Confused over 24psf mode

[AdamLPhotography]

That's the point -- 24PsF *is* disabled when using any other mode. It's inherent in the system. 24PsF can only ever be used with a 1080i output when the system is set to record 24p. In any other scenario, it's disabled.

Perhaps, but the ability to turn it on and off is still there, regardless if it affects the output. I'd think that it would be more intuitive to just disable the ability to toggle it on/off and display it as "off" if anything other than 1080 was selected.

So the bottom line is the output via SDI is always either interlaced or 24p when recording 1080. Recording 1080/30p via SDI isn't possible as it can only output interlaced at 1080 unless 24PsF is on, correct? Or will the AF-100 shove a 30p stream into 1080/60i?

[Barry_Green]

The SDI output is always interlaced. 24PsF is a way to embed 24p within an interlaced 48i stream.

30p and 24p are "known" by intelligent recorders or monitors by the flags that are embedded in the data stream. If you set the camera in 30p, it outputs a 60i data stream, with 30p "flags". If your monitor or recorder is aware of the flags, it will put the fields back together to be a proper progressive frame and display/record that. If your monitor or recorder is unaware of progressive flags, it'll display it as 60i.

24PsF is a thing Sony came up with years ago to allow direct progressive over an interlaced 1080i infrastructure; it changes the frame rate to 48i and otherwise works the same way as 30p does within a 60i stream.

[AdamLPhotography]

Ahh I see. That makes a lot more sense now. So it seems as long as the NLE and recorder understand the flags then I can still get 30p and 24p footage out of the 1080i stream. Thanks for the explanation, Berry! It's definitely not something that makes any sense to the average Joe. Would have been nice if they'd just let a stream be a stream, and not have to do all sortsa fancy tricks so the user can (eventually) get the res and rate they're attempting to target.

[Barry_Green]

Yes, that certainly would have been nice... but if they did that, then there'd only ever be 1080i, no 1080p... so, yeah, the flags are the compromise that we have to live with to embed 24p within a 1080i stream.

Our only real hope is that 1080i will prove to be the last time we ever have to deal with interlace, and that all future 4k/UHDTV/etc standards will all be all-progressive...

[David Jimerson]

Yes, that certainly would have been nice... but if they did that, then there'd only ever be 1080i, no 1080p... so, yeah, the flags are the compromise that we have to live with to embed 24p within a 1080i stream.

Our only real hope is that 1080i will prove to be the last time we ever have to deal with interlace, and that all future 4k/UHDTV/etc standards will all be all-progressive...

All-progressive at selectable refresh rates.

[Barry_Green]

Perhaps 300Hz, so we can forever banish the 50Hz/60Hz divide... 300Hz lets you play all frame rates with no cadence complications. Well, 24p would have a padding frame here and there, but much smoother than at 60Hz I'm sure...