24p normal mode letterbox

J

johnnymolar

New member
I am new to this (you've probably heard that 100 times) and I really appreciate any help in advance. I've search around on the creative cow forums as well as on here for my answer, and I'm pretty sure what I need to do for the most part. I'd just like some reinforcement and a solid, straight forward answer.

I shot some stuff in 24p normal mode w/ letterbox. Now, 3 questions.

1) This means i should capture at DV NTSC Anamorphic, correct?

2) I edit it on a NTSC 29.97 fps timeline, progressive scan mode, 16:9 aspect ratio, and 16:9 anamorphic pixel aspect ratio.

3) The source files look pretty bad in the quicktime player. Real grainy, a lot of noise. Almost like I recorded them with a cell phone.

Please help! Thanks in advance.

-johnny
 
Source files will look bad in Quicktime Player unless you have high-quality playback activated.

As for editing... you have footage that is letterboxed, which means that it is 4:3 and should be treated as such. Capture and edit as 4:3. And it will be a standard 29.97 (interlaced) time line.

If you want to work in anamorphic 16:9, you have to shoot in squeeze, or get an anamorphic adapter lens. You could try and reconform your letterboxed footage to 16:9, but that requires cropping the letterbox bars from the frame and enlarging the image to fit the 16:9 window.

And to edit true progressive, you need to shoot in 24P Advanced and remove the pulldown during capture. Or, you can use Cinema Tools to remove the pulldown from the footage you have (24P standard, or as you say "normal mode"). Either way, you then edit in a 24.976 time line.
 
OK, just to be sure, because you didn't actually mention it -- are you using FCP?

If not, you may have more options with your footage.

In any case, is there a reason you shot 24p standard and want to edit as 29.97? There aren't that many cases where you shouldn't shoot 24pA and edit as 23.976.
 
Am I missing something? Source files of what? Are you capturing from DV tape? Then what source files are you talking about? What are you capturing into? If you captured from tape into Final Cut Pro, for instance, you should just have Quicktimes. The word "source" to me implies they're the originals, which would be the tapes themselves.

And to add to C2V's response, I wouldn't crop off the letterbox in your video (unless maybe you're really limited on hard drive space). Blowing it up to 16:9 anamorphic in post will just make it look worse.

(And I'm sure he meant 23.976, not 24.976.) ;)
 
Wow, you guys are awesome! Ok so here it goes:

In response to C2V:

Ok I just made sure that I changed it to high quality playback in the Quicktime preferences and it still looks bad. I'm gonna try to export some clips and throw it on a DVD to see if it looks better? Would that be stupid? In your opinion should I just keep it on the 29.97 interlaced timeline, or throw it into Cinema Tools, remove the pulldown....and edit on a 23.976 timeline ( in order to keep it progressive)....??


In response to David Jimerson:

Yes, I'm using FCP. And basically I was given this footage to edit....didn't have anything to do with the shooting of it. I was informed that it was shot in 24p standard so I gotta work with what I got. :-(

In response to joeloud:

What I meant by source files are the quicktime *.*mov's that FCP dumps onto the scratch disk (sorry for the confusion....lol). And yes, I am capturing from DV tape. I want to preserve the quality as much as possible so I am definitely opposed to cropping it and blowing it up to 16:9 anamorphic in post.

Also, I notice that the footage looks a lot brighter in the LCD display on the camera that I'm playing it back on (and capturing with). Is this normal? Is it probably because my monitors aren't as bright as the LCD?

Thanks again for all the help, I sincerely appreciate it. I apologize in advance for my newbie-ness. Please feel free to call me out and correct anything. Should I have responded to each thread by itself or is one response including all threads the standard operating procedure?
 
I wouldn't worry about Quicktime. As long as it's not a problem in FCP. And keep your DV deck (or camera) connected while running FCP, hook the deck/cam up to an external monitor, and see how it looks there.
 
OK cool.....thanks. So do you think I should stay with the 29.97 timeline or remove the pulldown from the 24p standard footage and edit it on a 23.976 timeline? I could remove the pulldown with cinema tools or Nattress Standard Conversions "G Remove Pulldown"...correct?
 
johnnymolar said:
OK cool.....thanks. So do you think I should stay with the 29.97 timeline or remove the pulldown from the 24p standard footage and edit it on a 23.976 timeline? I could remove the pulldown with cinema tools or Nattress Standard Conversions "G Remove Pulldown"...correct?
Click to expand...
you should definately edit on the 23.97 with pulldown removed.

I really don't see the point of editing 24p footage on a 29.97 (60i) timeline...it's rediculous. Why shoot in 24p in the first place if you're going to ruin it with 60i? (not meant to offend you, but its a rant in general)
 
gotcha. im still having some confusion with the capture settings though. C2V advised me to capture and edit as NTSC 4:3. But I found this post on the creative cow forums that conflicts with his recommendation.

you want to check the anamorphic checkbox. All that does is tell FCP to stretch into a 16:9 shape. You can also just change it in your browser bin in FCP, go to the anamorphic setting and check it on. DV NTSC footage is always 720x480 whether 16:9 or 4:3, it's just the shape of the pixels. This might help:

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/anamorphic/anamorphic185demo.html "
Click to expand...


I am in the dark on this one, someone please help.
 
It's really up to you. The reason C2V advised against it is because in order to make the image into 16:9, it has to stretch the image out. This will mean creating a 720x480 image out of the equivalent of a 720x360 image; it has about 25% less vertical resolution than native 16:9 would. (All things being equal.)

On a 4:3 TV, it won't matter. But if you make a 16:9 DVD and view it on a 16:9 TV, the image will not have the resolution that native 16:9 footage would.
 
Johnny, I hope you don't mind me hijacking your thread but I have very similar question to ask of all the guys here.

DVX 100 (not A or B)
Final Cut Pro 6
Mac G4 Powerbook

I have footage that I shot in 24P, with letterbox. I don't expect the footage to be amazing but it should be decent. When I view it on the DVX's LCD it's fine, though I appreciate screens differ. Once captured to quicktime files it looks crappy watched with quicktime, and even through FCP on an external LCD monitor. It isn't as sharp as it should be or as smooth.
I was pretty sure that as I understood it I should (and did) capture in FCP using the normal DV NTSC set up (29.97).

I don't expect you guys to teach me the wonders of the world (i'm reading and trying to learn) but is it possible that someone could explain a basic workflow for getting footage (24P/Letterbox/NTSC) from a DVX to a point where it can be viewed on a computer monitor/LCD screen at its best resolution?

I assumed that the resolution of the quicktime files created from capturing are non-square pixels that won't look right on a computer display.


Thanks for any help. I feel like the more I learn sometimes the more complex it gets. Didn't someone say ignorance is bliss?
 
Not everyone has the option of editing on a 23.97 timeline.

I shoot 24p all the time and edit on a 29.97 timeline, then export to DVD. The result is a video with a very filmlike look. 24p works very well edited on a 29.97 timeline. 24pA can be edited on 29.97 too, but it can have some unusual problems.

24p is actually what you would want to shoot if you are going to edit on a 29.97 timeline.

The 2:3 pulldown is the industry standard and progressive scan DVD players have 2:3 pulldown detection/removal protocols built in. This means that if a DVD is burned from footage shot in 24p, edited on a 29.97 timeline, then put into the player, the player will look for, and remove, the 2:3 pulldown so that the displayed image is at 24fps (If the TV is capable of progressive scan).

If a DVD edited and exported using a 23.97 timeline is played on an interlaced TV (which most TVs still in use are), then the 2:3 pulldown is added and the video is displayed in interlaced 60i.
 
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