To 24p adv. or not to 24p adv.

Z

zen-cam

New member
This is my first post so please forgive me if I am posting in the wrong place or in the wrong way.

Next week I am shooting some footage with the DVX-100B for a series of commercials. The director likes the look of 24p for some shots but knows that some close-up, fast moving shots will look cleaner if shot in 30p (i.e. no stutter/no interlace from 2:3 pulldown). The spots will be broadcast in NTSC 60i.

The plan is to shoot some shots in 24p and some in 30p and edit in a 30p FCP sequence and output as 30p and have the broadcasters translate it into 60i for broadcast. That way we are giving them the highest quality (progressive instead of interlaced).

So, here's the question (finally): Does it make any difference if we shoot the 24p in advanced vs. normal? I know the rule of thumb is to shoot in 24p adv. if you are going to 24 fps as a final product and 24p norm if you are going to 30p or 60i, but if we shoot the 24p in adv. and then remove pulldown then we can edit in FCP in progressive, right? And then FCP will add the pulldown when outputting, right? So, is it any better to edit with full progressive files (i.e. no pulldown in the 24p), or does FCP do the pulldown any differently than the DVX?

Or am I asking questions that show I don't know what I'm talking about? :)
Please feel free to correct any obvious incorrect assumptions I am making in my question.

Thank you
 
Shoot 24p normal. That means that you get the film look, but remain in a 29.97 frame rate. Then you can mix 30p and 60i with the 24p, as it will all be 29.97.

As soon as you go 24PA, then you are cutting a different frame rate, and that will really complicate matters. KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid (not calling you stupid...that is the saying...)
 
Shane is spot-on. Listen to him. But yes, you have some incorrect assumptions going on too.

Shooting 24p will indeed give you a cadence. For every 3 frames progressive you will have 2 that are 'combined' or 'interlaced' (not really interlaced... combined - because the camera is still only clicking away at 24 times a second.)

SO - to REALLY complicate matters... up until about 10 years ago every tv show shot on film was telecined to 29.97 using this cadence described above. That said, cuts/edits were made with out care to where it happened to be IN the cadence. So on final master out to TV you could have 6 progressive to 4 interlaced at points. Not that any of us noticed AT ALL... but some would say now that that was a bad thing. I'm not one of those people, and I think from Shane's past posts on the subject he isn't either.

If your producer is of such a mind (and don't even tell them this is an issue) then you can (CAN) take the 24p footage into Cinema Tools and strip it of ITS cadence putting it at 24fps and progressive... edit away and export using FCP to add back the cadence in a straight 3.2 and then re-import to cut with the other material.

I hope that makes a little sense to you.

But yes. Only shoot 24pA if indeed you want to go 24fps out. Although it's called an ADVANCED cadence it really makes it easy for FCP to strip it on capture.

Good luck,

CaptM
 
Thank you both for the help. This does make sense.

I guess I was thinking that since progressive = better (or at least more "filmic", which is our goal) that therefore editing footage that was exclusively progressive was preferable. But since we're combining 24p and 30p and going to 29.97 fps as a final product we won't (and maybe no one would) notice any loss of quality. The 24p footage has got to get to 29.97 anyway so we might as well use the DVXs pulldown, right?

Am I correct that progressive = more "filmic" or is it only 24p that's more "filmic"? Or do the fps and progressive capture combine in 24p to produce that "filmic" look?

This all came up because my understanding is that FCP 6 (Studio 2) can be used to edit a sequence that has both 24p AND 30p footage, but I wasn't sure how that would work... Does it?

Anyway, I appreciate the recommendation to KISS. Why ask for trouble especially when it doesn't gain us any appreciable advantage?

Thanks again.

Zen-cam
 
Last edited:
What's so complicated shooting 24pA?

Just change your capture settings to 2:3:3:2 Pulldown Removal...

And edit in a 23.98 sequence.

I always shoot 24pA and I haven't had a problem.

Do you get more of a film look with 24p?
 
Come on Robbie... shades of old coming thru. Don't confuse him anymore than he already is. (sorry - my assumption it's a guy)

Read his first post again.

CaptM
 
My question has been answered and I plan to shoot in 24p and 30p and not bother with 24pA. CaptM, thank you for trying to keep me from getting more confused, but what Robbie brings up actually highlights part of my initial question.

I'm curious about the issue and would love to be less confused, but if continuing this thread doesn't serve a purpose for anyone else I will stop asking. :-)

CaptM, you suggest that I could shoot in 24p, remove the cadence in Cinema Tools to get to 24 fps progressive footage that could be edited in FCP as such (in a 23.98 sequence), then exported as 29.97 (thereby adding the "combined" frames back in) and edited with other 29.97 footage (i.e. footage shot at 30p) in a 29.97 sequence. Right? I know this was not a recommendation but an acknowledgment that this workflow possibility exists.

So, to respond to this idea and for the sake of elucidation, the project is going to be 30 second TV spots combining 30p and 24p footage, so there won't be any editing some 24p footage together to then export and re-import to combine with 30p footage in a 29.97 timeline. It will be cuts back and forth between the two formats from shot to shot.

Which brings me back to my original questions, which I know may not have been clear:

1) Can you have both 24 fps (23.98) and 30 fps (29.97) in the same sequence in FCP?

2) If the answer to question 1 is "yes", is there any real benefit to editing all the footage as true progressive footage (i.e. no "combined" frames) and then exporting to 29.97 as the final product? I other words, does FCP do a better job combining frames or is it just a straight line by line combining? I'm used to Photoshop where you can get much better results doing up-rezzing interpolation (bi-cubic) in PS than in other tools (like in a camera or some lesser image editing software).

This came up because we shot in 24p previously and noticed that, when we looked at single frames, some fast moving objects (e.g. vehicles) looked jagged, especially along high contrast lines of 30-45 degree angles off of vertical (e.g. the frame of the windshield/door).

My assumption has been that this was because of the combined frames; the vehicle was moving so quickly that frames 1 and 2 shot in 24p were combined in the 2:3 pulldown to tape and the jaggedness was lines of frame 1 and frame 2 stitched together to make the combined frame. So my thought was that if we shoot in 24pA we could eliminate those combined frames by removing the pulldown and then have FCP do a possibly cleaner job of combining the frames on export to 29.97.

How far off base am I? :-)

Zen-cam

P.S. Yes, I am a guy.
 
Last edited:
Wow -- you sure type a lot!! (wink)

Let's get this straight first...

Yes, you can combine the two types of frame rates into the timeline, HOWEVER -- you will have to render one of them to match the other so FCP will combine frames anyway in a 30fps sequence and you might not like the results it gives you. I think it also just duplicates the frames rather than combines them. But not sure.

So - honestly, since you will be cutting back and forth I'd go with the 24p solution in-camera and just edit at 30fps.

THAT SAID!!!!!

Why not just shoot it all in 30p. 90% of the TVs that see this are going to see it interlaced anyway. Good lighting and color correction/timing will do wonders for the 30p look.

To clear up a few of the other points...

Don't try and second guess what a look will look like on one given frame. Bad idea. Of course nobody will be looking at it like that. Yes, a combined frame look like yuk on a monitor. But don't worry about that. Watch it in context on an external NTSC monitor as you edit.

CaptM
 
CaptM,

Thank you again for your time and help. This is great. Also, it's good to know that FCPs version of bumping from 24 -> 30 may not be better and may even be worse than what the DVX puts to tape. As I said, my assumption (incorrect I gather) was that FCP would do a better job than the camera, hence the rationale to have FCP do the bump.

Regarding shooting in 30p: That was my thought as well. Why don't we just shoot it all in 30p? But the Director really likes the look of 24p (as do I) and wants to use it whenever possible.

Does any progressive shooting = more "filmic", or does only 24 fps progressive = more "filmic". In other words, is the "filmic" look the DVX is famous for doing well due to the 24 fps or the progressive capture or both. And if it's the progressive capture, then isn't 30p potentially just as "filmic"?

You seem to be saying you need to compensate for 30p with lighting, color correction, timing to achieve the 24p look. We don't have much control over lighting. Color correcting I can manage (in camera or in post). I'm not sure what you mean by timing.

Good point about inspecting individual frames. That's not how people will see the finished product. Again, I'm used to the print/Photoshop world where it sometimes does make a difference at the pixel level.

Anyway, thank you again,
Zen-cam
 
The issue of the whole 'film' look is questionable at best. Some of the things the DVX has going for it is a TRUE progressive capture, a great piece of glass and some very good (although small) chips.

That gets you close.

Then, to add the 24p model to the mix -- what you get is only the mechanics of what a FILM would look like when telecined for TV broadcast.

Crappy video will still look like crappy video even if shot progressive 24 or who 60i.

Yes... Progressive will look more film-ish than the standard over video-fide look of interlaced, but only to a point. Video (and DV in particular) will NEVER have the dynamic range of film.

Proper lighting and color correcting (I like to use the term TIMING to adding a 'look' and color correcting for just basic fixing of color.)

Here are two things I shot.

The SECRET was shot 24pA without any color correction. I just edited and thru it up.

The A MOTHER'S LOVE was a little more controlled - I tried to light it and I did some CCing too.

Is it film? No. Does it look filmic? Maybe. But it's still video - even though it is 24fps.

THE SECRET

MOTHER'S LOVE


Don't judge MY work though... I'm not a DP. I've seen amazing stuff done in 30p too.

CaptM
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top