HV20 23.98/24P workflow. Frustrated!
 

Hey everyone,

I am at my about to pull all of my hair out dealing with this! First let me tell you what I am trying to do: I am using the HV20 as a second cam to my XL2. I am shooting 24P and editing the footage in a 23.98 SD timline in FCP.

My XL2 footage is rev. telecined in cinema tools to a 23.98 frame rate, it looks awesome!

My HV20 footage is rev. telecined in Compressor, it looks horrible! The image is soft, it has missing frames and duplicate frames. I am trying to rev. telecine the footage to 23.976. I have read and read and followed the instructions on how to do this in compressor.

What am I doing wrong?

Can somebody please list their workflow on HV20 material in a 23.98/24P SD timeline? I would be very grateful and you would probably prevent me from throwing my HV20 through a wall! (joke) The whole reason I bought the cam is because of its 2:3:2:3 pulldown and 24P capabilities. I can't figure it out.

Just as an FYI, I am working on a mac, but it is Intel and I do have access to windows. Would prefer to learn a workflow on the mac though.

Thanks in advance,
Ryan

Check out this thread for example of issues involved. Then go to our HV20 Forum to learn more.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=109989

Primary issue with 24p from HV20 is getting editor to recognize how the pulldown removal should be done. Canon did not provide flags to do that.

Cineform has conversion system to to that on capture, and there is a "free" process using several free programs out there too. Cineform is supposed to work with MAC too, but my experience is limited to PC side.

The HV20's 24p is not common 24p, which is why it's called PF24. You need to remove pulldown before you edit as 24p. http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/2007/0...-24p-pulldown/

what exactly is your compressor workflow?

Hey Austin,

I am using the workflow off of Apples website. I think I found my problem though, I didn't even think about the fact that if there were breaks where the camera stopped in between takes that it would mess up the pulldown removal.

Found this on the site posted by Eugenia, thanks for that!

I am going to run some more tests when I get some time. Thank you everybody for your help.

Ryan

ok so i did some playing around and here's what i found...

are the file you output with compressor 29.97 or 23.98?

when you use a standard dv preset and then alter the frame controls for revtel it outputs 29.97 always. the trick is you have to edit the video settings and set the framerate to current for the inverse telecine to work correctly. this is also true of any of the SD presets. as for the softness i think that just might be dv in all it's glory.

and as far as the cadence breaking, that shouldn't be an issue with compressor as it automatically detects cadence (unlike cinema tools)

Austin,

Breaks only mess up pulldown removal for the HV-20 because it doesn't pulldown flags. But for a program that can do an intelligent telecine removal, breaks are not a problem.

I can say is that TMPGEnc Xpress 4.0 is an awesome tool and it will remove the pulldown accurately. It's one of the best $100 purchases I've ever made.

Peter,

Thank you for suggesting the TMPGEnc. I will check it out as soon as I get home.

Ryan

This Is Funny
 

I see people talking about this same subject over and over and using compressor for this......

If you are in Apple try using the FREE "JES Deinterlacer" do a google search for it, it will automatically read the pulldown cadence and output at whatever rate you want 23 or 24 and whatever format you want as well.

It works flawlessly, I usually choose to output 23,976 and use ProRes 422 HQ, is unbelievable how you can manipulate your colors and stuff after it is on that format (it takes abuse well)

Here you go
 

Thomas,

I can't thank you enough! Nothing that I have used yet has yielded results that I see as satisfactory, until now. JES is easy to use, it is fast, and it removes the pulldown perfectly. This is the way I would suggest anyone to go in the future. The only method that I didn't try was After Effects, to my knowledge, but that was next on my list. Don't even need to try it. JES detects the cadence breaks, so I don't need to trim my clips either!

After I inverse telecine the footage and set the frame rate to 23.976, the footage looks spectacular in FCP. Did I mention that I am working in an SD timeline? JES has also, somehow, solved my problem of soft-looking SD footage.


Thank you again Thomas,
Ryan

You are more than welcome.

Glad I can help.

I wouldn't say "flawlessly" but pretty damn close to it.

It's also good for getting 560p60 footage from 1080i60 HDV. I'm experimenting with some of that now.

I'm still curious about the issues you're having with compressor. Can you post some screen grabs of the compressor output as well as jes? What preset are you using in compressor? And you said that comp is not detecting cadence breaks?

Hey Austin,

Here is the process that I used to reverse tele. in compressor:

1. In Final Cut Pro, Log and Capture your clips shot as 1080p24 from the HV20 using the Easy Setup named
"HDV, 29.97, HDV - 1080i60 FireWire Basic".
2. In Compressor, choose Add File and navigate to the capture scratch folder for the clips you captured and
open them all.
3. Select the first clip in the batch.
4. Choose the setting named "Apple ProRes 422 for Progressive material" (found in Settings tab > Apple > Other
Workflows > Advanced Format Conversions > Apple Codecs), and drag it onto the first clip.
5. Double-click the setting on the first clip to highlight the Inspector window.
6. In Inspector > Encoder Settings > Video Settings, change the framerate to Custom, and enter 23.976.
7. In Inspector > Frame Controls, enable Frame Controls and make the following settings:
1. Set Frame Controls to On
2. Set Deinterlace to Reverse Telecine

So here are a couple of screen shots that depict what I am talking about. If you look at the time-code, you will see that there are two frames back to back that are identical (duplicate frames).

I have also tried it with several different codecs, all of them yield the same result when rev. telecined in compressor. Take a really good look at some of your footage that you have done this process to. I'm curious to see how many duplicate frames you can find. Mine seem to present themselves at random.

JES has worked perfect for me every time and is simple to set up. Here is a screen shot of the adjustments that need to be made in JES De-Interlacer:

hmm I occasionally have the first frame goofed but haven't had any duplicates.

And the only difference in my compressor workflow is that I don't touch the frame rate, I just make sure its set to "current" in the qt vid settings.

One more ? When you blow those dup frames up to 100% is there any interlacing? I've found that the latest update to fcp handles interlacing different and instead of getting two interlaced frames they read as progressive but duped ( when looking at regular 24-in-60 stuff)

Also do you have any aja stuff installed? I installed the iohd drivers and one of the qt components broke comps ability to remove pulldown

I edited my HV10 movie in iMovie and uploaded it to Vimeo using their HD settings. It looked very soft for some reason, I was referred to JES also. Do I have to capture, use JES, then edit the results? Or can i run my finish video through JES and get the same results? Does editing change anything?

I can't believe After Effects hasn't been mentioned yet. I've tried them all (JES, Compressor, Cinema Tools, 24p extractor, ect) and for my SD footage After Effects simply gives me the cleanest transfer. It does not always guess the correct pull down but if you do the leg work, the image output is superb.

Just my 2c.

-C

I'm only going to stumble into this now.

So, really, you can't do this with Final Cut Studio 2?

You have to download a free app to do that?

Eugenia's website mentions something like "if you don't have a recent copy of Final Cut"...

...so if you do, you can do it in Final Cut.

Yes, this will show up over and over, because every new owner of a hv20/30 will run into this.

SD 24p?
 

I'm in the same predicament!

I just got my hv30 and shot a bit in hdv24.

I played back the footage using the tv out on an sd tv and it looks fantastic!

So I'm using the trial versoin of cs3 pro and I can only use the dv lock since the hdv presets are disabled intrial. No biggie. Only working in ntsc for awhile and the web anyway.

So when I use the widescreen DV24p preset and capture. I get pretty good results, not as good as just viewing the footage on an sd monitor but decent.Its soft and not as smooth.

When I try to start the project with an NTSC widescreen timeline 29.97, I get a bad stuttered look!

This is opposite of what I've been told!!!
This camera shoots 24 frames in a 1080i 60i interlaced timeline.
I should be using a 29.97 timeline but I get better results in 23.97?
Weird.

Am I doing something wrong?

All I want is to be able to see an equal qaulity when I capture as when I'm watching the footage through the tv out or watching the camcorder playback in the capture window. So far I'm unsuccessful.

You would THINK that ,that would be the EASIEST thing to do.
Just to capture that 60i signal 'as-is" and not worry about the pulldown and work in a 29.97 timeline but no.

Also, what should my feild settings be?
Frame blend? on/off?
Always deinterlace?

update
 

Just for reference, I captured clip in windows movie maker using the dv avi uncompressed setting.

Looks perfect.

Exported clip as wmv about 10mbs....looks damn good.

Imported original captured clip 150mb avi into premiere dv ntsc 29.97 timeline and looks like garbage.

What a joke.

I dont want to edit with MMaker! lol

Theres got to be a way without doing a bunch of pulldown removal?

Hi guys,

I just tested out my HV20 (out of the box) with 24p enabled and tried the JES software that was recommended. Ended up with something like this:

http://vimeo.com/929988

I think it's not bad! :) What do you guys think?

Awesome!

Too bad JES is only for mac!

So 30p worked well with cinema tools, without JES?

It's hard to tell if it's the Vimeo playback or something funky from the JES thingie, but it looks a bit jumpy to me, not the usual 24p look. It could just be my computer. Anyone else see this?

I looked at it again just to check. It's not jumpy on my machine (although it's a Quad-Core Mac Pro). Note that I took the footage while lying on the floor with my hand - so not the best "balance" :-P

Have you tried TMPGEnc Xpress 4.0? It works incredibly well, and can pretty much convert anything to anything as long as the codecs are registered on your computer. Depending on if they are running a sale, it costs between $70 and $100. It's an amazing program that does much more than proper pulldown removal.

Here's my workflow and it works like a charm and have never had an issue...

Capture M2T stream with DVHSCap
Demux to unscaled M2V and AIFF with MPEG Streamclip
Drop M2V into Compressor (3.0.3 on my G4) and use Apple's settings

Then I drop the 1440x1080 ProResHQ 24p file into FCP with the AIFF and have never had any problems with removing the pull-down even without each clip seperated. Compressor applies the correct pulldown removal on each shot.

This workflow isn't for everyone, I use it because my G4 is too slow to capture to another codec. I'd also rather go straight from the M2T to ProRes anyway.

Just thought I'd add my own recent experience to the thread.

I pretty much followed Apple's instructions for removing the pulldown as shown here under "HDV native capture, Compressor workflow":
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306389 This is a doc for those using FCS2 / FCP6 where you capture HV20 24p footage at 60i in FCP and use Compressor to fix the interlaced frames.

The only difference was that I didn't want to convert all my footage into ProRes files like those instructions indicate. Instead I wanted to stay in native HDV so I just went into the compressor preset and changed the video settings “Compression type” from ProRes to "HDV 1080p24"

Then, like the instructions say, I changed the Frame Rate to Custom, and entered 23.976.

This worked and removed the pulldown, but when I got into FCP and used "Easy Setup" to make an "HDV 1080p24" project, something strange happened and the footage had repeated frames. I was confused but it ended up that the problem was not with the footage. The problem was with the "Easy Setup" settings on the machine I was using. Somehow the "QuickTime Compression" part of the "easy setup" on that machine was set to 1080i60 instead of 1080p24 like my clips.

This got me thinking and I went BACK into compressor with the original footage again. I reversed the telecine and set it to spit out a 23.976 HDV clip just like last time, but this time I set the "Compression" to "1080i60 instead of 1080p24. The result? Perfect 24p playback in QT and FCP, no interlacing, and file sizes that were 80% of the ones made using the 1080p24 Compression.

I just thought I'd mention this option here. I don't know exactly what's happening or exactly why it works (is it now interlaced again but FCP is playing it back correctly? Is it magic fairies slimming my files?), but I posted a thread about it in the Mac editing forum: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=121573

I don't think this can possibly work.

HDV is simply is not engineered to work at arbitrary frame-rates and arbitrary bit-rates. Go with the ProRes workflow. And don't be tempted to scale the frame up or down. Compressor does a bad job of scaling.

I'm not sure what you mean by saying it can't work, because it absolutely does work. Even the Apple doc makes it clear that you can select other codecs besides ProRes and that they're just using ProRes for their example "Note: ProRes is used as an example in this workflow; other codecs can also be used." I just chose to use the HDV codec.

And I don't know what you mean by saying HDV isn't engineered to work at arbitrary frame rates either. These frame rates aren't arbitrary. I'm not trying to use 19.563 fps for goodness sake. HDV footage can be captured directly into FCP using 60i or 24p. If this was shot at 24p with the A1, you could use FCPs 24p settings, but since the HV20 has an irregular cadence, you have to use 60i. If you wanted to, you could leave it in 60i and edit and export it that way as well. The only thing that's happening to the frames after using Compressor is that all the interlaced frames are fixed. I've watched the footage, frame by frame, counting as items move in and out of the shot, there's nothing odd happening here at all.

I'm not scaling anything. Why would I?

HDV is built for one purpose. It's built-in properties are set to accommodate a number of hardware requirements.
Consequently the data-rate is fixed. The frame rates are fixed and the resolutions are fixed. None of these factors can be changed without potentially breaking HDV.

Compressor might let you make the change. But there is no guarantee that any other software or hardware will work with it. In short, if you change the frame rate - it ceases to be true HDV.

Use ProRes422. That's what it is for.

Using HDV is a bad idea for quality reasons too.

So you believe that changing the frame rate from the 60i that comes out of the HV20 camera to 24p 'breaks' HDV and makes it potentially unusable? What do you think this entire thread is talking about?

Give me a break. The footage was shot in HDV and it's still in HDV. There was no reason for me to convert it to ProRes422 just to reverse telecine it back to 24p

Yes, exactly. What comes out of the HV20 is already 24p embedded in a 60i stream. Convert it to ProRes 24p ... and it works fine. Convert it to "24P HDV" and suddenly it breaks. I wonder why?

HDV is not designed to do this. HDV is a horrible technical compromise. Not designed for editing. Not designed for anything other than squeezing a HDTV image onto a DV bitstream. The fact that Final Cut falls over trying to do this confirms this.

1... Using codecs which exploit inter-frame compression is utterly the wrong format for editing. It's a dumb idea.
2....The fact that it cannot possibly work.
3... The fact that it does not work.

Other than that, there is no reason whatsoever.

I'm bringing this thread back to life with a quick question.

When I inverse telecine with JES using the posted workflows, i prefer to output an AIC, instead of photo-jpeg file. When I import the file into FCP though, and set up a sequence and edit the sequence settings to accept said AIC file, it still wants me to render everytime, should this be happening?? Others had stated that the file would not need to be redered after import and adding to timeline. What am I doing wrong here??

ok, so I found what was wrong...I neglected to change my editing timebase to 23.98 when setting up my sequence in FCP..oops..but it's working great now!!!