24p Newbie Question (FCP/V1U related)
 

I have been reading posts for the last couple months in preparation to maybe buy a camera (leaning towards the V1U), and it has raised a lot of issues about 24p in general as well the post requirements for dealing with it. I have been shooting professionally for the past 7 years, but have only done 1 project on 24p (XDCAM HD....great rig) but I was not the editor.

I have read many pro/con 24p/30p/60i/etc comments so lets get past that.

Regarding pulldown....let's say I am shooting 24p because I like that look, but I know my final result will be DVD. Can you skip the pulldown entirely and just capture (as 60i, maybe if you can do that through the firewire) and edit in FCP (or other) in a 60i timeline? I have no idea if that would work and if so would it yield what the final result (pre-compression) would be on DVD or another NTSC format? Basically I don't get why when the end result is NTSC (for many of us) we have to remove pulldown then add it back in. I shot a job on the XDCAM HD in 24p this fall and my preview monitor was a Panasonic HD plugged into the HD-SDI which was 60i but it looked like what I expected it to look like, so why not just edit the 60i as 24p source....it will still look different than stuff that originates in camera at 60i.

Next question....so FCP has a HDV108024p preset. I had an XLH1 for a job a few weeks ago and shot some 24f footage as a test for myself and captured and edited fine using this FCP preset. Now I still don't know if 24f is in fact 24p, but regardless why can't FCP work with the V1U using the preset that matches the HDV108024p format that it is shooting in? What is the difference here?

And lastly (for now). I read in a post someone talking about the 24p judder that doesn't look smooth on their DVD. With the job I shot on the XDCAM I just saw a DVD of the rough cut of the film and I agree that it doesn't look smooth the way a "normal" film would look on DVD or broadcast. This may be apples to oranges, but my impression was that the 24p technology in the cams was really, really close to the temporal look of 24 fps film. The DVD I saw certainly did not look like 60i but it did seem a little excessive in the judder (whatever that means). Is it possible to make a DVD from a 24p timeline and not add the pulldown back in? Could the editor have done that and made a DVD that is playable on my tv but just looks not so hot?

Okay....well thanks in advance for any insight. I have used the Z1U a lot since its inception and am looking to buy a cam that will work for a lot of my work and the V1U is probably that.

Hi Benjamin,

I'm no expert, but I'm getting set to film a documentary in Micronesia soon with the V1. Our editor *highly* recommended that we avoid 24p since our final broadcast format is going to be 1080i.

Currently, capture in FCP must be 60i since its not a recognizeable 24p format on tape. It is true 24p, its just encoded in a 60i stream. It captures in FCP and you can work with it- but it has some of the worst interlacing artifacts I've ever seen. Shockingly ugly, especially if there is much movenment in the image. The 1080-24p preset in FCP does not capture it correctly and needs to be rendered as FCP thinks its converting a 60i clip to a 24p clip. Annoying and I don't think it works correctly anyway.

24f is not true 24p- that's part of the hype about the V1 that its a real 24p capture device. 24f is a 24p-like effect that doesn't actually capture 24 progressive frames. I'm not sure exactly what it does, but it seems clear that its not 24p. I've been warned off of it, as well, and was told it also doesn't translate well to other formats.

We decided to shift to 30p for this project even though we like the 24p look- we're just not certain it will translate well to our final format without more hassle than we can afford. The same logic would apply to 24f, I would imagine. If we need 24p we can get it from the 30p footage, buts its a bit harder to go the other way.

Now the camera itself seems like a breakthrough device for its price. I *really* like it. Lots of manual controls for getting the look you want, easy to handle, and a gives a great image. Very efficient power usage, too, and the same battery lasts a lot longer than it does for the FX1.

FCP will eventually support the 24p format stored within the 60i stream of the V1, but for now it seems like a bit of a hassle to try and use it to work in a 24p timeline.

I would guess that the V1 would be a good match for you if you've been pleased with your Z1. I'm just not sure the 24p (from capture to delivery) workflow is as simple as we'd like it to be, yet.

-Chris

I wish Cineform could create an FCP plugin for HDV 24p...

But for now, any 24p footage in 60i on HDV can't be edited in the native frame rates without Cineform (which I currently guess is only for PC).

So is the assumption, then, that FCP will at some point release an update to support native 1080 24p HDV editing and this headache will go away? I would assume they would have to as cam makers are going to continue to produce this format I image.

Would the ugly interlacing artifacts on the V1 that you mentioned go away once FCP updates or is it a problem inherrent in the camera.

Just want to know if this camera is at all future-proofed when the software support is released.

It is a fair assumption that FCP will offer native V1 support at some stage in the mean time use cinema tools to remove pulldown. Brian Williams wrote the workflow here: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=83651. I don't know how you could have missed it.

Cineform will be released for the Mac soonish. See the cineform forum on DVInfo for more details.

I don't really understand you comment about future-proofing. I don't know of any electronic gubbins that isn't eventually superseded.

TT

[QUOTE=Benjamin Eckstein] interlacing artifacts on the V1 that you mentioned go away once FCP updates or is it a problem inherrent in the camera./QUOTE]

The interlacing artifacts are NOT present in the footage I captured with Vegas, which does support the V1 so I'd assume that FCP will also import it flawlessly when Apple finally gets up to speed. And it already works flawlessly in every aspect except the 24p and 24a modes.

As far as future proof... I'm not sure anything is future proof. This camera will probably have the usual lifespan of a Sony Camcorder. There are still people using VX1000's, too, so I doubt the V1 is going to feel obsolete anytime soon, unless you want to compare it to larger format cameras.

Tony, I did see Brian's workflow, and that seemed clear. My question was less about workflow though, and more about why do we need to remove pulldown then add pulldown back in if the final result is NTSC. It's the one thing I don't get for the 24p workflow for those who are not cutting for a film-out. Those of us who want to shoot 24p and whose end result is DVD or broadcast (i.e. 60i), if it comes out of the firewire 60i why not stay that way.

Chris, thanks for your insight. I have enough experience with technology to know nothing is really future-proofed. What I meant was if this camera would work better with an FCP update (i.e. no crappy artifacting) and it sounds like from your experience with Vegas this would not be a problem.

Hoping one of the rental houses in Boston will carry the V1 so I can test it out, but I think Rule Broadcast (at least) was not planning to.

Cool dudes. Thanks.