1080 24p v's 1080 24pA

[mark.burton]

I'm PAL based and have only got experience with the PAL frame rates on the HVX200. A colleague is soon to be shooting a doc with the HPX500. Although the current delivery requirement is HDCAM 1080i 59.94, they are certain they want to keep the film delivery option fully open by shooting the most suitable format.

So they have settled on shooting with the camera set to 1080 24pA over 60i. What would be the argument for shooting 1080 24p over 60i? Is it simply that the pulldown can be stripped from 24pA and it can't from 24p?

With FCP it is simple to strip the pulldown out of 24pA using the Log and Transfer tool, but with Avid this seems not to be possible at all and so you have to work with the pulldown in place at 59.94. I'll head over to the NLE forums for more on these questions.

Anyway, would really appreciate some thoughts from you guys as to reasons for and against shooting 1080 24pA rather than 1080 24p.

Many thanks
Mark

[Barry_Green]

24PA for use with any editor that can strip out the pulldown. Avid is not one of those. If cutting in Avid you have to have the pulldown in place, and for that circumstance you'd be slightly better off with 24p instead of 24pA.

But you'd be way better off to just use an editor that can actually do a true 24p edit, and with those editors they all support 24pA pulldown removal.

[mark.burton]

Thanks Barry. Exactly what I needed to hear.
Mark