shooting 25p PAL & FCP
 

I want to shoot some stuff in 25p with my XL2 and then edit on FCP5. I've seen lots of info on shooting 24p and the workflows needed and the reasons why, but does the same apply in 25p PAL? Is there anything I need to be wary of? Also, will I need to shoot shutter speed of 1/25 as opposed to 1/50? thanks.

25p is far easier than 24p because there is no pull down. Basically just capture away as if it was 50i. I am not aware of any issues, but haven't captured footage from the XL2 so can't speak for that camera.

1/25 shutter speed will make motion look "blurry." If that is a look you want, or you are shooting in low light use it, but for normal shooting I would stick with 1/50th. Try the different shutter speeds yourself to see the effect. The main difference, like I said, is on motion, so don't just video a fruit bowl. Also note the difference in exposure when using 1/25th compared to 1/50th.

Hi Gary. 24p has more complications, because the frames have to be carried as interlaced fields in the 29.97 NTSC signal, requiring pull-down. For PAL it is a bit simpler. The video is still interlaced but there is no pull-down to worry about. The progressive frames are simply split into consecutive fields.

I'm not familiar with FCP, but you need to make sure that the project timeline is set to 25p, and also that your footage is being interpreted correctly as 25p. (Hopefully FCP supports this). Otherwise you could get interlacing artifacts whenever the footage is processed or rendered. The links below show the type of artifacts that you can get if the 25p cadence is screwed up due to incorrect settings. The first clip shows a problem that had me baffled for days until Barry Goyette pointed me in the right direction in this forum. The second clip is what it should be like.

For shutter speed, shoot 1/50s, unless you like to have the motion blur effect that 1/25s gives you.

Richard


http://www.jaegercat.com/~richard/OldMercedesLowRes.wmv
http://www.jaegercat.com/~richard/OldMercedesPCE.wmv

thanks very much guys. if I've already shot some stuff in 1/25, is there any way to rectify it?! I thought I had to as the XL2's red 'shutter' lamp in the VF comes on if the shutter speed isn't on 1/25 in 25p mode...I assumed this acted as a warning that the settings weren't in what the XL2 considered 'normal' shooting settings.

Hi Gary. The default value of 1/25s in 25p mode is a mystery to me, because the NTSC camera's default is 1/48s in 24p mode. The time that I tried out 25p with 1/25s, the effect was interesting but not at all what I wanted. I always use 1/50s now and it seems to work great.

When you talk about "rectify"ing your previously shot footage, if you mean remove motion blur, I wouldn't have thought that was possible. How bad is it?

Richard

just watched it again, and thankfully I don't actually think that it's too bad. there isn't a lot of movement and I purposefully shot without many fast pans or tilts so I think I got away with it. more importantly I don't think the client will notice! still baffling to me though that the warning light comes on in the VF if not in 1/25 when shooting 25p. (I'm shooting in manual mode btw) anybody have any ideas?

hey guys i was just wandering when in 25p mode the blur is solved what about the artifacts that most of the people talks about when shooting 25p, im asking this cause i have an event which contains lots of dancing im not sure if i shoot 1080 25p or 50i can anyone help me with that please ?
thank you