If the pan was shot properly for 24 fps to begin with, it'll look fine with the telecine. If it wasn't, then it won't. But that's an issue with handling the camera at 24 fps, not with the telecine.
I think this is an important issue...
- Thread starter scorsesefan
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If the pan was shot properly for 24 fps to begin with, it'll look fine with the telecine. If it wasn't, then it won't. But that's an issue with handling the camera at 24 fps, not with the telecine.
scorsesefan
Veteran
Well said.
cpreston
Veteran
Peter Jackson (although the Hobbit movies were crap)
Ang Lee
But most importantly, Cameron, the man who singlehandedly brought 3D back from the grave.
I think we are just conditioned from analyzing video. The average public doesn't really notice. Sure, you hear reports about the "soap opera" effect, but I still see people happily watching BBC content in 1080i and thinking it is great. Or sports. I'm even constantly surprised by the number of TV's I still see setup with wrong aspect ratio and everybody is squished or the frame is cropped. If people really hated HFR, TVs wouldn't be being sold with that terrible frame interpolation. 24p will be around for awhile because it is the standard, but there is nothing special about it. I would say the only benefit that it has is lower bandwidth and it is easier to cut.
scorsesefan
Veteran
The "public" needs to be educated sometimes. I used to work in a video store before widescreen TVs were plentiful and we had to explain to people why "pan and scan" was bad and what anamorphic widescreen was. Once we explained the concepts to people and how they compromise the directors intent they get it. I think the same thing needs to be done with the motion compensation/refreshbrate issue...
All of whom were also pursuing higher frame-rates because of primarily 3D related reasons, a technology that has been roundly rejected by most consumers. There are valid reasons for wanting to clean up the judder / strobing in 3D, as it is much worse in 3D than it is in 2D, but it is a completely separate argument than what the TV manufacturers are trying to do.
Having seen both The Hobbit 3D at 48fps and Billy Lynn 3D at 120fps, I will say that The Hobbit movies looked weird but were mostly watchable, while Billy Lynn was absolute unwatchable garbage at 120fps. The frame-rate in Billy Lynn completely alienated the audience from the content and made everything look corny and fake.
Cary Knoop
Veteran
I agree, but to me that includes getting rid of 3:2 telecine.
Another pet peeve of mine is those irritating logos that broadcasters put on other people's work.
I would welcome it if copyright holders only allowed broadcasting of their work undisturbed by logos.
part of that is acting too. When it looks so "life like", you have to tone down the reaction shots or they look unnatural. It's sort of/kind of when one looks at the 1920/s-30's footage of Hitler or Mussolini and believes that they were sort of/kind of insane but, in reality, they were acting as taught in live theater, with exaggerated arms and hands movements. Soap/daytime drama actors, however, create sufficient artistic impression on their viewers to have loyal following.
And the Daytime Emmy Awards.
CharlesPapert
Director of Photography
Cary, not sure if you were saying that you can always ID (and find issue with) 60i presentation of 24p originated material, or were you taking exception to the way that material was processed in the past? Do you feel for example that given a modern camera that is capable of switching its monitoring output from 23.98 to 59.94 (as the Alexa can, for instance), you would be able to see the difference on a reference monitor? I certainly can't. Nor can my DIT's. We often use that mode to maintain compatibility with the full chain of monitoring on set. Perhaps your persistence of vision is unusually sensitive (not taking the piss, it may actually be possible)!
They're using higher frame rates for 3D work. They aren't leaving 24 fps in general.
There are things for which HFR is appropriate - sports is one. Anything that should look live is.
But if something should look fictional, HFR doesn't work nearly as well.
Anyway, as to the visual difference between straight 24 fps and 24 fps with 2:3 pulldown in a 60 fps stream, one of these is straight 24p and the other is 24p with pulldown displayed as 60p.
Cary Knoop
Veteran
Cadence 1, which is 59.94 frames per second, has unique frames.
When you telecine a 23.976 progressive frames per second video you get a 29.97 interlaced frames per second video.
When you deinterlace and frame double this to 59.94 frames per second you cannot create unique frames unless you blend frames (exactly like the "soap opera" effect that everybody finds objectionable).
You can't even create unique frames for B/C and C/D in the group of five, because you would get A-A-B-B-B-C-C-D-D-D and that would break the cadence.
By the way, pull down is lowering the framerate from 24p to 23.976p, 3:2 telecine is what mangles 4 frames into 5 frames.
When you telecine a 23.976 progressive frames per second video you get a 29.97 interlaced frames per second video.
When you deinterlace and frame double this to 59.94 frames per second you cannot create unique frames unless you blend frames (exactly like the "soap opera" effect that everybody finds objectionable).
You can't even create unique frames for B/C and C/D in the group of five, because you would get A-A-B-B-B-C-C-D-D-D and that would break the cadence.
By the way, pull down is lowering the framerate from 24p to 23.976p, 3:2 telecine is what mangles 4 frames into 5 frames.
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It has discrete frames. It has whole frames repeated in a pattern of A A B B B C C D D D so that there are 60 frames per second to display.
But what's important is that's it's visually identical to the other video, which is straight 24p, no repeated frames. You obviously stepped through it to count frames, but visually, they're the same.
When you telecine to 60i for NTSC, sure. But "interlaced frames" is a misnomer. You get 60 interlaced fields per second, each field displayed separately, so there's never a time when there are "29.97 frames." That's entirely imaginary, and the concept of it confuses more than it enlightens. The term "30i" should go away, and people should stop referring to interlaced NTSC video as "29.97 frames per second." It isn't. It's 60 interlaced fields. 60i.
The pattern when displayed, then, comes out to the same pattern as progressive:
Frame A: displayed as fields 1 and 2, or A A.
Frame B: displayed as fields 3, 4, and 5, or B B B.
Frame C: displayed as fields 6 and 7, or C C.
Frame D: displayed as fields 8, 9, and 10, or D D D.
The exact same pattern as if it were progressive.
There's no reason to do that. If you have 24p material and you want to display it as 59.94 progressive, you simply repeat whole frames and don't use any interlacing at all. That's what's happening in the video called "Cadence1."
Theoretically, if you had previously telecined material which is currently 60i and you want it to be 60p, you could line-double each field to make a 60p frame, and the complete pattern is left intact. But a much BETTER approach is to remove pulldown, extract your whole 24p frames, and then repeat those whole frames in the 3:2 pattern.
You do not want to create unique frames; that's the whole point. You repeat whole frames.
Why would you want to?
No, it's not. Pulldown is the pattern of repeated frames necessary to display a slower frame rate at normal speed within a higher frame rate's stream. 3:2 (or 2:3, same thing) is only one pattern. There are many, depending on which frame rates you're concerned with.
It's only a "mangling" if you think of the resulting interlaced stream as "frames," which they aren't. They're unique fields, displayed separately and discretely (on an interlaced screen, anyway, which is what it's designed for).
In the progressive world, as I said above, it's a repeat of whole frames. Nothing is mangled.
Cary Knoop
Veteran
Don't take my word for it, just download the Cadence 1 stream from YouTube and put it in an NLE, go frame by frame by hand and you will see there are no duplicate frames, every frame is different, and there is a lot of blending (e.g. the soap opera effect) going on. I will be happy to upload a slow motion rendition with frame numbers if it is still disputed, but again it is easy to see, and obviously I will upload only if you give me permission to do so.
AABBBCCDDD defnitly breaks the cadence, if you are going to frame double (for instance because your video is mixed with true 60p footage) I would not deinterlace the B and C parts but instead do A-A-B-B-BC-BC-CD-CD-D-D, i.e. just double every frame to keep the cadence.
Just check the Cadence 1, it does not have repeated frames.
I don't have to download it; I made it. Perhaps YouTube's processing did something it shouldn't it have. Here's the original file, and there are repeated frames, no blended frames.
http://www.wrightsvillebeachstudios.com/Cadence1.zip
If YouTube's processing messed it up, that's YouTube's fault.
But when you render 24p footage to 60p, you should NOT use frame blending, ever. You should disable any frame blending or resampling so that you get whole frames, and no blended frames.
Frame blending isn't the soap opera effect. Having 60 motion samples per second gives you the soap opera effect, because everything moves 60 times per second instead of 24, closer to real life, so it looks "live." Blending frames doesn't give you more motion samples; it simply torpedoes resolution. There's no soap opera effect in the video.
Nobody said to deinterlace anything. You should NEVER deinterlace progressive footage, or 24p footage which has been telecined. You should remove pulldown (reverse telecine) and work with your original progressive frames.
Your "BC" and "CD" frames are blended frames. You don't want those. You want clean frames.
You can't just double every frame. If you simply doubled each 24p frame, you'd only end with 48 frames. That's why you need three of every other frame.
Cary Knoop
Veteran
I checked the video in the zip file and unlike the stream from YouTube that one does have duplicate frames!
Obviously I was talking about doubling 59i to 59p.
As you might expect I am not a very great fan of 3:2 telecined footage, I never use telecined material but instead use the original framerate.
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2:3:3:2 is actually choppier than 2:3. You're not supposed to use it for viewing. Its sole purpose is to make it easier to remove pulldown.
Yes, the accursed motion-smoothing. It should be set to OFF at default.