24PA or 60i best for primarily web application?

Norm Sanders

Norm Sanders

Script Wrangler
I've just been hired by a real estate agent to do a "virtual" tour of a $6MM dollar home. It'll be a very cinematic presentation, complete with possible voice over, powerful music, etc.

Question is, I LOVE to shoot in 24PA, however this video will MOSTLY be shown on the web, with some viewings on DVD. If I shoot in 60i, it'll allow me a LOT more flexibility & creativity in post with regards to slow motion, speed, etc. AND I won't have to pan as slowly either during the shoot.

Anyone got any reasons why I should shoot this one in 24PA vs 60i? Will 60i look noticeably different/lower quality? Again, I mostly shoot 24PA, but I'm thinking with this one 60i will work best.

Would love your feedback. I'm pretty excited about this, as I quoted $90 an hour, and she didn't bat an eye at it ... so I'll be looking at an easy $1K in profit or more for a fairly quick & easy job. This will be my second such tour, which the first turned out pretty well, though I want to step it up a notch on this one.
 
you can use the 24P... how will you have more flexibilty with 60I? as far as the pans, chances are you would slo-mo the pans in post, so why not just film them slowly and not worry about changing the speed afterwards...
 
With 24P, if you're not following a subject while panning (i.e. panning as someone walks across the room, field, street, etc.), if you don't pan slowly enough you can get a stutter/choppy look to your footage.

Also, when working with 24P, if on a 24P timeline (the only timeline I want to work with when working with 24P footage), you don't have as much flexibility to slow down the footage, speed up, etc. while keeping in a 24 FPS style (i.e. 12 FPS, 24FPS, 48FPS) ...

With 60i, however, I can still have pretty silky smooth slow mo when slowing it all the way down to nearly 50% ... can't do that with 24P that I'm aware of. I can also increase the clip by 10-20% without it looking wierd ... I've read you can't do that as well with 24 as it would be out of sync with the timeline, or something like that.
 
Envision, if you are primarily showing on the web, absolutly shoot 24 or 30p? Why, computer monitors are progressive scan, and interlace looks like crap on computer monitors. Some programs will apply a deinterlacing filter on interlaced footage, but why not just shoot 30P? You can still get usuable slow motion, and no interlace artifacts.
 
Slow Motion- If your project is at 24p then you can do more/better slow motion by shooting 6oi. If your project is already 60 however then you can only slow down in post. Although I'm not sure what on the estate that would benefit from slow motion.

If it's for the web I'd suggest 24p or 30p since you won't have interlacing and the images will look cleaner on a computer. Interlacing is meant for TV.

If you're panning fast enough to cause strobing in 24p then you're probably pannign to fast regardless of fps. If you're supposed to display the interior and exterior and are pannign fast then people won't be seeing much during the pan.

Best thing to do is run a test of both for you to decide.
 
for web usage you really need to use either 24p or 30p

but the most overlooked thing is keeping the camera as steady as possible.

the way most compression/streaming systems work is the computer only redraws what has changed.

so if the camera is on a tripod and only the person standing in front moves then the computer can get away with only redrawing the pixels effected by the persons movement.

if your doing a moving tour of the home doing smooth pans where the camera only moves side to side you might still benefit from the tripod.

i've never done any testing to see if horizontal movement only helps save screen redraws.

matthew
 
Good stuff folks, thanks. I'll go ahead and do scene setting 6 at 30P, giving me SOME latitude for slow motion, if needed. The primary reason why I may do some slow motion, or speed something up, is on the driving/boat shots ... that way, if I need to get through the boat shot (panning past the home from the river) faster, then I can speed it up appropriately, or if the driving/boat shot ends up being a little shaky, I can slow it down just a touch in post to lessen the effect.

Any tips on shooting 30P? I've only shot 60i & 24P/PA before. Thanks again!
 
Having done a fair amount of work for the web, my sense is you'll want to keep motion to a minimum.

The problem we face is the desire to do "higher end" creative stuff, while keeping in mind we've got a fair number of "viewers" using dial-up. While our ISP does now "read" what type of service the user has, it doesn't change the fact that we still need to produce spots in a way that doesn't overwhelm what we've called the "least common denominator".

We are in search of the web holy grail of content/compression/quality. This was a good thread, which has lead me to wanting to approach my team at work about using the DVX for our next web shoot.

Thanks,

Tim
 
What does motion have to do with file size, or those on dial up? Just curious. I'm not too concerned about those on dial up, as the site states for high speed access only, not to mention those shopping for multi-million dollar homes (in this case), will most likely have high speed access anyway.

I agree for web design to try & be considerate to what is still a very large market on dial up, but not so much for this particular presentation.
 
Like matthew said above. The more motion, the more pixels change, and the more compression, resulting in bigger file size. If you are really unsure, do some testing beforehand in similar situations in 24P 30P and 60I, then render and compress trying several compressors to get comfortable with what you want to do before the real shoot. Everyone can give advise, and most are right on, but theres nothing like testing yourself to be sure. Good luck, sounds like a fun shoot. I do mostly architectural shooting myself, but the majority of my clients still prefer stills over video. But I'm working on them...
 
Would you really do post-production slow motion if you're showing a house? I'd say it's much more important to make sure you have some nice camera moves (crane/jib), etc.

You don't have to worry about dial-up, but make sure it streams well on broadband. If you get the most out of the compression, you can deliver better quality and/or size at the same bitrate. Be sure to show us the video when you're done ... I want to know what a $6 million house looks like. :)
 
Sure, I'll keep track of this thread, and post it when I'm done. Should probably be shooting next week, with it ready within a couple of days after that for web delivery, which I'll host on my server.

To give you folks an idea of why I may use slow-mo in shots on a home, you can check out the following: www.eefilm.com/impact/tours/klarsen/tualatin/tualatin.html

Some disclaimers in advance: This was shot in Sept of last year, and I had no clue how to use the DVX ... knew I was going to get one eventually, but that was it. So, I borrowed a friend's old DVX100, ended up shooting in both Scenes 1 & 5, not color correcting properly, hadn't really gotten a hang of my SteadyTracker yet, etc.

Enough excuses yet? Anyway, you'll get a sense of how I'm trying to show a luxury home in a much different manner than most home tours are done ... something more cinematic & really makes the place attractive. The home in the video above was for $3.7MM, now with a sale pending for approx. $3.2MM. It also whips through the home quicker than I'd like, but the client insisted I show as much as possible of the home, making it a tough balance.
 
Given the speed of the cutting personally I'd suggest:
Get a wide lens adapter
More use out of the camera stabilizer and tripod
Less camera motion
 
Envision,
30p for web presentation works very well. Using a higher shutter speed than normal also helps minimize artifacting when compressing for the web...less motion smear between frames that can be interpreted as noise by the compressor. Just have to keep camera moves slow and smooth when using 1/100th shutter to avoid strobing.
Hope this helps.
Ken
 
Scott, agreed. Now that I own my own DVX100a, I've also purchased the Century Optics Wide Angle Adapter ... I'll want it to give a larger look to some of the rooms anyway.

Ken, I'll definately use 30P for this, and thanks for the tip on the higher shutter speed ... I guess I just don't understand why there could be strobing with a higher shutter speed ... I believe you, and I'll test it out as well, but it doesn't make sense in my head ... I would think a slower shutter speed could cause strobing, or too slow could cause a ghosting effect.

So is that the best shutter speed you believe for 30P shooting (1/100th)? I've got basics down on most of the camera, but shutter speed is the one thing so far that I've never messed with unless it's to sync to a TV/Monitor/lights.

Thanks for the tips, everone. This thread's been extremely helpful. Of course, I'll put it all into application, doing some tests so I know how to best utilize it, but tons of direction to go from here. Great stuff.
 
Well, strobing may be the wrong term...choppiness might be better. I have only noticed it when using much higher shutter speeds...you probably wont see it at all with anything 1/250th or under.
Hopr this helps.
Ken
 
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