24P vs. 24PA

Norm Sanders

Norm Sanders

Script Wrangler
We just shot some footage of an interview of a fairly well known rock star ... it was an important interview, which the director flew from LA to Portland for ... we used my DVX100a. I set it to 24PA, thinking it was best as I knew he wanted to put this to film as well as DVD, and now he's questioning it.

He wishes I gave him the option of 24P vs. 24PA, as he's convinced he won't be able to master out for NTSC, or something like that. Apparently the research he's done states that 24P can be used for NTSC & film, and 24PA can only be used for film.

My understanding was that 24P simply had less interlaced frames & was better for a film like look whether you were going to distribute on film, DVD, or web ... just that you would need to edit it in a 24P timeline. I said that if he was concerned he could probably edit it in a 24P timeline, then render back out into whatever frame mode he'd like via a AVI file.

Did I screw up? Thoughts? Thanks for your help folks!
 
Re: 24P vs. 24PA

If he's going out to film, you made the right choice.

You're fine for TV and DVD, too.  Like you say, just edit in a 24p timeline then render out any way you want.

You'd probably be fine, anway; 24pA only looks a tiny bit more stroby on an NTSC set, and even then, only a tiny, tiny bit.

Don't sweat it. Most DVX users flip to F6 right out of the box and never move it again. :D
 
Re: 24P vs. 24PA

You did *exactly* the right thing.  The director is misinformed--easy considering that the topic can be confusing.  Shooting in 24Pa gives you footage with a 2:3:3:2 pulldown inserted that allows you to more cleanly extract individual frames to a 24p NLE timeline.  The advanced pulldown makes sure that different frames don't get compressed with each other (the two 60i fields get compressed together in the NTSC DV standard).  So it will produce a better footage for filmout and for straight to DVD.  The 2:3:3:2 pulldown is removed when you edit on a 24P timeline.  When you're ready to master back out to NTSC you can add a standard 2:3 pulldown to convert the footage from 24 to 29.97 (NTSC) frames.  This will exactly replicate the cadence you would have gotten if you'd shot the original material using 24P normal.  If you have the capability of editing on a 24P timeline, you should always shoot 24P advanced.
 
Re: 24P vs. 24PA

Oh and when Jimerson mentions that 24P advanced looks slightly more stroby--what he's really saying is that a 2:3:3:2 cadence looks slightly jerkier than a 2:3 cadence. Since you'll be inserting a normal 2:3 pulldown when mastering out from your NLE, this won't apply to your final NTSC master.
 
Re: 24P vs. 24PA

[quote author=Barry_S link=board=Events;num=1104459283;start=0#3 date=12/30/04 at 19:58:09]Oh and when Jimerson mentions that 24P advanced looks slightly more stroby--what he's really saying is that a 2:3:3:2 cadence looks slightly jerkier than a 2:3 cadence.  Since you'll be inserting a normal 2:3 pulldown when mastering out from your NLE, this won't apply to your final NTSC master.[/quote]

Yes. :)
 
Re: 24P vs. 24PA

Thanks guys, you've made things very clear for me to better understand why I said & chose what I did. Huge help.
 
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