720P 60 and 24 to Pal?

S

SPZ

Veteran
I've seen the threads, the images, the discussions, the comparison shots, and I really feel the HVX is the camera for me. However, what I don't really feel sure about is to either go Pal or Ntsc. I can get both guaranteed, so this is not a problem. The problem is that I live in a Pal territory. Here, most dvd players are multiregion, so a ntsc dvd is not a problem. However, I really would like to know some answers concerning PAL conversion:

1- There's no point shooting in sd, since dvcprohd is the way of future proofing your footage, so, if theoretically 720p is 960 v 720 at 60hz is ntsc, this should convert quite well to PAL, which is 720 v 576 at 50hz, right? Is this simple to do in FCP? Do I lose any quality?

2- How about 720 24p 60hz to Pal? Do I lose picture smoothness and quality? I know audio needs to be acelerated to conform to the timeline, but what do you get in picture?

3- I know there's a problem with flourescent lighting, but this can be fixed by a different shuter speed. Is this the only problem you get when filminmg 6o hz?

I really need to know this, because, really, what I would like to do with this camera is TV spots and short films, and I really LOVE slowmotion. 10 % more is really a great plus. Also, the Varicam, if I'm correct, only exists in 60hz form, and many comercials where shot with this camera, so this problem must certainly have been solved, so what's the solution? More concretely- Is this workable in FCP easily?

I can get a guaranteed Ntsc camera right now and immediately start shooting my next short film, so please help me clear out these doubts, just to be sure to take the right plunge! (I don't really care about dvcpro50)
 
SPZ said:
How about 720 24p 60hz to Pal? Do I lose picture smoothness and quality?
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720/24p or 25p -- if not to selectable frame rates disposal, why do you need lower rez? If you can have higher rez@1080/24p or 25p?

and I really LOVE slowmotion. 10 % more is really a great plus.
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Well, maybe 20% more, isn't it? 60p -> 30p is the same than 50p -> 25p, right? So, 30p -> 24p is 20% more or am I wrong?

I can get a guaranteed Ntsc camera right now and immediately start shooting my next short film, so please help me clear out these doubts, just to be sure to take the right plunge!
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DVCPRO-HD@24p/60i = 1280x1080

DVCPRO-HD@25p/50i = 1440x1080

I know audio needs to be acelerated to conform to the timeline
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And you don't need speed-up your stuff -- maybe later but with the slowdown from 25p -> 24p, if your first market is the DVD delivery. 25 frames to PAL regions is better rather NTSC 24p. Otherwise, you don't need the pulldown hassle. I've been reading that for 35mm purposes is better a clean workflow such as the recent HD100 film-out screenings/reports have been shown us.
 
Emanuel said:
720/24p or 25p -- if not to selectable frame rates disposal, why do you need lower rez? If you can have higher rez@1080/24p or 25p?

Well, maybe 20% more, isn't it? 60p -> 30p is the same than 50p -> 25p, right? So, 30p -> 24p is 20% more or am I wrong?

DVCPRO-HD@24p/60i = 1280x1080

DVCPRO-HD@25p/50i = 1440x1080

And you don't need speed-up your stuff -- maybe later, if your first market is the DVD delivery. 25 frames to PAL regions is better rather NTSC 24p. Otherwise, you don't need the pulldown hassle. I've been reading that for 35mm purposes is better a clean workflow such as the recent HD100 film-out screenings/reports have been shown us.
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Emanuel, what I want to know is if I will lose any quality in these conversions. If I don't, and if the main problem ends up being the flourescent lights flickering, than I'm definetly going Ntsc.
 
There's going to be quality lost in any conversion, of course. But the good thing for you is: you can try it right now and see how happy you are with the results. Because NTSC/60Hz cameras are out now, you should download some footage and run it through your NLE and make a PAL DVD and play it, and see if you're happy with the results! :)
 
Barry_Green said:
There's going to be quality lost in any conversion, of course. But the good thing for you is: you can try it right now and see how happy you are with the results. Because NTSC/60Hz cameras are out now, you should download some footage and run it through your NLE and make a PAL DVD and play it, and see if you're happy with the results! :)
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Duh! Barry, I'll do that right away! Just export to Quicktime Pal in FCP. right?
 
SPZ said:
If I don't, and if the main problem ends up being the flourescent lights flickering, than I'm definetly going Ntsc.
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You stop the flickering of lights with shutter speeds, i.e. 1/25 or 1/50 in 50Hz country and 1/60 in 60Hz country.
 
Ok, just tried to convert some 720p 24 files to Pal. Good news first: The image quality looks pretty good on my SOny PVM monitor! Bad news is... There's always a small stutering. I exported 3 types of Files. DVPAL 23.98 (to be equal to the singertest1 footage I was using), dvpal 24p (to see if there was any problem or advantage doing this), and DVPAL 24@25. The only format that I could stream (playback) to my firewire camera (a PD170) was the 24@25 footage. This gave a good picture, but with a small stutter like it was adding a invisible frame. The footage is a steadicam shot, so this small break is really noticeable.

So, in therms of Picture quality, there's no loss. Any way to solve this motion problem? Haven't tried 60p to Pal yet, but will try this later on today.
 
I dunno which NLE you're in, but if you're in FCP you supposedly should use Cinema Tools to conform 24@25, which should give you smooth playback and 1/24th of a speedup.

this is - as far as I have read - how the 35mm to PAL and vice versa is done.

Gunleik
-Who's gonna try this shortly, but are off to my first Varicam test tomorrow! -;)
 
gunleik said:
I dunno which NLE you're in, but if you're in FCP you supposedly should use Cinema Tools to conform 24@25, which should give you smooth playback and 1/24th of a speedup.

this is - as far as I have read - how the 35mm to PAL and vice versa is done.

Gunleik
-Who's gonna try this shortly, but are off to my first Varicam test tomorrow! -;)
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Gunleik, I'll try this today and report the results.
 
Indeed, after passing the SIngertest footage to the cinematools software, the picture seemed to lose the small stutter it had before. However, at the beginning of the clip, there's a Huge "jump". I'm on a g5, so I don't think this is due to processor performance (3gig 2.7 dual)
 
Emanuel, if I was to only work for film, I wouldn't hesitate to go for the ntsc camera. I've seen the results in a HDtv, people like Michael Pappas have seen the blowup results to film (and was impressed), and you also get the extra 10p in 720p... There's no question about it. For film out and feature film capabilities, the ntsc camera is the one to get. HOWEVER, i work also for TV ( you know what I do) and PAL is ALWAYS around and can't disappear from my reality. So actually I still couldn't find a good workflow with the NTSC camera that could give me satisfactory results in Pal (better image than my PAL DVXa, in other words)
 
Hi
I have the same dilemma as you do: whether to choose a PAL or NTSC model. Main differences being the price and delay: I know a PAL model won't be available for another 1 or 2 months, and most likely be much more expensive.
I want to do both music videos and short films with it, having a market both here and in the US (working with both local and US musicians).
An editor I know told me that 24p to 25p will always show some stutter in pans and tilts, and one big problem is the flickering. But I've seen now that people have suggested the FCP and shutter speed solutions, respectively, to both problems.

My plan is either to fly to Japan (I live in Bangkok, Thailand) and buy an HVX NTSC (cheapest price so far at 4600 US), or wait until Expandore has the PAL version in Singapore...
Where is your PAL HVX-200 source? I thought it had not been released yet! Macau is just around the corner from here, and only 50$US to fly BKK-Macau with air asia...
 
The Intern said:
Hi
I have the same dilemma as you do: whether to choose a PAL or NTSC model. Main differences being the price and delay: I know a PAL model won't be available for another 1 or 2 months, and most likely be much more expensive.
I want to do both music videos and short films with it, having a market both here and in the US (working with both local and US musicians).
An editor I know told me that 24p to 25p will always show some stutter in pans and tilts, and one big problem is the flickering. But I've seen now that people have suggested the FCP and shutter speed solutions, respectively, to both problems.

My plan is either to fly to Japan (I live in Bangkok, Thailand) and buy an HVX NTSC (cheapest price so far at 4600 US), or wait until Expandore has the PAL version in Singapore...
Where is your PAL HVX-200 source? I thought it had not been released yet! Macau is just around the corner from here, and only 50$US to fly BKK-Macau with air asia...
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My source is from HK (very reliable). They seem to be quoting all prices for PAL based on US prices. It makes sense. I expect the prices to be even lower at release. They say that the release date for the Pal model is in the end of March. Do you have access to any post house in Thailand? How much do they charge for a Ntsc to pal conversion?

I used cinematools to conform 720/24p to 720/25p. It does a small stuter when you start playback, but then its smooth. Audio is a bit out of sinc. Haven't tried outputting to PAL 25p yet. I'll see how it does then report here.

What concerns me the most is converting 60p to 50p. It makes sense, at least to me, that having extra 10 frames is better for conversion than not having them at all. Maybe I'm wrong, tough. Barry Green, any input on this?
 
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I haven't really delved into the cross-conversion issues yet. In HD it should be so so so much simpler than it ever was in SD.

In SD (NTSC<->PAL), you had to contend with three differences: color sampling (4:1:1 vs. 4:2:0), frame size (720x576 vs. 720x480), and frame rate (60i vs. 50i). In HD two of those issues just plain go away; color sampling and frame size are identical. So now it's just down to frame rate.

Converting 24p to 25p is the easiest conversion ever; just keep it frame-accurate and change the speed of the clip. Yes your audio will need to be adjusted too, but it's done all the time.

Converting 60i to 50i is not so easy, yet there are tools out there that do it and do a great job of it; Marcus van Bavel of DVFilm offers Atlantis for SD NTSC<->PAL conversion; I don't know if he's updated it for HD or not yet. And Graeme Nattress has, I believe, a frame rate conversion utility as well.

As for 60p to 50p, I don't quite know, as I haven't tried it. But I wonder if you know for a fact that you're going to be converting, would it make more sense to shoot the NTSC stuff at 48fps? 720/60P at 48fps? Might look awful, or it might look fine, but I'm sure that 48fps would convert to 50 a lot easier and cleaner than 60p would to 50p. It is kind of jerky on the US model though, so I don't know how good of an idea that is... :)
 
Barry_Green said:
I haven't really delved into the cross-conversion issues yet. In HD it should be so so so much simpler than it ever was in SD.

In SD (NTSC<->PAL), you had to contend with three differences: color sampling (4:1:1 vs. 4:2:0), frame size (720x576 vs. 720x480), and frame rate (60i vs. 50i). In HD two of those issues just plain go away; color sampling and frame size are identical. So now it's just down to frame rate.

Converting 24p to 25p is the easiest conversion ever; just keep it frame-accurate and change the speed of the clip. Yes your audio will need to be adjusted too, but it's done all the time.

Converting 60i to 50i is not so easy, yet there are tools out there that do it and do a great job of it; Marcus van Bavel of DVFilm offers Atlantis for SD NTSC<->PAL conversion; I don't know if he's updated it for HD or not yet. And Graeme Nattress has, I believe, a frame rate conversion utility as well.

As for 60p to 50p, I don't quite know, as I haven't tried it. But I wonder if you know for a fact that you're going to be converting, would it make more sense to shoot the NTSC stuff at 48fps? 720/60P at 48fps? Might look awful, or it might look fine, but I'm sure that 48fps would convert to 50 a lot easier and cleaner than 60p would to 50p. It is kind of jerky on the US model though, so I don't know how good of an idea that is... :)
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Barry, your information is a godsend. I have decided: NTSC camera it is! (I can always buy the Pal camera later with revenue of the stuff done with the ntsc camera.)

You say 48P, er, 48 fps looks jerky. That's what I was affraid would happen to 50p (extra 2 fps wont make much of a difference). Which makes me believe that 720p50 won't be that popular...
 
No, I don't think you're following what I'm saying. 720/50p should be smooth as glass.

What's happening is on the NTSC version I can shoot 720/48p carried within (and displayed as) 720/60p. So if you try to display 48p as 60p, there are 12 duplicate frames in there, and it makes it look a bit jerky. Normally you wouldn't do that, normally you'd use the 48fps in a 720/30pN or 720/24pN project, and it would be slow-mo. I was just experimenting to see if 720/48 could look smooth enough to be acceptable when carried within a 720/60p stream, and it's not. But then again, that's not what it's designed for.

50p played back as 50p will look smooth as glass.
 
SPZ said:
Barry, your information is a godsend.
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Thank you Barry for the positive answer to my PM call. So much appreciated and useful, as usual.
 
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Barry_Green said:
No, I don't think you're following what I'm saying. 720/50p should be smooth as glass.

What's happening is on the NTSC version I can shoot 720/48p carried within (and displayed as) 720/60p. So if you try to display 48p as 60p, there are 12 duplicate frames in there, and it makes it look a bit jerky. Normally you wouldn't do that, normally you'd use the 48fps in a 720/30pN or 720/24pN project, and it would be slow-mo. I was just experimenting to see if 720/48 could look smooth enough to be acceptable when carried within a 720/60p stream, and it's not. But then again, that's not what it's designed for.

50p played back as 50p will look smooth as glass.
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Barry, I know you are now entering the world of FCP. As you might have noticed, its really not that possible at the moment to edit 720p 50 on it, so there's no way to test this on a Mac platform. However, 24p to 25p looks to be lossless. How does 1080i 60 converted to 1080i50 looks? I couldn't perform this test yet. Like you said Barry, there are no more resolution or pixel interpretation differences as there where in Pal vs Ntsc, so the footage should look the same in therms of resolution, right?
 
I was considering buying the US version as well, but I came to the conclusion that it would be too much of a hassle. I regulary do some music promos, and It would be great to be able to do MOS at high speed at 60 fps. But then I would need to shoot the sync, against a 4% timestretched version, and then reconform 24@25 in fcp to match it to the 100% version.

Too bad we didn't get 60p MOS in the Euro version....

(I'm still hoping that some bloke of a hacker can modify the firmware, like it happened to the Canon 300D. He actually enabled a lot of features (ISO3200, FEC, mirror lockup, servo focus) and changed the button configurations. But first we would need to get some tools to download and upload the firmware, and compare the binaries)
 
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