Determining Format from DV tapes

[adreedy]

So as a pretty new assistant I've had multiple occasions where no one told me about this 24pA thing, and since I only knew about 29.97 on DV tape, i've captured stuff wrong twice now and that annoys me. It makes me look dumb and gives me lots of correction work to do.

My question is this: Without being told specifics on what to capture, is there any way aside from visual cues like the jagged lines to find out if a DV tape is shot 24pA, or something else? I've been told I just have to ask, and from now on I will ALSO do that if no one told me, but since I've had two people not tell me and I screwed it up as a result, I want to be able to do the check on my own. Does anyone know if its possible to check this in FCP somehow? thanks for your help in advance.

austin

 

[Alex H.]

It is the responsibility of the camera crew to properly label camera media as to the format used.

That said, everything the DVX records goes to tape at 29.97. Thus, you cannot go wrong capturing it at 29.97. The pull-down from 24p or 24pA can be removed later if need be (depending on your NLE).

Which NLE are you using, by the way? That makes a difference in how things are captured with pull-down.

 

[adreedy]

I'm using final cut 6.0.6. I tried to remove the pulldown in FCP for some stuff shot on an HVX but it didn't really work, I've read FCPs pulldown post-capture is not to be trusted. I have compressor and cinema tools though, an if there's a way to correctly remove the pulldown from captured material using either of those I'd be happy to use them.

I wish everyone labeled everything!? This is only a problem because as I said before, pretty new to this, and so I had to learn about 24pA by capturing wrong. then another thing i've been capturing for a while, after learning about my 24pA mistake I got the nagging feeling I'd done the other one wrong. The other one is more tricky, not only do i have the pulldown thing to deal with but I also have some material that is (I believe was shot somehow) letterboxed. Other stuff is anamorphic and some is not. I think having a couple people shoot this stuff and no one telling the others what they've used is causing me a headache later! But regardless, I don't care about that now, I'm more concerned with fixing my current problem. All things shot later I can worry about then...

So is the only way to know to just ask if not told? It doesn't seem hard to do that and obviously now that I've had this mistake I'll ALWAYS ask, but I just wish there was a magic button to push that would correctly interpret the footage BEFORE capture...

 

[beenest]

Hi Austin - I know you were expecting answers and not questions, but I am in the exact situation as you, and am just starting out.

I have about twenty DV tapes with captured footage - half shot in 24P mode and the other half in 24pA. Of the ones that are 24PA, I know all I have to do is capture them with the DV NTSC Advanced preset (29.97, pulldown removal). I am using Final Cut Pro

However, I am unsure about the tapes shot in regular 24p. Can I capture them with the same preset for the 24pA, or do I have to capture differently and run them through some kind of processing?

Also, please let me know if you found out a way to tell if a tape was shot in either mode.

There are a couple tapes I am unsure about also! Thanks!

 

[iain.bason]

You can't use advanced pulldown removal with tapes shot 24p. I believe FCP will just complain if you try (so that's one way to figure out whether they were shot 24pA).

To remove the 24p pulldown, you can use Cinema Tools. There's a section in my manual titled "Removing 2:3:3:2 or 2:3:2:3 Pull-Down with Cinema Tools". Briefly, you open the clip and click "Reverse Telecine". It also has a batch mode that can do reverse telecine on a whole folder at once.