Any reason not to use "N" as in 24pn?

[Mister Big]

Hey guys,

Just curious if there's any reason not to use 24pn or 30pn if I'm editing myself and exporting onto a DVD.

Seems to me one gets twice the recording time on the same card and that's a huge advantage in the field, isn't it?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Aroon_Narayanan]

The 'n' refers to native recording mode. With that enabled, instead of taking the 24fps stream and applying a pull-down to insert it into a 60fps stream, each frame will be stored once, and the file will be played back at true 24p. Of course, this only works in 720p mode. As to whether or not you should use it, it's all situational. If you're shooting narrative and your NLE can accept it, then 'n' mode would be fine, but if you're editing for broadcast at 60i, or you can't edit 24p, then 'n' mode would not work for you.

What are you going to be doing with the footage?

 

[Jason Ramsey]

2.5 times the record time.

vs. 720/24p? Only reason not to use it would be if your NLE doesn't support it... Other than that, go for it. You've got to add pulldown flags anyways when you render out for dvd.

Comparing it to 1080/24pa on the HVX is a different story though that can be a decision worth weighing.

 

[dantewaters]

Wait Jason if you shoot non-native you have to flag your footage before sending it to dvd?

 

[Jason Ramsey]

You would do the same with shooting 24pa... It's no biggie. Just a click in the process of rendering out the file for dvd.

Later,
Jason

 

[David Jimerson]

You wouldn't shoot in the N mode if you want to edit as 60p (not many reasons to do so), or if you need to stream out through FireWire while you shoot. Other than that, there's no reason not to shoot in the N mode.

Any 24p DVD needs to have pulldown flags (not the same as actual pulldown) embedded in the stream in order for the DVD player to know how to add pulldown for playing to a standard TV. This process is usually handled invisibly by your authoring software.

 

[Mister Big]

Thanks for the answers. I have the FCP Suite, so I imagine it's set up to deal with the 24pn or 30pn issues, and the DVD authoring tool should have what it needs as well. Thanks again.