Got my HV20 and it is nice. I shot some stuff in 24p HDV mode and then tried to capture into a Final Cut Pro (5.1.4) 24p timeline. No dice. It always captures as 60i. I want to add the HV20 24p footage to the footage I shot with my XH-A1 at 24f.
I used the HDV 1080/24p preset and it recognized the camera fine and captured fine. But the file is captured as 1080/60i, not 1080/24p.
Any tricks to do this or ideas if this is possible?
Thanks,
Ryan

you can't capture it as 24fps. once captured as 60i you have to remove the pulldown via cinema tools or another app.

I wonder what the advantage would be in removing the pulldown if say I was simply editing a video. I'll be removing pulldown for FX/Composting work but if I was simply cutting a video together would I ever need to remove the pulldown? Will transitions or other effects in the NLE come out looking strange?

Thanks!
That sucks. Is that a Canon issue or a FCP issue (like the new FCP may be able to capture it as 24p)?
Any suggestions on workflow to convert to 24p so I can use it in an existing 24p timeline.
RYan

i believe it's a canon issue. until cinema tools can guess the cadence like after effects you'll have to do it by hand.

as far as workflow, you can edit the front of the movies in quicktime to make the cadence start with 2 p frames and then, now that they are all the same cadence you can batch proccess them. or you can just manually find the cadence and use the appropriate setting.

http://file.meyersproduction.com/hv20/reverse%20telecine%20READ%20ME.rtf

once cinema tools process them you just drag them back into fcp and viola you've got ture 24p (23.89) clips that you can edit in a regular 1080p24 timeline with a1 stuff etc.

I'm kinda getting it, but I'm kinda a newbie when it comes to Cinema Tools. I find the cadence in FCP using the arrow keys, I understand. How do I tell a p vs an i frame (one will be jagged I guess).
What is the workflow for After Effects? I just got that program, maybe it's easier in there?
Thanks for the help.
RYan

yeah the interlaced frames will be very apparent when the clip is blown up to 100%

i'm not sure what the workflow is with AE, i've never used it, i just saw some other people that were having success with it in some other threads.

Do you have to capture with Apple Int. Codec to get cinema tools to work? When I capture with the HDV1080/60i setting, Cinema Tools gives an error--"This clip has temporal compression."
Ryan

that's correct, it has to be a codec that doesn't use interframe compression (b-frames) ie. mpeg 2, h264 and many others, AIC encodes each frame same as dv/dvpro. i capture to aic in real time. what setup do you have? i'm wondering what older systems do, if it lags or if they are handling it real time as well?

I have a PowerMac dual 2.5ghz with 4 GB of RAM. It runs nice usually.
It can capture in real time with AIC, no prob.
Ryan

Thanks to you I was able to get it to work great.
The only remaining point I need to clarify:
I guess I must use the HDV AIC to capture all my footage, even the XH-a1 (instead of the HDV 1080/24p) that way all things work in the same timeline without rendering.
There is not a Sequence preset for the AIC in 1080/24p, just 50,60 and 720/30p. But you can change the sequence setting after the fact to AIC.
Does this make any sense?
Ryan

I guess you have to render at least on of the clips to get them to work together on the same timeline.
If you capture the 24f stuff from the XH-A1 with AIC it becomes 29.97 fps.
So that doesn't work.
If you capture the 24f stuff with the 1080/24p preset it captures at 24f and works well.
So I guess the only way to do it is bring in the reverse tele 24p footage from the HV20 into the 1080/24p timeline and render that footage.
Ryan

You have to remove pulldown to properly work with 24F material in a 1080 24p timeline.

You could always edit in a 60i timeline as long as you made your edits match a predictable cadence and then export as 60i--THEN perform pulldown extraction, but I'm not sure how transitions would play out. This would only work for HV20 24p. You'd have to add pulldown to 24F material in a 60i timeline.

You have to remove pulldown to HV20 24p in order to properly integrate with 24F material in a HDV 1080 24p timeline.

You could always edit HV20 24p in a 60i timeline as long as you made your edits match a predictable cadence and then export as 60i--THEN perform pulldown extraction, but I'm not sure how transitions would play out. This would only work for HV20 24p. You'd have to add pulldown to 24F material in a 60i timeline.

Rather complicated. :)

Edit: Sorry for the double post. The site's slow right now and I was trying to correct the post.

I have removed the pulldown on the 24p stuff from the HV20 (using Cinema Tools), but it still doesn't work in a 1080/24p timeline without rendering.
Once I render it cuts great with the 24f footage.
I was just hoping to avoid rendering.

are you using the 23.98 setting in CT? or 24 flat? it should be 23.98, just checking

23.98
The footage looks great after reverse tele, but will not play in a 1080/24p timeline without render. It will play in a sequence set to AIC, but then the 24 f stuff won't play.
R

is your a1's footage HDV? or AIC? sounds like it might be HDV, if so then you have to transcode one into the other if you want to edit with out render bars.

When you say transcode, do you mean "render"?
I was just wanting a way to avoid the render step if I could, like doing the change when Cinema Tools reverses the HV20 footage.
Thanks,
Ryan

i believe it's a canon issue. until cinema tools can guess the cadence like after effects you'll have to do it by hand.


Are you saying that Cinema Tools will soon support capturing 24p from the HV20?

Thanks!

Are you saying that Cinema Tools will soon support capturing 24p from the HV20?

Thanks!

just hoping... the rumors are saying there is about to be a major revamp to FCS, and i wouldn't be suprised if there is a whole new gamut of things we'll be able to do the HDV in general. as others have said, and for what i know, the 24p in 60i that the hv20 uses doesn't have flags, at least doesn't have them like the older dv cams, which is what cinema tools used to remove the pulldown. it could be apple just needs to add support for the hv20's flags, or it doesn't have any, which might could be fixed with a firmware update to the cam itself... we can only hope an easier way is coming down the pipe.

Thanks for the Cinema Tools settings, Austin. They work great for a single clip but not for batches since there is no 'Fields' setting. I've tried it and the interlacing still shows up. Any idea how to get this to work for batches?

I believe that if you make sure all of your clips begin and end as pppii (you can cut off the few necessary frames quickly with quicktime).

Then select DD as the the pattern with all of the other settings mentioned on this thread. Then you may be able to do batch processing.

Disclaimer: I haven't been able to test this in batch yet, only for single clips.

Based on Austin's settings I actually used _CD_ for single clips and it works perfectly. However for a batch, you don't have the field option to select it. I don't know if its reverting to some other field setting and it might be possible to start with a different frame order than pppii.

First off... I am VERY new to FCP and NLE in general. I have an HV20 and FCP 5.1.4

I posted this in an apple discussion forum with little response, so I thought I would try here.

Can someone "in the know" please verify that my workflow makes sense...? and that I am not just "faking" things.

Just to reiterate what I had in the above post...

Here is what I did:

1. Captured video into a 1080i/60 Sequence setting my my quicktime video settings to "Apple Intermediate Codec".

Note: this made me render in the timeline

2. I then export as a self-contained quicktime movie

3. I open the clip in Cinema Tools

4. Only change the fields to _CD_

5. Save off a .rev

6. Open in QT and export as H.264 1920x1080 23.98

Here is a sample clip: http://www.sacreativeservices.com/forum_stuff/rev_tele.mp4

So, just for my own sanity check... is this workflow how I "should" be doing it? Is the result "really" 1080p 24, or could quicktime be fooled into thinking this.

Well, I'm not doing something right because I just captured another clip and stepped through the same process and it did not remove the pulldown.

I think this is a cadence issue? where cinema tools needs some more info. Unfortunately, I don't know what it wants?

What does pppii mean exactly and how can I verify/change this in FCP?

My head is spinning with this stuff. I'm just looking for a simple workflow from tape to 1080p 24

Also, I notice that even if I switch the camera to "24p" mode, it still captures at 1080i/60 29.97. I realize this is the HDV format, but my question is... if I am going to remove the pulldown, do I have to still shoot in 24p mode? Is it putting additional information on the tape in 24p mode?

Thanks in advance,

SA

I'm hardly an expert but here goes...

Depending on your machine you should be able to capture straight to AIC, although the caputure mechanism is very rudimentary. However, capturing in HDV and exporting to AIC should give you the same quality and give you more batch capture control.

The trick to CinemaTools and the _CD_ setting is to make sure you video clip begins with three progressive frames. Open the clip in Quicktime. Step through it frame by frame and identify two consecutive interlaced fields. (usually pretty easy to tell). Then step back from the first i field three steps to get to the first progressive frame (this is the pppii frame order)
Hit 'o' then Apple-X and save the Quicktime file. Then CinemaTools should give you pristine 24p.

Cool, thanks!

I tried your suggestion, I was able to see the three "p" frames and the two "i" frames. But it still did not work with _CD_

I used DD as Kurt mentioned and it appeared to work.

SA

Interesting. I tried my clip both ways CD and DD and both seem to work for me.


I just set up a batch reverse telecine with clips starting at different point in the pppii sequence. I got a successful conversion if you start the clip with the second 'p' frame.

(start of tape)ppiipppiipppii...

In Cinema Tools, go to File--Batch Reverse Telecine...
Select one file in a folder of clips (all clips must start with the same frame cadence)
Set files captures as F1-F2, Conform to 23.98 and select standard upper/lower

Adam, thanks for sharing this. Can't wait to try it with the footage I got this morning of my kids playing in the snow, in April, in Richmond, VA!

For family stuff I want to capture 24p because then I will have a frame rate that works with the AppleTV, no de-interlacing. Also, it may be easier to convert the 1080p24 footage to 720p24 footage (1280x720), rather than downrezzing 1080i60 to 960x540 at 30p.

I was really worried about the processing time for removing the pulldown and crunching for a video server and/or web.

I was actually surprised at how quick it went. Granted I was only working on a clip that was 24 seconds long.

Cinema tools took less than a minute to rev tele and it took quicktime about 3-5 mins to make a 1280x720 H.264 (8000Kbps - multipass).

BTW... I am running on a 24" iMac - 2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo - 2 GB ram - pulling from a 500GB FireWire 800

One thing I have noticed is the colors looks SO much better in FCP, but they look washed after export.

Any tips???

Later,

SA

I just wanted to let FCP 5.x users to know that you can create a sequence preset for the Apple Intermediate Codec at 23.98. Just copy the Apple Intermediate Codec 1080i60 sequence preset and change the 'Editing Timebase' to 23.98. 1080i60 AIC clips that are converted to 23.98 with Cinema Tools will play in the timeline without any rendering.

The problem I am having now is that I can't capture as AIC - whatever I try, my FCP doesn't see my HV20 when attempting to capture as AIC. As HDV everything captures fine. Have any of you been able to capture in FCP 5.x directly as AIC.

Yeah, I capture using AIC...(5.1.4) You don't get any controls like you do with HDV capture. Meaning no Log and capture window. It simply pops up asking what you want to name the capture... and away it goes. But, it does split the clips up based on start/stop.

Here is what I am still miffed by... I capture at 1080i/60, set my clips so they are p-p-p-i-i... export my clip... open in cinema tools and run a rev telecine. This all works fine, but I am confused at the output. Look at this Screen Shot (http://www.sacreativeservices.com/forum_stuff/rev.jpg). What is weird is that it shows the "normal size" as 1920x1080, how did it come up with that, seeing as how the format is 1440...? and what is with the 1888x1062?

If I bring the clip back into final cut and look at the format properties, it shows a 1440 clip.

So, my question is... when I render this as a h.264 1920 movie with QT, am I really just upscaling or are all 1920x1080 pixels really there?

Thanks!