1080 24p to 1080 60i

Y

Yoyodyne

Active member
Howdy folks, I've shot a little spot in HD 1080 24p. They want to deliver for broadcast, the specs are 1080 60i mpeg-2.

I've had decent luck using the mainconcept mpeg-2 Blu-ray 1920x1080 60i template but I'm hoping for better. The issue as one would guess is the motion issues going from 24p to 60i. I was over at the broadcast facility and we checked it on their gear, you can definitely see some interlace "wiggles" on some stuff. I'm still a bit shocked that they have no way of dealing with a 24p file.

Anyone got any advice? is their a method for this?

Thanks a bunch!
 
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Hey Yoyodyne,

The standard way to get 24p to 60i is to add a 3:2 pulldown. That's the way it's been done when film first began being edited digitally and also with the first 24p cameras recording in 60i containers like the DVX100.

I believe the 60i is broadcast (or played on a Bluray/dvd) and then the TVs or Bluray/DVD players should be able to remove the pulldown for viewing progressively.

In Vegas, go to Render as/Mainconcept Mpeg 2 and select the Bluray 1920x1080 24p 25mbps template. In the custom settings, you can select under frame rate 23.976 + 2:3 pulldown. This should get you the 24p with pulldown in a 60i container. After export that, you put it on a bluray with DVD Architect.

This method should work or at least give you another option to try. Probably double checking with the broadcast facilities techs would give you an idea of what method is the best.

Hope this helps,
Andy
 
Thanks Andy! I was eyeballing that option, will have to test.

The broadcast facility was pretty helpful in letting me come in and test but the engineer didn't have any ideas on a good method for improving my 24p to 60i . He kept telling me to shoot in 30p or 60i and was kind of rolling his eyes at the 24p thing.
 
You don't really have to set anything; all you have to do is render to 1080 60i. Vegas will take care of everything, including inserting all the necessary pulldown fields.

If you're viewing interlaced footage on a computer screen, you'll always see interlaced artifacts -- but you won't when viewing on an interlaced screen.

Any engineer who rolls his eyes at 24p and suggests 30p or 60i purely for technical reasons should be ignored. The frame rate is an aesthetic choice -- an artistic choice. You shouldn't approach art as an engineer, but as an artist.

Besides, if that engineer doesn't know enough about 24p to tell you how to proceed, he shouldn't be mocking it. Shooting 24p and delivering for broadcast is NOT a problem.
 
Andy Olson said:
In the custom settings, you can select under frame rate 23.976 + 2:3 pulldown. This should get you the 24p with pulldown in a 60i container. After export that, you put it on a bluray with DVD Architect.
Click to expand...

No, this will produce a 23.976 progressive file, but with instructions (flags) for a player to add 2:3 pulldown when it plays the disc. It isn't a 60i file. This won't work for broadcast.

You want an actual 1080-60i file -- use one of those templates under MPEG-2. As I said, Vegas will take care of everything.
 
Probably should listen to David.

So when the final 60i version is viewed it will play interlaced? What if it's being view on a LCD or other non-interlaced tv?

I've always wondered how tv shows from broadcast playback as progressive on my tv? Isn't the tv removing the pulldown?

Thanks,
Andy
 
Some TVs can remove pulldown, if the broadcast is coded properly -- but in this case, going by what the engineer said, it seems pretty clear that the broadcaster won't do that.
 
Thanks a bunch for the info guys!

Tested with the Blu-ray 1920x1080 23.976 + 2-3 pulldown template. It did create a 24p file which they do not want, got to be 60i as David has mentioned.

The 60i file I created in Vegas looks very good when played back on my system. I'm watching it on a 32 inch Toshiba Regza monitor via HDMI from my computer, it's not a reference monitor but a decent consumer model.

When I took the file over to the broadcast facility we first checked it on a computer they had in the engineering room. The machine could barely play back the file and the engineer was playing it back in VLC player. Nothing against VLC player but I was hoping for something a little more "broadcast quality" so i asked them if we could check playback from their media server that they would use to broadcast the spot.

The only monitoring available was on a 4x3 computer monitor connected to a multiplex switch so they can divide the monitor into 4 windows for video, audio, waveform, etc. This was switchable to full screen but i sure would not call it a reference monitor. We could see interlaced wigglies on motion. The engineer seemed to think it was decent, he had seen a lot worse. We were only able to play it back a few times before they needed to use that piece of gear so not a real test I'm afraid. I tried to pick his brain on how other people were delivering 24p content. He really didn't have an answer - only offering that when going to broadcast one should always shoot at 30p or 60i.

I just didn't feel like arguing with him and i was a little surprised that they didn't have a more sophisticated monitoring set up. At this point I'm not sure what to do. The file looks fine on my end and it seems I'm doing everything correct technically. I just wish I had some confidence that they can play it back without mangling it. I'm going to try and check it out Sat night and see how it looks on air and go from there.

Really appreciate all the help on this forum!


p.s. - and a little rant.

As per detailed instructions from the broadcast facility I upload the file to their server. it's about half a gig and takes about 2 hours on my horrible internet connection. They end up accidentally deleting it. So i upload again and of course the upload fails right at the end. So I'm talking to the engineer on the phone trying to check the file and he tells me that he highly recommends AGAINST trying to upload HD files because of their size and that I should bring it by the station. Sigh.

If you hadn't guessed this place is not inspiring me with confidence.
 
Yoyodyne, not surprising, considering all this junk that one can see on TV daily. Don't you worry, better TVs will reprocess 60i back into 24p, the worse ones will show fields in sequence, but regular viewers will not see the difference. I suppose that TV stations took this "anything goes" stance after they realized that many TV viewers cannot even discern HD fro SD or normal widescreen from mutilated 4:3.
 
Thanks for the support guys, I guess I should post a link to the spot since I've been writing War and Peace about it:

http://vimeo.com/10707585

We were going for kind of a "low fi", indy film look. Not real common in political spots, of course neither is the Segway. These are also being done on a pretty low budget.

Thanks again for all the help!
 
So what about this?

Just as an experiment:

Render out as 24 cineform, bring into 60i project, render out as 60i from their. i'm going to give it a test.


.... and so far results are pretty good. i'm having best results by disabling resampling.
 
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