AC160 Help me with 24p

Phil B

Phil B

Active member
I am in need of some help here... I shoot weddings and 98% of the time I shoot 1920x1080 60i, 2% 1920x1080 30p. Anyway, I have a wedding coming up this weekend and the Groom apparently called yesterday and wondered if we could shoot the wedding in 24p. I did not talk to him, so I do not know the whole story. Anyway, my boss said to make sure I get everything setup to shoot in 24p. I have only messed with it a few times, and never on a real shoot. I could never seem to get footage that did not stutter really badly. So I was wondering if anyone can help me with some settings. I have the camera set on 1920x1080 24p, and shutter set to 1/48, and I turned OIS Off. I am not sure what else to mess with. With any sort of panning at all it seems to stutter pretty badly. Slow or fast. I am going to head out in a few min to shoot some types of shots that we may use in the video and try and see if I can get anything to work for me. One of my big concerns is shooting the dancing at the evening reception.

The only things I have ever shot in 24p has been interviews and it was with a Canon 60d. So I did not have to worry about motion at all.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Phil
 
Never a great fan of 24P, even with my HDSLR. Too stuttery for me, but it is a matter of taste. Set your shutter to 1/48 24P x 2=48. Keep your shots as STATIC as possible. When panning use the 3x panning theory. Count to three during each slight movement as you MUST have a slow pan. As for fast action.....good luck with that. Try not to follow too much but keep a wider shot. I HATE 24P, but that is my own opinion. I would prefer 30P anytime.
 
Thanks Lou. It looks like we may be out of the woods for shooting in 24p. I talked to him today and it was because a friend put together a video for their rehearsal dinner in 24p so he thought we needed to shoot in it also if we were going to include that video on their Blu Ray copies.

I actually struggle with 30p some too, with the same stuttery stuff, just not as bad. Are there any suggestions you have for shooting 30p with the 160? Do scene files make a big difference in quality when shooting progressive? I never really mess with them to much. I would just think making sure the shutter is set to 1/60 would be about all I can think of to set. If you shoot in 30p do you export to Blu Ray? Since most of our outputs are Blu Ray and there is no 30p standard for Blu Ray that is why we shoot mostly in 60i. I edit in Premiere Pro CC and it does a good job of converting progressive to interlaced but I just always thought I would stick to what I know, plus that way I do not have to convert it from P to I.

Thanks again Lou.

Phil
 
Since you have the AC 160, and like the look of 60i, why not shoot 1080 60p? It has kind of the same look without the interlacing mess. It can go to 60i in post and you still have master footage shot in progressive for future use if needed.
Progressive footage is easier to manipulate and convert in post.
Sounds like you don't have to worry about 24p on this one.
We haven't done a full wedding in 24p yet for thr reasons you mentioned, but have instead been shooting mostly 30p and liking it. It has more of a filmic look than 60i and 60p, kind of like 24p but more manageable with pans and motion.
I have exported it from premiere to BD as 720 60p, but most of my clients still want DVDs.
I want to use 24p in the future to gain more light but my shooters just aren't smooth enough yet :)

I think 30p will convert nicely to 60i for BD export as well. Seems I did a test a while back. I bet someone will chime in that knows.
 
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Phil B said:
I am in need of some help here... I shoot weddings and 98% of the time I shoot 1920x1080 60i, 2% 1920x1080 30p. Anyway, I have a wedding coming up this weekend and the Groom apparently called yesterday and wondered if we could shoot the wedding in 24p. I did not talk to him, so I do not know the whole story. Anyway, my boss said to make sure I get everything setup to shoot in 24p. I have only messed with it a few times, and never on a real shoot. I could never seem to get footage that did not stutter really badly. So I was wondering if anyone can help me with some settings. I have the camera set on 1920x1080 24p, and shutter set to 1/48, and I turned OIS Off. I am not sure what else to mess with. With any sort of panning at all it seems to stutter pretty badly. Slow or fast. I am going to head out in a few min to shoot some types of shots that we may use in the video and try and see if I can get anything to work for me. One of my big concerns is shooting the dancing at the evening reception.

The only things I have ever shot in 24p has been interviews and it was with a Canon 60d. So I did not have to worry about motion at all.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Phil
Click to expand...

You need to pan really slowly, slower than you think. And if you're zoomed in, you need to pan even slower.

An object should take NO LESS than 7 seconds to cross your picture. Any faster than that, and you will see a stutter.
 
Thanks firehawk. We have not sent our cameras in for the update, so our cameras do not have 60p (well not in 1080) yet. We do shoot 720p60 when we know we want to do a lot of slow motion.

Thanks again everyone for the help. I will continue to mess with it and see if I can figure out what format we are going to continue to shoot most in. I need to push to get our cameras in for the update so I can try 60p.

Phil
 
Simply put: If you want to diminish stutter, slow down your shutter.

Stutter comes from the frame rate & shutter rate. 24fps is almost as slow as you can go before your brain starts to see individual frames. (Somewhere in the teens does the brain start seeing individual frames, but even if you can't perceive the individual frames your brain can still notice a difference between 24p, 30p, 48p, 60p.)

So set the shutter to 1/24, which will increase the blur & reduce stutter. It is a different look if someone is really wanting that "24fps 1/48 shutter look."

60p will generally have less stutter than 24p, but if you shoot with a shutter of 1/1000 for 60p you'll see stutter.
 
Phil B said:
Thanks firehawk. We have not sent our cameras in for the update, so our cameras do not have 60p (well not in 1080) yet. We do shoot 720p60 when we know we want to do a lot of slow motion.

Thanks again everyone for the help. I will continue to mess with it and see if I can figure out what format we are going to continue to shoot most in. I need to push to get our cameras in for the update so I can try 60p.

Phil
Click to expand...


Phil: I'm afraid that you are laboring under a HUGE misunderstanding here. Only the upgrades to get the new expanded focus assist and the turbo-speed one-push auto focus features require that you to send your AC160 in to Panasonic.

The upgrade to shoot in 1080/60p is just a firmware update, and can be easily downloaded from Panasonic and installed by you on the camcorder. It has been available for you to download for well over a year now. This is the reason why Firehawk asked you why you were simply not recording in 1080/60p.

Here is a link to get the update:

http://eww.pass.panasonic.co.jp/pro-av/support/content/download/EN/ep2main/soft/upgac160_e.htm

.
 
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Awesome LanceOregon. Thanks a bunch. I will have to update our cameras then.

Thank you again to everyone for all the input and help...

Phil
 
LanceOregon,
Thanks for chiming in with that info and link. I just now saw the responses.
Yeah no need to send it in for the firmware 60p update. I assumed Phil had that framerate already not realizing it was an earlier one not yet updated. But it's probably worth it for the focus assists, if you can be without the camera for a while is the problem.
 
Being without the cameras is the reason why we have to sent them in. We are usually really slow in Jan and Feb and planned on sending them in one at a time back then, but we were unusually busy. They are out of town right now on a shoot, but next week I will be doing the firmware update to get the 60p at least.

Thanks again everyone for all the help...
 
Agree. Some people actually lower the shutter for compensation introducing a blurry and soft picture. Too many trade-offs. I still recommend 30p. But as written prior, this is my personal preference which allows some room for issues associated with 24p panning and zooming as well-as movement.

David Jimerson said:
This can help, but it won't save you entirely from poor camera movement. You still only have so many motion samples per second.
Click to expand...
 
David Jimerson said:
This can help, but it won't save you entirely from poor camera movement. You still only have so many motion samples per second.
Click to expand...

Won't save you from poor camera movement, but will save you from the stutter. If you do a whip pan with a slow shutter everything will be blurry, but no stutter. If you do the same whip pan with a really fast shutter (1/1,000 or 1/10,000), you'll have very crisp freeze frames but jarring stutter.

It is always finding what is right for the shot. So sometimes having a 1/24 shutter for 24p makes sense, other times it doesn't. There are times I really like the look of 1/96 (or 1/100) with 24p. But it is a specific look & the motion can't be too great, or else the picture starts looking bad (IMHO).
 
zijital said:
Won't save you from poor camera movement, but will save you from the stutter. If you do a whip pan with a slow shutter everything will be blurry, but no stutter. If you do the same whip pan with a really fast shutter (1/1,000 or 1/10,000), you'll have very crisp freeze frames but jarring stutter.
Click to expand...

True enough, but a slow shutter isn't going to solve a stutter issue for a moderately fast pan -- really, anything much faster than a recommended 7-second pan up to the whip pan.

It is always finding what is right for the shot.
Click to expand...

Of course.
 
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