HV20 with FCP
 

Hi Folks,

Just making the move to HD. I've just returned from India where
I shot a bunch of footage on a HV20 that a friend loaned me. I'm starting to get things together for the edit and I have a question. I shot the footage using the camera's HDV (pf24) setting and cine mode. I've noticed that when I capture the footage, it captures at 1080i60 with a frame rate of 29.97fps.
This suggests to me that the camera does not really shoot in a true 24p mode. In FCP should I have the sequence preset set for 1080p24 or 1080i60?
I thinking that the latter would be correct as the captured footage is coming in
at 1080i60. Am I missing something here? Any clarification for a HD newbe would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Glen

The latest update (6.0.2?) as I understand it, will allow you to capture 24p from HV-20 to ProRes, with pulldown removed. The 29.97 means that the 24p is imbedded in a 60i stream. If you want to keep your captured stuff, you need to export it through Cinema Tools and remove pulldown, which has it's own set of issues on how to do properly. If you aren't that invested, then I would update, and then start over while removing pulldown on the fly with 6.0.2. Good luck!

Thanks for the reply Gene. I'm just trying to come to grips with this whole
pulldown issue. Do you know where a layman can find a good explanation on this. And this may be a bit of a naive question, but if I just choose to edit
using a sequence preset of 1080i60 which matches my currently captured footage, how much quality am I really losing? Regards, Glen

FCS 2 won't capture and remove pulldown on capture with the hv20, the 1080p24 settings are for the A1, G1 and H1 canon cams. for the hv20 you have to capture as hdv, aic or prores and then run the footage through compressor using a custom preset set to remove pulldown. i recommend capturing to hdv (the log and capture window is better in regular hdv vs hdv-aic or hdv-prores) and then run all the captured footage through compressor, output the file format of you choosing, hdv, prores, SD or any variation of, all in true 24p.

as far as quality you're not losing any editing in a 60i timeline, but if you export the footage to the web will we see the telecine every 2 out of 5 frames, doing the above process removes those 2 frames (technically combines them) and yields all progressive frames. it also yields very nice 24p dvds.

This is what I thought too, but apparently it does not - at least in my tests it does not work correctly, as the HV20s 24F mode does not embed the pulldown cadence metadata, or in other words, it has not description of the pulldown pattern. Those easy setups are for cannons pro line, from what I have been told:

for more info see my thread on this subject:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=109989

From my understanding the old workflow still stands, Capture 1080i60 FW basic, then use compressor to convert with reverse telecine enabled, to 23.976 FPS Pro Res 422.

This process works perfect for me... (if you have FCP 6)

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306389

and the directions are clear / concise.