25f or 60i
 

Since I've had my XH A1 I've done all my work at 60i, but reading these forums it looks like some prefer 25f instead. Could anyone explain the advantage of one over the other. Which is the one I should use. I mostly film Weddings and Football matches. I use Avid Liquid 7.2 for my edits.

A lot of people are obsessed with trying to make what they shoot look like a Hollywood film. They use 24f.

There's quite a lot on the forum about this if you search.

You might also find the sticky thread about presets helpful if you haven't come across that yet.

I use Liquid too. I understand that it supports 24f although I haven't tried it yet.

If you're shooting PAL, then it's 25F or 50i; 60i would be an NTSC thing. I don't know if that PAL version does 24F or just 25F.

I started shooting everything (NTSC) 24F primarily because everything I do professionally goes on web sites, and with progressive footage there are no interlace artifacts. Also, 24 frames per second is less than 30, meaning slightly less data, and in my world where so many things end up in Flash or WMV (yuck), every bit of data saved is good.
But after I shot some 24F things that ended up on a big theatre screen, I liked the look and now shoot everything that way even if DVD or tape is the release medium.

The last time I looked Avid did not do Canon's 24F mode. FCP does it very well, no problems at all.

PAL version only does 25F no 24F without the upgrade..

Bill makes a great point about Web delivery, with gobs of bandwidth compared to a few years ago, it's still critical keep bandwidth low and quality high.

Aside from that it's a personal preference, and also dictated by what you're shooting. I don't like 24p. It's not awful. I just like the clarity provided by 60i, especially with fast motion. There are also shooting considerations you need to watch, like panning must be slow or it will look choppy.

Interlaced footage will also give you better slow motion footage since it's sampling the image twice as many times per second. Yes, you lose resolution as at 50% normal speed you're only using one field where you'd use a whole frame at normal speed, but it is often not noticeable at all.

As I mentioned, fast motion and 24p do not always get along. I shoot motor races and I want the action to look crisp, not blurry. So I shoot 60i, and in full sun I'll crank the shutter up to 1/1000 if I can.

Would I ever shoot 24f? Not currently, but everything changes. I look at it as another arrow in my quiver that I can pull out if I want or need to.

Hi Melvyn,
Sorry i can't give you a detailed account of what works better, & the technicallities of why, i would simply give it a go to see what you think. I actually find the colours to be slightly different when shooting in 25F, something i find more pleasing. I'm not sure if this is normal, or something i just seem to see with my camera. As far as editing your 24/25/30F material in Avid Liquid 7.2, you will have no problem at all. There are a couple of things you need to do to set up your timeline correctly to start, but once you have your settings right, it works like a charm.
Good luck,
Bryce

Melvyn

The last six films I've had commissioned have been for the web. I've shot them in 50i on my XH A1, edited in Liquid and have output them using the WMV HDV 720p preset.

When I upload this to Vimeo it gets converted to flash. I take no credit for the result but a number of people have complimented me on the technical quality of the image (some of them even like the content too :-)

Thank's for your replys. My mistake, I'm in Pal land so I should have said 25F or 50i but your replys have been most useful. I guess I'll do a shoot in both and see which turns out best. One thing through can footage from both be edited on the same timeline to produce a DVD or do I need to keep to the same format

I've used both 50i and 25f. 25f is awful if you want my honest opinion even for web playback. You get much nicer results using the 50i and it also gives you the option of saving a web/PC playback movie in 50fps (Double PAL). This gives superb results and slowmo's are silky smooth. You seem to have more options when editing 50i footage than you do with 25f.

Mark

Use both...
 

I use both depending on how I want it to look. I don't think that you can say that either look 'awful', it depends what you want and expect.
25F is great if you want a look that is not like reality, yes it's more flickery and you have to pan carefully. But there's something about it that I like that stops it being too 'live TV'.

The 50i is silky smooth in comparison - great for 'real life' stuff. Sport, live interview etc. look better this way.

25F does not make it 'look like film', but it does change the reality of the look in a way I like. You can do better slomo with 50i, but make sure your deinterlacer is good - I've seen people screw up 50i when scaling to SD too, whereas you can't screw it up with 25F.

So, again I suggest using both for different things - Sony Vegas can cope with both on a timeline, After Effect deinterlaces anyway, don't know about others.

Always do what works for you and your customers.

25F can come in handy in low light - see this thread. I've tried 1/25 and 50i a couple of times rather than adding gain. On slow moving subjects it gives quite a nice effect. So far, I have resisted switching to 25F because I don't know what happens when you mix 50i and 25F on the same tape. It should be alright, so long as you have 20 seconds or so of something that doesn't matter before and after the switch... shouldn't it?

No problem recording 25F and 50i to the same tape. They should also sit happily on the same timeline, as the whole point of 25F is that it is output as a 50i signal. The NLE doesn't know the difference, as everything it is getting is 50i. I think...

Actually no. The XH-A1 progressive output is not streamed as 50i, that's why only certain Canon cameras can play back 25F tapes. The NLE also has to be "aware" of this particular format before it can ingest it.

But you are correct in saying that both 50i and 25F can be used on the same tape. I do it regularly.

Richard