues to worry about, the only real difference ive noticed is sharpness, and choppiness when using slow motion. If shooting CF or any frame mode for that matter, i would always recomend u boost your sharpness levels up by 1 or 2 steps, depending on the camera. This is due to the softness which is cuased by the interpolation.