Contacting Canon re: adding 24p pulldown flags

[Ken Ross]

Originally Posted by Martin Newsome

thanx peter one question how would i down load the firmware on to the sd card ????????????

Martin, if you could put some periods and punctuations, it would make your posts much easier to read.

[Peter J Alessandria]

Originally Posted by Paul Kepen

So DOES Cineform correctly do the 3-2pulldown/ reverse telecine to give you correct 24p from the HV20, even though the HV20 does NOT provide the pulldown flags? If so, then using cineform solves the problem? I sent a response to canon to have the flags added in a firmware, as I think they should provide whatever is normal for 24p in a camera that has 24p. Personally I have cineform, and in my limited time with the HV20, I have been relatively pleased with the 24p results using cineform. Its not perfect, but the resultant DVD's are very clean:)

Cineform seems to be a good product. From what I know, it doesn't use flags for pulldown removal (couldn't in the case of the HV20 since the flags don't seem to exist). So it's using some other method to correctly and automatically remove pulldown. If worse comes to worse and Canon doesn't start including the flags, I would hope the other NLE's will adopt the same or similar method of doing flagless automatic pulldown removal (assuming Cineform's method is not patented.)

The primary negatives with Cineform are 1) price - another $250 on top of my editing software/camera costs and 2) hard drive space - Cineform files are a different format and take up 3X as much space as HDV files do. (There may also be CPU processing issues with creating/editing larger files - anyone know if Cineform-compressed files are a drag on one's system?) Still these are not huge obstacles ($250 in the world of video editing 'taint that much and I have over 1TB total of hard drive space currently and 500GB drives are going for $129). So if Canon doesn't rise to our collective call to update the camera, I'll probably give the Cineform route a try eventually.

[Chris Barcellos]

Peter:

Cineform has been around a long time. Its initial claim to fame was the fact that you could use it on lower end systems than are required for editing "native" HDV. Premiere actually used it as the intermediate because of the early issues with systems. It has advanced, but I it is still easier on processor load because it has all information for each frame on board, and is not relying on GOP>

[Peter J Alessandria]

Thanks Chris - good to know. :-)

[Paul Kepen]

Hi Chris. Just wondering, do you use cineform? I do. Is there any reason not to? Thanks - PK

[Rahul Purohit]

I use cinform with my HV20 24p footage. It does the pulldown removal flawlessly. The only problem I'm having is AVIs rendered using Vegas 7e and cineform's codec at 1440X1080p 24FPS will not play on other machines besides the one that creates it. I did see a new Neo player on Cineform's site, that I assume downloads and registers their latest codec on any PC, that should probably fix it it. I can not play the AVIs created with cinform's codec to play on the Nero or DIVX player. The other issue I'm having is with aspect ratio, seems after rendering the aspect ratio changes back to 4:3, this can be fixed on the player but I should be able to render it correctly.

[Kaku Ito]

I'm contributing my effort to talk about this in my monthly column on VideoAlpha magaizen about the flag. It is the only pro video magazine in Japan, so it should be pretty influential.

[Graham Hickling]

If you install one of Cineform's demo products, then uninstall it, it gives you the option of leaving behind the free decoder dll ... thereby enabling cineform .avi playback on the machine. See www.cineform.com for more info...

[Chris Barcellos]

Originally Posted by Paul Kepen

Hi Chris. Just wondering, do you use cineform? I do. Is there any reason not to? Thanks - PK

I do not. I am editing "native" HDV. If I was getting into heavy HD production, I would certainly want to, but at this moment, no.

[Peter J Alessandria]

Originally Posted by Kaku Ito

I'm contributing my effort to talk about this in my monthly column on VideoAlpha magaizen about the flag. It is the only pro video magazine in Japan, so it should be pretty influential.

Excellent Kaku. Thank you. Ideally I think we want to get the issue in front of the Canon camcorder engineering group in Japan since I assume they're the ones who would implement a fix.

I'm beginning phase two of the assault: I contacted my guy at the Irvine, Calif. Canon service center today by email about the issue. Don't know if he's a camcorder guy or not but he cut through a bunch of red tape for us on the still camera lens issue last year. So I'll let you guys know his response.

[Peter Frollo]

I think Canon should do free exchange for PAL versions to anybody who ask for it. They just did not deliver the advertised and in manual documented feature in NTSC version IMO. This whole issue is hard for me to understand and really is on the same level as the latest JVC's new cam disappointment. There is no reasons to own this cam today... :(

[Robert Ducon]

Sent mine in.

[Chris Barcellos]

Originally Posted by Peter Frollo

I think Canon should do free exchange for PAL versions to anybody who ask for it. They just did not deliver the advertised and in manual documented feature in NTSC version IMO. This whole issue is hard for me to understand and really is on the same level as the latest JVC's new cam disappointment. There is no reasons to own this cam today... :(

Don't agree with this. While I want the ability to edit 24p simply, there is a lot more to this package than you give credit for. Even without the edit capablity, the 24p is enveloped in a 60i wrapper. We are just looking to clean up potential issues with this request. What would most of us do with PAL....

[Robert Ducon]

I got my reply.

Personally, I urge that new HV20 owners continue to write in - one day Sony or another brand will offer variable frame rates in sub-$1300 camera's, so, it's only a matter of time. Maybe 1 year, maybe 5, but it'll occur.

It was certainly a copied-pasted reply for the most part.

[Peter Frollo]

Originally Posted by Chris Barcellos

Don't agree with this. While I want the ability to edit 24p simply, there is a lot more to this package than you give credit for. Even without the edit capablity, the 24p is enveloped in a 60i wrapper. We are just looking to clean up potential issues with this request. What would most of us do with PAL....

I am sorry, I do not own this cam and I am not as deep familiar with this "package" as the owners are. This cam is on my number one purchase list but....

It is unacceptable to produce a product that you can't use straight out of the box! If canon packs a video media player that does removes the pulldown whit a replacement for Vegas in the package then I own apology to canon.

Otherwise I call this deceptive advertising and I am sure as in other cases this can be a nice legal battle.

I understand the pressure of the companies to come to market quick with new products but lack of tools to utilize these products, especially the strongest selling point 24p, and the main reasons why folks here purchase this product should not be tolerated.

I am convinced what many reading this forum would not purchase the product but instead waited out for a real solution or new cam the same way I do it now.

I hope the moderator would post a sticky with warning: Special 3rd party tools needed to view and edit 24p of HV20.

The most efficient pressure for canon to fix the mess is to just not purchase the cam.

Please do not take this personally as it is not intended but because you have purchased the cam and are happy with it; it doesn't meant that others would be too.

What would most of us do with PAL? Enjoy trouble free 25p out of the box.