720 24p Native?

O

Omar67

Active member
Hello,

I am actually completely ignorant to this :) so please excuse my stupidity. Buuuuuuuuuut what is the actual technical difference between 720 24pN and regular 720 24p. My clients always want 1080i/60 - soooooooo it really doesn't matter for what i do. Buuuuuuuut i do realilze that you can get more footage (and less drive space) for producing projects on 720 24p Native.

Does the quality differ that greatly from regular 720 and 1080i? I know you can transfer 720 to 1080i tapes etc. Can you shoot on 720 native and output on 1080i - or transcode to 1080i with little problems. Can you take a 720 Native file and turn it into a quicktime file and edit it on full 1080i/60.

In general what are the differences, and are the additional steps that need to be done if you are shooting in 720 native and then supplying a client with a DVC PRO HD or HDCAM tape.

Once again - excuse my ignorance. You'd think i would know what my camera can and can't do by now. :2vrolijk_08:
 
The DVC Pro HD codec natively runs at 60i at 1080 or 60p at 720 when you shoot to tape like on the Varricam or HDX900. (That's why in Final Cut you'll see the codec as DVCPRO HD 720p60 even though you may have a 24p sequence). The HVX records the same codec to P2 card in the same way as tape when shooting in 24P mode.

When you shoot DVCPro HD 720p60 at the 24p setting, the codec records redundant frames in a cadence. So although there are 60 frames a second, only 24 are unique. Final Cut Pro can remove these duplicate frames when you capture from tape, or Cinema Tools can remove the duplicate frames when you import the footage.

The only reason (I can think of) that you'd want to shoot 720p60p at 24P on the HVX is if you were running the HVX as a "B" cam to a Varricam or HDX900, and weren't planing on removing those duplicate frames when you captured the A cam footage. (I'm sure someone will correct me if there is a practical use.)

24PN records just 24 frames per second like a film camera,.. plain and simple. It does not record those redundant frames, that's why you get almost 3 times the recording time.


Now, about 1080i: You can not overcrank to 60p like you can when you're in 720p. So if you want to do bad ass slow motion, you can't do it in 1080i (as far as I understand).

Also, you cannot do "true" 24p in 1080i. You can record 24 frames to a 29.97 frame rate, but then you'll have the pesky 3:2 pulldown to deal with. (Let me know if you want me to explain 3:2 pulldown).

About up converting: I have no experience. If a client specifically requested 1080 60i then that's what I'd deliver. If there was no loss in shoting lower res then up converting everyone would be doing it. I've upconverted the SDX-900 from SD to 720P and it looked pretty good, but it's not as good as Native 720p HD footage.

Hope that helps.

Oh, and the HPX-500 will employ a new more efficient codec I guess.

- Greg
 
If your clients want 1080i/60, give 'em 1080i/60. The HVX, of course, does both.

720/24pN is for the filmlike look (as is 1080/24pA); 720/60p and 1080i/60 are for the "video" look or the "reality" look.

Yes there is a small quality increase when going to 1080/24p vs. 720/24p, or 1080/30p vs. 720/30p. At 60i/60p, 720 looks better than 1080.
 
720/60p looks better then 1080/60i... No interlacing + more frames = better. That is if you like the live video look! Great for sports!
 
Because it's not interlaced. So no jiggy-jaggy edges on objects, no twitter on thin horizontal lines... stuff like football and especially basketball looks sooooo much better on 720p. That's why the major sports broadcasters (ABC, Fox, and ESPN) went with 720.
 
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