1080/24pA vs 720/PN and the winner is....?

B

bob furlong

Member
Gentlepersons and sage video gurus,

Given a HVX200 recording onto a firestore 100 and editing on FCP, what are the pros & cons where best image quality/resolution is the priority?

Thanks in advance, Bob
 
1080/24pA undoubtedly.

The con is that it takes up 2.5x as much space as 720/24pN, and no variable frame rates. But that's not what you asked; you asked about best image quality and resolution, and 1080/24pA has a decent increase in recorded resolution (about 15% or so) and noticeably cleaner compression.
 
Barry, thank you. I was hoping you would a responder. That was exactly my question. space and variable frame rates are nonissues here.
Two more quick questions.
1. Is it true that 1080/24pA is true progressive but 'housed' inside 1080i because of its size and that this is rectified either when downloading to hard drive or importing to FCP?
2. For HVX200 in 1080/24pA, going to FCP on Mac, of the Firestore 100 'DV Formats' settings ( P2, P2N, Quicktime, Quicktime PN) which is correct?

Thanks again, Bob
 
1. Yes it is true progressive, and FCP removes the pulldown giving you a true 1080p file at 24 fos.

2. You can rule out P2 PN and Quicktime PN, those are irrelevant when you're not shooting 720. So your choice is MXF (P2) or Quicktime. I don't know for 100% certain but I believe FCP will strip the pulldown out automatically from a 1080/24pA quicktime file. Or, you can strip out the pulldown when ingesting an MXF file. I'd tend to use Quicktime on the FS-100 if editing on a Mac, but hopefully Ned or David or someone will weigh in and answer authoritatively for you.
 
research at firestore.com reveals the answer to be P2.

nested at
firestore.com
support
focus fs-100
workflow (section of the focus fs-100 document)
is a PDF called "Camera-FS-100-FCPTimelinePDF"
which is a chart of possible HVX settings (e.g. 1080/24pA) cross referenced to firestore and FCP settings. Necessary information. Why it's not in the manual you'd have to ask them.

The focus fs-100 document (kind of a FAQ) has other information (e.g. workflows for FCP or Avid) not in the manual that firestore users will definitely want to check out. who knew?
 
Thanks for all the excellent information and analysis. I was just wondering if anyone had any further thoughts on the use of P2 vs. Quicktime when recording from the HVX to the FS-100 for use in Final Cut Pro. I note in this regard that the above-referenced .pdf from Focus Enhancements indicates that either P2 or Quicktime may be used, although in connection with Quicktime there is the additional notation of "media performance warning". Any idea what that means?

Any and all comments will be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Regards,

GB

P.S. I am using an HVX200, FS-100 (v. 4, 160G), and FCP (v. 6.0.3)
 
I don't know how reliably FCP strips out the pulldown if you use the FS's quicktime DV format. I know it works fine with P2 format. If I were in your shoes I would run some test footage and try each format with FCP to see what the results are.
 
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