Contacting Canon re: adding 24p pulldown flags

[Peter J Alessandria]

Originally Posted by David Newman

I haven't been following this thread until I noticed the number of times CineForm is mentioned -- thank you for the complementry words.

CineForm extracts the pulldown using a real-time image analysis which we developed for a much higher-end application, it just works very nicely with these new HDV sources. We wouldn't use the flags even if they where there -- flags can be wrong, but the image doesn't lie. We don't use pulldown flags offered in the Sony V1U, as there would require engineering time to get the same result we have now. So asking for pulldown flags from Canon is the wrong request.

What you could be asking for is progressive encoding like the Canon HV20 big bothers XL-H1,G1,A1. These cameras encode 24p as 24p, not 60i. No flags are needed, as no pulldown needs to be extracted. The problem is the nature HDV NLE vendors are so slow to use this approach, Canon went with the lowest common demoniator for wider NLE support, which is 60i. Yet most NLEs don't support pulldown flagging in HDV anyway. So really you should be requesting wider 24F support from Apple, Sony and maybe Adobe (I think they have it) so then it would be fine for camera's like the HV20 to encode that way.

Non-pulldown 24p encoding of MPEG is more efficient, has fewer artifacts, and the 4:2:0 sampling will not produce any crosstalk between frames as it does with 24p in 60i.

my 2 cents.

Thanks for chimming in Dave. Your suggestion is a good one, though don't you think switching to 24F-type encoding on the HV20 is gonna be more than a firmware update? For those of us who already own the camera, at least with flags on our 24p/60i files, the assumption is FCP, Premiere and Vegas can do pulldown removal.

[David Newman]

Agree, it would likely be more than a firmware upgrade. I was pointing out that Canon's actions makes good business sense, given the slow nature of the NLE companies. Currently I believe only Vegas recently added the use embedded HDV pulldown flags, so it is no surprise the HV20 was released without them.

[Daymon Hoffman]

I would agree a native 24/25p stream would be most optimal. :) Talk about hassle and trouble free.

[Peter Frollo]

Canon could simply provide a capture utility for the 24p cam or at least a media player. This would eliminate firmware changes for us, consumers.

Originally Posted by Daymon Hoffman

I would agree a native 24/25p stream would be most optimal. :) Talk about hassle and trouble free.

This cam can do 25p recorded on 50i stream. What are the issues being referred here?

[Javier Gallen]

25p into a 50i stream, is almost the same as 25p into a 25p stream. The only thing that could change, is maybe the mpeg2 codec optimzation... but still, the results are going to be the same.

But I agree: in NTSC land, it's a HUGE diference.

[Marco Delgado]

emailed canon and Nick answered:

"I'm sorry that you're having problems with the 24p pulldown. We've been
made aware of the issue, and I've forwarded the concerns about the
pulldown to our development team. We'll look into the matter to see what we can do to
help. In the meantime, you might also contact the company who makes
your video editing program to see if they have any suggestions.

While trying to learn more about the issues that people are having with
24p footage the HV20, I came across a discussion happening on
dvinfo.net. While we can't verify the information there, I personally found the discussion
interesting, and it might be useful for you to get a sense of how others
are handling the problems they're running into:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=92629"

A firmware update would be really nice.

[Steve Szudzik]

An alternate route that we might want to pursue is to contact each of the NLE makers and make a request for them to allow processing 24p footage without markers by evaluating the individual frames (similar to cineform). I think it would likely take them a while to come up with something functional (if they were even interested in doing so).

It is one additional avenue the should likely be pursued in addition to the requests being made to Canon to include the flags.

-Steve

[Elmer Lang]

Good work, gents! You'd think if the JES De-Interlacer can detect the frames, Apple, Adobe et al could find something to help us...and we'd really appreciate!

best,
elmer

[Martin Newsome]

if i buy neo hdv will NEO HDV do the pull down for 24p on the HV20 just fine ????? sony vegas 6 user here

[Ray Bell]

Originally Posted by Martin Newsome

if i buy neo hdv will NEO HDV do the pull down for 24p on the HV20 just fine ????? sony vegas 6 user here

Yes, works very well... download the tryout and see how easy it is..

[Chris Barcellos]

Anyone coming up with anything new ?

I see that Cineform is offering free upgrade to Neo HDV from HD Connect if it was purchased after February 2007. I purchased HDConnect from BH for 189.00 recently and will be requesting the NEO HDV upgrade. Anybody gone through that already ?

[Stuart Dawkins]

David Newman, thanks for chiming in. Your post was helpful to the community and, not because of any advertising by you, I'll be buying your product because it functions as advertised.

IMHO (JD-biased as it is), Canon's advertising is at the very least a bit misleading in omitting that you cannot edit 24 frames representing a second of footage, you must edit a larger number and that introduces other issues.

[Amish Solanki]

Any update on this?