PAL or NTSC, 24p or 24 advanced for video to film?

[Guest]

These past few days I have gone into the quest of finding actual patterns for best video to film blow-up using DV.

Even if live in an NTSC recording country (Brazil), the dilemma on whether to use PAL for video to film projects is very much present.

The problem is that it's not easy to get an "objective" response from the labs on this matter. Even if I got comments from places like USA's Du Art over this, saying that a blow-up from PAL would be simpler, probably cheaper and quite likely better quality, these matters are not discussed as deeply as I think they should.

As you certainly know, blowing up from NTSC involves manipulating the image through a software to eliminate the extra frames and still be "invisible". Artifacts are still there, and many places (like DVFilm) offer you different choices, like Rembrandt, to hide them.

Unfortunately all these processing involves lab time, which means more money for us.

A PAL to film transfer can be done in two ways, as far as I could find out: eliminating the extra frame using some software or copying every single PAL frame to film. Both cases would involve audio manipulation later on. But results seem to be lower in cost and better than origin-NTSC.

In come 24p cameras like the DVX100, which I thought would solve the quiz, and now it seems there are also some problems that could be solved by using 24p advanced.

Has anyone actually tried all this processes (recorded in PAL, NTSC, 24p and 24p advanced), blown them to film and compared the results? Or done just part of them and see what you got?

What could you people find out about this from your local labs, whatever you live in?


Carlos

 

[MichaelP]

Re: PAL or NTSC, 24p or 24 advanced for video to f

Re: PAL or NTSC, 24p or 24 advanced for video to f

Most of the costs in the pre-24p camera days was delaing with frame rate and raster conversions. For NTSC, going from 60 field of motion resolution to 24 frame progressive required some high quality processing to deal with motion artifacts and interlace to progreesive issues. A common process was to play back the edited master via a Teranex box (or similar device) which would do the 60i to 24p conversioin as well as an uprez to HD (1080p/24). NTSC suffered from two problems - frame rate and raster. So PAL was a better solution for picture since it only had to deal with raster. The frame rate was never converted, they just transfer every film of video to a frame of film - this resulted in a slowing down of the playback rate - 4.1%. As a result, the audio also needed to be slowed down to be in sync and went thriough a pitch shift in the process - it got lowered by .7 semitone. The raster (50 fields) go converted to progressive frames with motion adapatation etc. through the very same process (a Teranex box) but the results were better since there was less processing needed. It also got uprezed to a HD format.

So, in the pre 24p camera days, picture wise, PAL offered a better solution for a film out. Now, with 24p cameras in the DV space, you have a direct relationship to the film - 24 frame progressive - in this case, there is no need for motion adapatation, de-interlacing and frame reconstruction. The frame is a frame. The only process it needs to go though is an uprez to HD. A teranex box can still be used for this process as every device has their own little secret sauce as to how they deal with pixels when blowing up.

There are other quality issues to consider which have nothing to do with frame rate, raster, PAL or NTSC and that is proper exposure and color correction knowing that you are going to go for a film out. You need to work with the director of photography, your post facility, colorist and facility doing the film out.

Now that these cameras exist, the choice for which one to go with PAL or NTSC is really up to the audio workflow process and the country you are living in. It is always difficult to find sound editors and mixers that can work in PAL if they are in NTSC countries and vice versa. ALso, you monitoring and workflow becomes more problematic and costly.

The only difference between ADVANCED and NORMAL is how your NLE dfeals with creating native 24 frames for editing. If you edit in a DV only resoltuion, then you want to capture with ADVANCED, if you plan on recapturing at an uncompressed 1:1 resolution for color correction and genrational renders, you can work with NORMAL. Some NLE's can capture to uncompressed 24p NTSC from ADVANCED pulldown on the fly.

Hope this helps -

Michael

 

[Carlos_E._Martinez]

Re: PAL or NTSC, 24p or 24 advanced for video to f

Re: PAL or NTSC, 24p or 24 advanced for video to f

[quote author=MichaelP link=board=nws;num=1066312501;start=0#1 date=10/17/03 at 06:04:01]
Now that these cameras exist, the choice for which one to go with PAL or NTSC is really up to the audio workflow process and the country you are living in. It is always difficult to find sound editors and mixers that can work in PAL if they are in NTSC countries and vice versa. ALso, you monitoring and workflow becomes more problematic and costly.

The only difference between ADVANCED and NORMAL is how your NLE dfeals with creating native 24 frames for editing. If you edit in a DV only resoltuion, then you want to capture with ADVANCED, if you plan on recapturing at an uncompressed 1:1 resolution for color correction and genrational renders, you can work with NORMAL. Some NLE's can capture to uncompressed 24p NTSC from ADVANCED pulldown on the fly.

Hope this helps -
[/quote]


First of all, thanks Michael. Your explanation certainly throws a lot of light on this process.

My concern is because I'm planning to shoot some documentaries that I might use for TV and film screening.

As I also believe in simpler processing, PAL also seemed to mean a lower budget in the transfer to film. But the question that I couldn't see information on anywhere is if this "new" 24p processing also cuts transfer costs for us.

My feeling is that transfer houses may not be willing to show the real figures. Or perhaps even increase the cost of the 24p transfer, so as to pay for their normal NTSC transfer software expenses or not make this technology advance so cost-interesting for us. You probably know what I mean.

Of course I am aware of innumerous precautions you have to take when you are planning a video for film shooting. In fact I wish more people were aware of that. There are certain framings you shouldn't do, particularly very large sceneries or landscapes where small information can be degraded and tell-tale the DV source, or very fast pans, or very high lighting ratios, or be careful with filters and optical adaptors.

In fact I believe you have to be quite conservative in all areas and study how people shot film in the '50s and '60s if you want to shoot good looking video for film.

More discussion over these matters in Forums like these would be welcome, IMHO.

But coming back to my specific plans, I still need more information on which might be the better way, quality wise, for projects that would be sold for NTSC broadcasting and also used for film transfer.

If I film in NTSC 24p, will I be able to use that same original tapes for broadcast editing?

Apparently 24p advanced seems to do with the capture, right? Can you explain a bit more on how or when to use each?

Thanks!


Carlos