Frame mode in camera or film look in post???
 

Dear all,

I have always been a strong believer of the frame mode on the Xl1s, but after seeing footage from Tadpole and Personal Velocity, I am starting to change my mind. As I understand it, both films were shot with the Sony PD-150 PAL and were shot with normal interlaced mode instead of the popular frame mode.

many fromt he forum has said that if you intend to do a film print then you should use interlaced mode, but here is an interesting fact.

Both films I mentioned were cut digitally and had the film look put on digitally as well in post and were screened through a digital projector at sundance before they got the film print for theatrical screenings.

Here is my question, I have no money for a film transfer, and I want my footage to look like film, should I A) use frame mode and the digital enhancements available on the camera??? or B) shoot interlaced in camera to get a clean effects free picture and try to get the film look in post?

Any advice?

Thanks

Daniel

Assuming you are never intending to film-out your project, my belief is that the frame mode provides the most natural film-type motion available. I have heard good things about the Magic Bullet software but haven't had a chance to try it yet (Martin, I know you are a fan). If you don't want to deal with the rendering time, going into frame mode is a pretty sure fire way to get a pleasing look.

Regarding those films, remember that they were transferred to 35mm and thus have taken on the motion characteristics of 24 frame. That's not the same as a film-looked digital master.

The best thing to do is shoot the same footage in both normal and frame mode, and put the normal footage through whichever post process you choose (since it sounds like you are operating on a budget, the commercial Filmlook process is going to be out of reach, so I assume this means a software based system like Magic Bullet or Cinelook). Make sure to include both static frames and plenty of movement like pans so you can evaluate the motion characteristic: also shoot wide vistas as well as closeups so you can see what is happening from a resolution standpoint (frame mode does lose some resolution).

good luck!

"(frame mode does lose some resolution)"

Any idea why? I can see why it might be more "stuttery" - less frames per second. But why less resolution?

I do not have a answer to why you loose resolution but I can say that there is no less frames in frame move mode. It is 30 frames per second, in normal move mode it is 60 fields per second. The reason frame move mode is choppy on movement is due to the fact that it is picking op every single thing in the frame, wears when interlaced (60 fields per second) is get only part of the action in the frame.

software rendering
 

Does that mean if the fields are rendered into a frame in a software, the quality of the image will be better than the XL1s frame mode treatment,

and also, will software deinterlacing give a progressive scan image?? Is that why deinterlacing in post is better??

Daniel

i'd really like to hear an answer to that last question, also...
the question of going progressive (frame move mode) in camera, or doing it in post with a program like dvfilm atlantis.
i use a pal canon xl1 and fcp3. hoping to get atlantis and aftereffects soon...