GH4 Question for those who use gh4 for European TV works.

C

CustomerGH4

Well-known member
Long story short I decided I want to use 25p instead of 50i.
The reasons:
1) You can get UHD with 25p, but with 50i you cannot. So if I was to take a UHD shot for any reason then in 25p filming I would have that possibility.
2) It can be showed easily online without de-interlacing.
3) Films that are in 24p are shown on TV everyday , so 25p should play as well.
4) UHD TV´s HEVC codecs don´t support interlaced coding tools.

So yeah, I see no downside for this, if there is then input is appreciated.
Also interested if anyone here films in 25p instead of 50i?
 
I use(d) Panasonic cameras (GH 1 to 4 and Ag-Af) as B and special purpose cameras in Germany. I always shoot 25p or 50p as most tv-stations I know ask for it. If you work "over here" :-) 25p is the way to go usually. It may be that for news other standarts may apply, but again 25p is - at least in Germany - the in most if not all cases right thing to do. Apart from the fact that 25p almost never will give you headaches with flickering light sources in a 50Hz grid.
 
Rolf Silber said:
I use(d) Panasonic cameras (GH 1 to 4 and Ag-Af) as B and special purpose cameras in Germany. I always shoot 25p or 50p as most tv-stations I know ask for it. If you work "over here" :-) 25p is the way to go usually. It may be that for news other standarts may apply, but again 25p is - at least in Germany - the in most if not all cases right thing to do. Apart from the fact that 25p almost never will give you headaches with flickering light sources in a 50Hz grid.
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Yes thank you!
That is what I intend to do, the standard here is 50i, but I am against it and will start using 25p (or sometimes 50p).
I went to the store today as well to check out the TV refresh rates these days. When they used to be 50hz, then in the store they ranged from 100hz-800hz.
 
IMHO, you should contact the broadcaster you are delivering to and get their delivery standards, rather than delivering in an alternate format, just because you are against it.
 
Yeah I did talk to them yesterday, they said they use 50i because its a standard and that was it. (No any other reason besides being a standard.) And then I said who decides its a standard. The response was that camera operators and I said that then its settled, Im gonna choose and go with 25p and that was the end of discussion.
Then I came here just to be sure if it would work out fine, because I myself see no reason it should´t.
 
I don't know what it's like in your region, but most of the networks I deliver to here in the US have computers which read the metadata of the file you submit. If it does not meet the specs, it is rejected.
 
I am stuck somewhere between your position and that of david: If your broadcaster demands 50i then - indeed - you should shoot 50i. What do you do with the material? Do you edit and confirm it yourself or do you deliver the data directly? What country are we talking about? A lot of German stations shoot in 50i but have at the same time no problem whatsoever to take material shot in 25p.
 
Rolf Silber said:
I am stuck somewhere between your position and that of david: If your broadcaster demands 50i then - indeed - you should shoot 50i. What do you do with the material? Do you edit and confirm it yourself or do you deliver the data directly? What country are we talking about? A lot of German stations shoot in 50i but have at the same time no problem whatsoever to take material shot in 25p.
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Edit myself, country is Estonia. We use the same standard as Germany I believe. PAL B/G and now DVB-T.
 
Asked a fellow cameraman from Latvia.
Turns out he hates 50i too and shoots 25p for TV.

So I guess everything will go fine.
 
Okay, so finally I have an answer.
25p, is usable yes, but the problem is even if the footage is progressive, the signal itself that is broadcasted uses interlaced footage, so it would not be compatible with other stuff. They said 50p is ok though.
Makes me sad.
 
As stated eariler, you can shoot progressive, and then deliver interlaced. We have been doing this for a very long time for broadcast.
 
David W. Jones said:
As stated eariler, you can shoot progressive, and then deliver interlaced. We have been doing this for a very long time for broadcast.
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Okay, so I finally went ahead and did it. Im dissapointed to say that I forgot all about the lights. Was shooting inside with the lights the establishment had. And now with the 25p there is flicker in the shots. With 50i the flicker was gone, I think because of the 50herz the lamps usually here are. Anyway You have experience in this perhaps. If I convert the 25p into 50i does the flicker dissapear? (Problem is that all the interviews have flicker and I want to get rid of them.)

Any help is very welcome !
 
CustomerGH4 said:
Okay, so I finally went ahead and did it. Im dissapointed to say that I forgot all about the lights. Was shooting inside with the lights the establishment had. And now with the 25p there is flicker in the shots. With 50i the flicker was gone, I think because of the 50herz the lamps usually here are. Anyway You have experience in this perhaps. If I convert the 25p into 50i does the flicker dissapear? (Problem is that all the interviews have flicker and I want to get rid of them.)

Any help is very welcome !
Click to expand...

What? What is your grid frequency? Really 50Hz? Seems impossible to get flicker when in pal mode to get into problems unless you shot with light sources that have technical problems and/or old power supplies. Can you post an example? What was your exposure time?

Here the appropriate website for the technical background:

http://www.davidsatz.com/flickercalculator_en.html
http://www.davidsatz.com/aboutflicker_en.html
 
Ooops..... this looks as if a light source was running on a different frequency - almost like the reflection of a monitor/display on the poster running in something like 72Hz or whatever. You can get such effects in cases when such sources are build to work on different frequencies all though you grid runs steady on 50Hz. We encountered nightmares when shooting in supermarkets where the displays at the cash-points where synced to arcane frequencies. Normally a LED in itself should not produce such a problem. But it looks like you have shot on a kind of trade show. In such cases strange things can happen like on fairgrounds. Terribly enough it's often that the flickering appears in the more shadowy areas while other areas appear fine within the same image - which makes it even more ugly.

For me this looks definitely not like a problem of the camera but the problem of light sources and/or the reflection of such. I am not sure you can do much about it in the existing material. Others here may have better ideas....?!
 
Yes, you are correct it was a gameshow.
But, I found a solution. http://www.digitalanarchy.com/Flicker/main.html
I tested it and it got rid of the flicker, the only downside is that the picture quality changes, the footage starts to look like its taken with a slow shutter speed. (hazy and dreamy) But tomorrow I try to fiddle around with the settings more and find a perfect balance.
 
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