True 24p and the A1U... Can it be done? Absolutely! Is it good enough for filmouts? That depends upon the approach you take and your skills as a filmmaker.

Of course the Film look is more than just 24p footage. A DP who is experienced with film can do a great job with lighting and technique and create the film look that most are looking for and the frame rate is secondary. On the other hand, 24p output does have a look, apart from lighting and gamma, etc. That is what I am discussing here.

The good news is that the A1U does indeed create the 24 frame look in a 60i M2T file. The bad news is that the 24p frame data is created by manipulating 60i source data.

Unfortunately the 24 fps video file it creates has unacceptable motion artifacts and image degradation (loss of resolution). The problem is caused because the 24p output of the HC1/A1U/FX1/Z1U creates a 24 frame sequence which includes extra interlaced fields and reduces the resolution during the conversion of the interlaced output to a progressive 24 frame sequence. This causes unnatural motion jitter (especially in horizontal movement) and occasional interlace motion artifacts appear that are not very pleasing... nothing like true 24p.

This problem is well documented by Adam Wilt. See his article at: http://adamwilt.com/HDV/cineframe.html.

The problem is also covered in detail on the Cineform website. The article includes some examples, as well as solutions for the problem. The CineFrame 25 mode, 24p solution that offers even better results, also discussed in the article, is only available on the Z1U and the Pal version of the A1U and FX1. The Pal version of the A1U would actually make for a very nice low cost 24p solution for indie filmmakers in the US that are on a budget and want to create clean 24p HD video for the next great indie film. This solution is discussed on the Cineform website also, although they don't mention the A1U because the article was written before the A1U existed.

Go to http://cineform.com/products/SonyHDVSupport/CineFrame.htm for a discussion of the problem and some solutions.

Although this discussion covers the Z1U and FX1, it also applies to the A1U, HC1 and the three HDV tape decks currently offered by Sony.

There are a number of different methods available to create decent 24p footage using Sony gear and a PC. As might be expected, the better the output, the more expensive the solution.

OK - Solution 1 (no additional cost): Shoot in Cineframe 24 mode with a CineGamma of 1 or 2, and load the M2T file directly onto the timeline of Adobe Premier Pro 2. The A1U does indeed create decent 24p footage with acceptable jitter and minimal interlace artifacts, in most cases, if the motion is kept to a minimum. Try this for yourself. Also experiment with the camera's settings a bit to soften the hard edges inherent in the CineFrame 24 mode. This will improve the film look. You be the judge.

Good - Solution 2 (more expensive): Shoot in Cineframe 24 mode with a CineGamma of 1 or 2, use Cineform's Aspect HD to remove the interlace artifacts and create a 24p intermediate file which can be loaded onto the 24p timeline of Adobe Premier Pro 2. This solution reduces resolution because of the method Sony uses to create the original CineFrame 24 data (this loss of resolution also applies to solution 1). Experiment with the camera's settings a bit here also, to soften the hard edges inherent in the CineFrame 24 mode. For more info go to: http://cineform.com/products/AspectHDPPro.htm.

Better - Solution 3 (even more expensive): Shoot in standard 60i with a CineGamma of 1 or 2, create a Cineform intermediate file using Aspect HD, and then convert the file to 24p using DV Filmmaker. This solution is better because you don't lose resolution as you do with Sony's standard CineFrame 24, or Aspect HD's 24p conversion of Sony's Cineframe 24 file. For more info go to: http://www.dvfilm.com/fx1/index.htm.

Best - Solution 4 - Pal Only Camcorders:
Shoot in Cineframe 25 with a CineGamma of 1 or 2, slow the video frame rate down from 25 to 24 fps, and stretch the audio 4% to match the video using Cineform Aspect HD or Adobe After Effects to perform the conversion. You'll also need a new pal monitor if you plan do this in the US unless you don't monitor your output with anything other than the LCD or viewfinder attached to the camera.

Note to PC users: Cineform's Aspect HD solution is at least 4 times faster than native editing of HDV on Premier Pro 2.0, and since time is money, Cineform's solution along with the DV Filmmaker 24p software is probably the best way to go.

--Dave

and you dont care about the flickers with fluo lights by shooting pal in US?

One workaround for that problem is to simply not shoot in an area lit by fluorescents.

I have to say, I just haven't seen any 60i->24P samples that even remotely impressed me. I've downloaded samples that guys used for television spots, downloaded samples comparing different software conversions, created my own samples, etc.. It just always looks off because the 1/60th shutter speed just doesn't have the right blur of 1/48th footage. No matter how well the 24fps are created, the blur doesn't look right and it ends up looking stuttery when there's movement. I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder because a lot of people really do think that 60i to 24P looks great, but for folks looking for the film look on a budget, I think a PAL camcorder is the way to go when a true 24P cam isn't available.

I sure wish Sony had made the A1U 50/60i switchable like the Z1. I bet Sony would have sold a LOT of these units to folks that need to use them for wedding and event coverage to pay the bills and then switch them to PAL mode for weekend warrior film making. Sheesh.. how hard can it be to create a decent HDV 1CCD/CMOS camera with some selectable frame rates and - gasp - maybe even real progressive scan. OK, I'm about to go ranting now, signing off..

www.philipwilliams.com

and you dont care about the flickers with fluo lights by shooting pal in US?

You are right about the flicker from florescent fixtures. I assume that anyone interested in a low cost 24p production for a documentary or indie would want to control all aspects of lighting, and would only shoot under controlled conditions.

I don't recommend the use of a Pal camcorder in the US for normal video work.

Owners of the Z1 have this capability built in so switching between 60i and 50i is just a switch and a reboot.

If you are curious about shooting for 24p and outputing to film using the the Z1U, or the Pal version of the A1U, or FX1, visit the following link at DV.COM: http://dv.com/print_me.jhtml;jsessionid=?articleId=174900673

You have to sign up to read the article but registration is free.

I own both an A1U and a Z1U, but the A1U is a US version. I am working on a documentary and have employed this technique to generate 24p footage.

Personally I find the workflow to be a hastle, and since money isn't that much of a problem and the camera is only a small portion of what I have into the documentary, I want to make a switch a new camera.

I also have access to a Canon XL-H1 and prefer the 24p output I have shot from this camera and I don't have to go through the hastle of all the conversions.

I am waiting for more info and sample footage shot with the new Sony PDW-F330 XDCAM HD camera. I will purchase one of these to complete the project after I have had time to evaluate the output of the PDW-F330. I would like to get my hands on the Sony for a week or so to test it and compare footage to the XL-H1, but can't afford the high rental fees at this time.

I am also waiting for the Texas HD Shootout to be published to find out what these people have discovered in their testing.

--Dave

Thanks Dave! So the straight up worklow essentially works pretty well then. Cool.
You're right, there are a few hassles using a camera like the A1U, but not too bad of a tradeoff for camera that comes in under 2K. And for the price I'm still wowed.

Now for the big question... Have you actually taken A1U output to film? If so, how did it look compared to stuff shot using let's say DVX100s and transfered?
Ya know. The good, the bad and the ugly of it all. Heh.

I think these solutions are great and very worth while. and if your shooting cineframe 24 in the a1u, is it still possible to adjust the shutter speed? that way, you can find what best replicates a true 180 degree shutter.

To add to the rant, i think the people at Sony are just retarded or they are trying to keep us in the dark by selling us yesterday's technology. (the latter is probally correct). I think its hilarious how they've taken a cmos sensor, which in current network high resolution cameras, and usb 2.0 cameras are nativaly PROGRESSIVE by default, and turned it into something INTERLACED! CMOS sensors are capable of shooting fps from 1 fps - whatever the max readout on the chip is. So the Sony A1u (or HC3) could have choosable fps of 2p, 4p, 6p, 8p , .... 18p , 24p , 26p, 28p, 30p. I know they have to record to 60i tape. but well.... this is already possible. DANG SONY!!! and your stupid marketing schemes. I wouldnt want to buy a high resolution big screen tv that didnt have manual menu controls! Why buy a camera that shoots beautiful picture, but only for static shots. Alright, im done. now to kick over trashcans at Sony's headquaters.

>>>>Although this discussion covers the Z1U and FX1, it also applies to the A1U, HC1 and the three HDV tape decks currently offered by Sony.

Be aware that the HC1 doesnt actually offer "Cineframe". It has a "Cinema mode" digital effect that is a somewhat crippled version of Cineframe....no manual exposure, no cinegamma, etc.

Software de-interlace has always been an option. Unless you are using something very expensive you will see a loss in sharpness but not too bad. IMHO the low cost software options dont touch the in-camera stuff. The more expensive stuff costing thousands can look almost exactly the same if the motion is not too intense. So in theory, any camera can do 24P with post software but unless it does it in-camera... I wouldnt call it TRUE 24P...



ash =o)

I have to say, I just haven't seen any 60i->24P samples that even remotely impressed me. I've downloaded samples that guys used for television spots, downloaded samples comparing different software conversions, created my own samples, etc.. It just always looks off because the 1/60th shutter speed just doesn't have the right blur of 1/48th footage. No matter how well the 24fps are created, the blur doesn't look right and it ends up looking stuttery when there's movement. I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder because a lot of people really do think that 60i to 24P looks great, but for folks looking for the film look on a budget, I think a PAL camcorder is the way to go when a true 24P cam isn't available.

I sure wish Sony had made the A1U 50/60i switchable like the Z1. I bet Sony would have sold a LOT of these units to folks that need to use them for wedding and event coverage to pay the bills and then switch them to PAL mode for weekend warrior film making. Sheesh.. how hard can it be to create a decent HDV 1CCD/CMOS camera with some selectable frame rates and - gasp - maybe even real progressive scan. OK, I'm about to go ranting now, signing off..

www.philipwilliams.com


I agree - I think Sony, plain and simple, should have had "real" 24p on their HDV cams - none of this "Cineframe" stuff.

What, does Panasonic have like a patent on having 24p on cams under $10,000, or what?

Well, at least this looks to be resolved with new AVCHD format... although, probably as has already been speculated, the Sony model that has 1080/24p probably won't be the "basic" one.

Still, better late than never!

Knowing that true 24p is coming - I'm holding off and NOT getting HDV...

Dave,

The issue is not whether you can extract 24p frames from CineFrame24 mode footage. That is trivial and can be using a number of methods.

The issue is that the CineFrame24 footage is "cherry-picked" (Adam Wilt's words) field-doubled fields from 60i. When you extract the 24p frames, they are going to have the wrong motion cadence and rather low-res footage. It's not true 24p, because it's not progressively scanned and full resolution, and also not true 24p because it is not evenly temporaly sampled.

It's debatable, but you might even be better off converting 60i to 24p in post, as long as you use the right method, it might have better resolution.

Josh

>>>>Although this discussion covers the Z1U and FX1, it also applies to the A1U, HC1 and the three HDV tape decks currently offered by Sony.

Be aware that the HC1 doesnt actually offer "Cineframe". It has a "Cinema mode" digital effect that is a somewhat crippled version of Cineframe....no manual exposure, no cinegamma, etc.

You are correct. I inadvertently included the HC1 in that phrase, however the title of this thread is titled A1.

Thanks for pointing that out.

--Dave

Thanks Dave! So the straight up worklow essentially works pretty well then. Cool.
You're right, there are a few hassles using a camera like the A1U, but not too bad of a tradeoff for camera that comes in under 2K. And for the price I'm still wowed.

Now for the big question... Have you actually taken A1U output to film? If so, how did it look compared to stuff shot using let's say DVX100s and transfered?
Ya know. The good, the bad and the ugly of it all. Heh.

No I have only created some 24p files shot with the A1U. As I said, I also have a Z1U and have the same complaints about that camera with regards to 24p output.

I am selling my Z1U as soon as I get either the XL-H1 or the new Sony PDW-F330 XDCAM HD camcorder. I haven't made up my mind which yet. I am keeping the A1U because it is compact and easy to handle.

The savings and hastles of using low end Sony cameras for 24p can not be justified in light of the minimal savings to my documentary production budget.

There are much better solutions out there if you can afford to spend the extra bucks the camcorder, which is easy for me to say. Many on this thread don't have the luxury of spending more for a camera so I am trying to say that is still possible to do 24p on the cheap with an A1U.

I would not consider doing a filmout for my project using the Sony camcorders because I have too much on the line and a the costs of a filmout for a two hour documentary dwarf any savings I would realize saving a few bucks on a camera.

The information I posted here is well known among readers of other 24p threads on DVinfo.net and elsewhere on the internet. I just wanted to point out to A1U users that this solution was possible for them too.

A reasonable 24p file truly can be created with the A1U on the cheap.

--Dave

Thanks Dave. I like the quality of the image the A1u puts out in decent lighting. And i like the idea of being in control of exposure and iris. i am going to film a short film pretty soon, and i would shoot with something like the HVX if i had the money, plus the more money for the darn p2 or a firestore. but i dont think that in a reasonable amount of time id have that money. thats why im thinking the a1u. XLR, manual controls, and cineframe 24, which i hope to extract the 24 frames from in post. My final output would be DVD, an most likely will be shown to audiences from televison or computer projectors onto silverscreens. I am worried though about the look of motion extracted from cineframe24. Will it give the audience the feeling that something is off when i do a quick-pan. perhaps that digitalized feel that just doesnt look natuaral? if someone knows how it can pass or if it looks like crap. let me know. Its one thing to extract true 24. but if it doesnt look at all right, then its no good.

Dave,

The issue is not whether you can extract 24p frames from CineFrame24 mode footage. That is trivial and can be using a number of methods.

The issue is that the CineFrame24 footage is "cherry-picked" (Adam Wilt's words) field-doubled fields from 60i. When you extract the 24p frames, they are going to have the wrong motion cadence and rather low-res footage. It's not true 24p, because it's not progressively scanned and full resolution, and also not true 24p because it is not evenly temporaly sampled.

It's debatable, but you might even be better off converting 60i to 24p in post, as long as you use the right method, it might have better resolution.

Josh

You are correct. In my solution 3, I was advocating exactly that, but the key to doing 3.2 pulldown without loosing resolution in the process is using DVFilm's DVFilmMaker software.

As I mentioned before, see this link for more details: http://www.dvfilm.com/fx1/index.htm

--Dave

Thanks Dave. I like the quality of the image the A1u puts out in decent lighting. And i like the idea of being in control of exposure and iris. i am going to film a short film pretty soon, and i would shoot with something like the HVX if i had the money, plus the more money for the darn p2 or a firestore. but i dont think that in a reasonable amount of time id have that money. thats why im thinking the a1u. XLR, manual controls, and cineframe 24, which i hope to extract the 24 frames from in post. My final output would be DVD, an most likely will be shown to audiences from televison or computer projectors onto silverscreens. I am worried though about the look of motion extracted from cineframe24. Will it give the audience the feeling that something is off when i do a quick-pan. perhaps that digitalized feel that just doesnt look natuaral? if someone knows how it can pass or if it looks like crap. let me know. Its one thing to extract true 24. but if it doesnt look at all right, then its no good.

As I said earlier, I would recommend Solution 3, shooting in 60i with a CineGamma of 1 to 2 and a shotter speed of 1/60 of a second, and then following DVFilm's workflow to get decent 24p out of the A1U.

Using CineFrame 24 will yield acceptable results with minimal motion. However the Aspect HD/DVFilmMaker solution which yields far superior results will cost an additional $700 in software purchases.

--Dave

--Dave

Software de-interlace has always been an option. Unless you are using something very expensive you will see a loss in sharpness but not too bad. IMHO the low cost software options dont touch the in-camera stuff. The more expensive stuff costing thousands can look almost exactly the same if the motion is not too intense. So in theory, any camera can do 24P with post software but unless it does it in-camera... I wouldnt call it TRUE 24P...

ash =o)

Yes, I agree. You're absolutely right! That's why I am buying either a Canon XL-H1 or a Sony PDW-F330, and selling my Z1U. Fortunately I have the money for a new camcorder in our DOC budget.

But many here can't afford to drop the extra bucks to get a camera that can do the job without a little help.

You are, no doubt, already aware of the options available to low-end Sony camcorder users, but I am quite convinced that there are many here who own an A1U but are not aware that there are reasonably good solutions available to them short of buying a new camera, especially if they don't plan to go to film... And even if they do.

Afterall, many have taken DV or DVCPro solutions directly to film and were happy with the results, even at the resolution of Standard Definition.

We may already be jaded with the current offerings in the HD/HDV/DVCPRO HD arena, however all of the cameras, even the little HC3 put ALL DV camcorders to shame.

Isn't it great? What a marvelous time to be making Digital Films!

--Dave

Isn't it great? What a marvelous time to be making Digital Films!

Yes it is! A few years ago I wouldn't have had a chance to consider filmmaking on my own no matter how much work I was prepared to put into it. Now... The sky's the limit even when you have serious budget limitations.

And I'm loving the learning curve (am I sick or what!).
This phase is lighting: I'm going to set up one of those wigmakers heads and try different lighting to start to get a feel for how I'll want to light things in different situations. It just seems the way to go.

Actually, you answered a *couple* of questions I had a while back in one thread. Thanks again Dave.

I haven't fiddled too much with the 1080i videos that I've downloaded over the last year or so, but I suspect that if I really wanted 24P output from a 60i HDV stream, I'd probably look at converting down to 720P/24fps. The downsampling might go towards smoothing out some of the de-interlacing artifacts. Just a thought, maybe someone's tried...

i believe u could shoot in cineframe and then just remove the interlace pulldown with any program that can do it. ie cinematools

That is correct but it is well documented that Sony's Cineframe 24 has too much motion jutter to be acceptable for true 24p filmout.

That's what the hubub is all about. Sony's method is not too well suited to filmouts. That's why there are third party solutions to solve the Z1U/FX1/A1U CineFrame 24 problem.

If there were no problems there would be no need for a solution.

For occasional use and for a special effect, Sony's CineFrame 24 mode is a good tool, according to Adam Wilt, a well respected writer for DV.COM... But not for filmouts, without a lot of software help, according to many experienced production people here and elsewhere on the web. I have provided links to what I feel are helpful discussions about Sony's CineFrame 24 modes elsewhere in this thread.

In my experiments with both the Z1U and A1U, I decided (this is my humble opinion) that it is best to buy a new camcorder before shooting any more footage for our documentary. I want the best we can afford for our production.

Don't get me wrong. The A1U and Z1U are great camcorders. It's just that our production standards are higher than Sony's Cineframe 24 solution offers.

True 24p is a really big deal to filmmakers, and to Sony too. That's why they charge so much for the CinaAlta products. Solving the problem on an under $5000 camcorder would destroy their high end business.

Check out some of the other discussion boards on this website such as the Canon XL-H1 or the new Xony XDCAM HD solutions discussions. There are disagreements and very heated discussions over what is and what isn't TRUE 24p just a few clicks away from where you are reading this.

Even Chris Hurd, who is very knowledgeable on this topic and the owner of this site, has gotten in a few, shall we say, heated discussions on this topic, and one thread covering Sony's new CineAlta XDCAM HD cameras was closed until further notice over disagreements over 24p on this website.

--Dave

i believe u could shoot in cineframe and then just remove the interlace pulldown with any program that can do it. ie cinematools

You are probably right. I'm not familiar with cinematools. But I am familiar with Magic Bullet, DVFilmMaker, After Affects and Aspect HD. Some software does simple frame doubling to remove interlace artifacts such as Aspect HD, but this method reduces resolution by as much as 50% vertically.

Magic Bullet, After Effects and DVFilmMaker use "smart" deinterlacing which doesn't negatively impact resolution.

Again, I'm not familiar with cinematools, so I couldn't speak to that.

--Dave

Hi Dave, did you try to shoot in 50i with the Z1 in pal mode? imported as 24fps in AE and deinterlaced with realsmart FieldsKit, the motion should be perfect and the resolution loss quite minimal no?

but I understand why you want the XL-H1 anyway!

I ear sony hdv cam are the more soft of the bunch... I wonder how much!

Hi Dave, did you try to shoot in 50i with the Z1 in pal mode? imported as 24fps in AE and deinterlaced with realsmart FieldsKit, the motion should be perfect and the resolution loss quite minimal no?

but I understand why you want the XL-H1 anyway!

I ear sony hdv cam are the more soft of the bunch... I wonder how much!

Yes that is how I shot practically all the footage to date for my documentary. The motion is great. However, I am unhappy with the resolution I lose in deinterlacing the 50i footage. I have access to, and have used the XL-H1 for a number of shoots in the production, and I have found the XL-H1 to be sharper... the resolution is better.

The fact is that even though the Z1U does a good job in 50i, the XL-H1 does a better job, and quality is what I am looking for. The price is not so important because the cost of the production dwarfs any savings between the two cameras.

After my project is done, there will only be the movie. No one cares what it was shot on. They only care about what they see.

I also spent time with 60i and 3.2 pulldown deinterlacing using AE with both Z1U and A1U footage. The Z1U is shaper than the A1U. However, the A1U does surprisingly well.

--Dave

I find pans with the sony cameras quite weird (not from me but from a production shooted with the z1 I worked on recently)... I wonder if its the camera, the cameraman or the mpeg2 compression fault... I presume its the compression over 15fps but then I wonder why I dont see these artefact (soft image when panning) on hd100 footage...

I find pans with the sony cameras quite weird (not from me but from a production shooted with the z1 I worked on recently)... I wonder if its the camera, the cameraman or the mpeg2 compression fault... I presume its the compression over 15fps but then I wonder why I dont see these artefact (soft image when panning) on hd100 footage...

I agree with you on panning. I have always assumed that this is interlace artifacts. Horizontal movement (pans) is always jerky unless you pan very slowly. This does not happen with DV or DVCAM. But I always see it with HDV in 1080i. And I don't see this on HD100 720p footage.

Also it is not nearly as pronounced when I hook a Sony 1080i camcorder directly to my 24 inch 1920 x 1080 Dell monitor with component video cables, but as soon as I watch the .m2t files the interlace artifacts and panning characteristics degrade substantially. For this reason, I blame the mpeg files. When I switch to blend from interlace during playback on VLC media player scrolling looks a little bit better.

The XL-H1 doesn't do this in 24p. Sonys HDV cmos sensors and/or ccds are always interlaced. Since the XL-H1 uses interlaced ccds too, I assumed that it is something that Canon does tweeking their 24p output to eliminate this problem. It would be interesting to see if Sony's new XDCAM HD camcorders do this too since they save their files in either 18Mbps, 25Mbps or 35Mbps mpeg files to a blueray disk rather than saving to tape. The Sony PDW-F350 and 330 XDCAM HD camcorders have HD SDI (350) and component video output (330) and I haven't been up close and personal with either of these camcorders yet so I don't know how they perform when plugged directly into a monitor live, but since they save mpeg files too, I wonder about their panning characteristics when playing the mpeg file.

I am waiting for the Texas Shootout results to see if these cameras have the same characteristics.

Maybe someone more knowlegeable than me could comment on this.

--Dave