Comparison of 60i, 24f & 30f?
 

Could someone generate a straightforward document that does an objective comparison (strengths, weaknesses, etc.) of 60i, 24f & 30f on these cameras? Subjective notes could be included as long as it's clear that's what they are.

If this already exists, please point me to it.

Thanks.

I can't generate a by-the-numbers document, but in a nutshell, 60i is interlaced and 24F and 30F are progressive. The difference is obvious when you watch a side by side comparison. The difference between 24F and 30F isn't as obvious unless you do some fast pans, then it is; however lots of people like the 24 frame progressive look better. The only advantages I know of for shooting progressive over interlace are that you don't have to deinterlace if you're going to web or other compressions. And if you shoot 24F and edit in a 24F timeline, that's good for transferring to film and also for going to web or DVD because there will be less data to deal with. Shooting interlace with the Canon HDV cameras will give you a slight edge in more resolution, but it's not really obvious unless you do a side by side comparison with the same camera shooting in progressive mode. Even then, most people don't see it.

I've been shooting everything in 24F, HDV mode. It edits with no problem in FCP and looks good when it's on a release DVD. The only disadvantage for me involves HD, not the frame rate or interlace vs. progressive. I don't have an HD monitor. What I do is let FCP output an SD image for monitoring. So, I edit HDV, but I can see a freeze frame on my NTSC monitor. I can't see motion without rendering to an SD timeline, but the still image is good enough for color correction. Then after I'm finished with the master, I output to SD.

The only serious downside to shooting 24F or 30F HDV is that if you have an HDV deck, you can't play that footage on it. You will have to load from the camera. If you shoot 24F or 30F in SD, you can use any deck.

I also do a lot of weddings, (wedding thing again) I could see 24 or 30 for a wedding, where the movement is slow but indoor at a reception the dancing is a concern with pans, and fast movements. how will it translate to DVD etc.

Just about all movies you see are shot 24p. There's a bit of difference in fast motion over 60i, but nothing anybody will really notice, in my opinion. On TV they shoot sports events at 60i, but you've seen sports themed films shot 24p.

Ok, I shot 30f yesterday at a ski area. It was overcast. I played the video back through component out to my 42" plasma TV. The resulting video was way too flickery for just about anyone's taste.

Comments?

Hi Larry. Flickery could mean that your shutter speed was too high. What was it set to?

Now if you had said "juddery", it would mean that the camera (or subject) motion was too fast for the frame rate. Easiest solution for this would be switch to 60i.

Richard

for the best results, any fast movement like sports or skiing, should be shot in 60i. if you want to take some slo-mo of that action, switch to 24 p/f.
You will get a smooth slo-mo in post.

30 p/f.. i'm not into it.

imo, 60i is the way to go. it's native and it's video.
regarding your peers, youre not "fooling" anyone that your 24p is film.
to your audience, they could care less as long as you provide something entertaining.

it's certainly fun to play around with and debate, but progressive at a prosumer level still leaves much to be desired. the 60i is awesome.

if you want to shoot flawless ( and i stress "flawless") progressive footage for a project, rent an f-900.

Larry -

Other solution is to work with Tv mode, but internal and sometimes external ND filter may be necessary in bright daylight. All depends on what effect you want to achieve, smooth motion or sports action.

For smooth motion use shutter speed of half frame rate or equal to that e.g. 1/60 with 60i or 30f, 1/48 with 24f etc.

XH A1 is powerful tool that allows you to shape final effect from one extreme to the other. Shutter speeds ranging from 1/3 to 1/16000sec are available and can be used creatively if only conditions allow that.

Choice of progressive or interlaced modes and frame rates is subjective and artistic. TV news, sports, soap operas and documentaries are typically shot in 50i or 60i, narratives in 24/25f, but 30f has its beauty and is often used for sports. There are no hard coded rules here. Be creative and master your camcorder so few things are left uncontrolled.

Bill, I'm curious as to how much of a resolution difference there is between 30f and 60i... can anybody point me to a resource for this?

I have an upcoming project, and I'd love to be able to deliver the tapes with 60i footage, since the client will be able to use their deck (seems much more professional), as opposed to me trying to figure out how to make a 30f tape work for them... how does one do that; ingest to FCP, then print to video with new settings?? thanks for the answers, everybody...

Cheers!!

-joe

The number I often hear quoted is 12% lower resolution due to the way the CCD's need to be sampled for pseudo-progressive scan.

Oren, thanks for the quick reply! 12% is pretty significant... does anyone know of a source to quote for this info?

also, are there any quality losses when you deinterlace the 60i? (my guess is no, but since I'm a neophyte, I thought I'd ask...)

cheers!

-joe

The initial resolution is so high that a 10-12% loss isn't all that significant. To me, it's much better than deinterlacing for output for web compressions.

If you are going to use a deck, then you have no choice but to shoot 60i...unless the guy has that new Sony deck that will play 24f and 30f. Other than that, you have to use the camera as a deck if you want to load 24f/30f. Since the Sony deck is pretty new and you say he already has a deck, it's a good guess it's not the one that plays all Canon modes. So you'd be safe shooting 60i. But if you've been accustomed to shooting 30f, don't be surprised if you don't see a big difference. It does show up more on a big screen professional monitor, but only when you do a side-by-side comparison.

Thanks, Bill! Just as a reference, how would you output your 30f footage from FCP back to tape in order to make the tape readable by normal decks?

From your suggestion, I think that the bulk of my doco work in the future will be 60i, but I have some 30f footage that I've already taken into FCP using the XHA1 as a deck.... any ideas?

Cheers,

-joe

Another quick question... I have some 1080i60 footage that I've been playing around with in FCP since we began this discussion. Does FCP de-interlace automatically when you capture? I'm not seeing any of the tell-tale lines on freeze frames while editing, nor upon output to Quicktime (without the "de-interlace" checked).

I'm just confused about the whole de-interlacing process; please shed a little light on it for me... thanks.. ;)

fyi, I'm using pretty much the standard 1080i60 easy setup, slightly modified to work with the XHA1.

Cheers!

-joe
-----
Joe Bourguignon
Cinematographer / Documentary Filmmaker www.lemurfilms.com

If you capture in a 60i mode, it doesn't deinterlace. When you export to QT if you may see some funkiness in dissolves for 60i footage. That's where it usually shows up.


About the output question--to make the footage acceptable to other decks, just record it in your 60i HDV mode in the camera. I haven't done that, but I'm guessing you'd have to export a full res 1080i HDV QT from the timeline first.