Grey's Anatomy... 60i?
 

I watched a little bit of Grey's Anatomy for the first time tonight, and the first thing I noticed about it is the smoothness! It's pure 60i! I don't know if I like it, it looks strange to me. I haven't seen many dramas on TV that don't use (or emulate) 24p...

No Way thats 60i
 

Thats shot on film or HD at the very least. No 60i there.

Hmm, if it's not 60i, then what is it that makes it look so smooth? I can't figure out what makes it look so different than many of the shows I see these days. Am I the only one that notices this?

Okay, as someone who's never watched the show. I'm now curious. One person thinks 60i, the other 24p? Complete ends of the spectrum!

Casey, how is it not 60i because it's possibly HD? I'm confused by that statement.

C

It's 24p, on film
 

It's definitely 24p. I have the "Kodak world's cinematographers Calendar 2007" beside me and on the october page you find a grey's anatomy snapshot with theses infos under: "Cinematographer: Herbert Davis, Filmstock: Kodak vision 2 500T 5218, Kodak vision2 250D 5205"

I doubt kodak would endorse this show if it was shot on HD.

HD 24p
 

If it were 60i, even in hd, it would not look the same. 60i is Handicam/News look, with the 24p even if it were interlaced (not pulled-down) it would still look different wuality wise. The movement and look of everything would be so different it would be incredibly noticable. I hope this answers what I was saying.
casey

I does, sort of, but your definitions are a bit confusing. I think you are trying to say that even if it was shot 24p and interlaced to 60i in telecine (which actually includes the use of a pull-down to achieve this), it would look different than 60i acquisition. Is that right?

However, HD shot in 60i will indeed have a particular look to it (as you indicated, which is what Chris was suggesting. And in fact, 35mm shot at 60 fps and transferred at 60 fps 1:1 to video would have a similar motion cadence.

Regardless, the show is shot on 35mm and the folks I know who work on that show have never mentioned to me anything unusual going into the pipeline from a framerate perspective, so the smoothness that Chris is responding to is likely not coming from that end of the spectrum. I've only watched bits and pieces but I can't recall anything odd about the motion signature.

Are you saying that 60i HD looks different from 60i SD motion-wise? How come?

No, I was comparing a 24 frame cadence to a 60 frame cadence.

60i-24p might fool some people to think it's 60i. I heard that most of the American population cannot sense framerate.

The Stargate TV series (later episodes of SG-1 and all episodes of Atlantis) switch between 60i-24p and native 24p all the time cause they shoot on HD.

Jack, not sure what you are referring to with "60i-24p"...? Do you mean 24p originated material that has reverse telecine to 60i? If so, that is the only way that television is broadcast, there is no 24p transmission.

So did Stargate shoot material in 60i as well as 24p and intercut? If so, for what purpose? Usually this is done when there something is to look like news footage, although it is somewhat jarring.

I'm pretty convinced that most people can sense the difference between 60i and 24p, again, they may not have the proper vocabulary but they may well describe a narrative project shot and viewed on 60i as "looking like a soap opera".

i was under the impression that most everything is still shot on film. the majority of the time if it says "available in HD" or "shot on HD" it means it was shot on 35mm or super 16.
also dont forget, not all shows have it, but MOST of the time you can find the answer to this SD/HD/60i/24p/film debate on IMDB.

I haven't kept up on the figures; the majority of primetime one hour dramas are still shot on film but a significant number are shot on HD. I think the number of HD shows may possibly have gone down from a few years ago and some shows tried it out and then switched back to film. "Dexter" and that new show with Christina Applegate come immediately to mind as HD originated. Almost all multi-camera sitcoms that were shot on 35mm are now 24p.

I watched a little of "Grays" and it is without a doubt 24 fps 35mm (remember that film-originated material is not technically 24p, that is a video term).

...They make a "Kodak World's Cinematographer's Calender?" I want that! lol.

I'm talking about they shoot in both 60i and 24p and then process the 60i footage to 24p (cadence is not the same as native 24p) Then the cut between the native 24p and the 24p processed 60i.

Also remember that some new TVs add interpolated frames to create the illusion of 60i when the source is 24p.

Do you have a source for that info Jack? I'm a bit at a loss to understand why they would shoot in both formats and then convert one of them. 60i footage converted to 24p (via Magic Bullet, Filmlook etc) should have a similar cadence to 24p originated footage, no? Unless you are suggesting that the 24p footage was film-originated?

24p from the sensor has a cadence that is just like film, 60i from the sensor that is converted to 24p adds extra motion blur in fast moving scenes since the source is sampled at a higher framerate. You often notice there is too much blur in fast scenes in some 60i originating processed 24p.

You have to understand that when the sensor is getting 24p, it's getting full frames with film cadence. 60i converted footage takes several fields to construct a frame resulting in extra motion blur. I've yet to see 60i sourced footage with the same cadence as 24p other than discarding a field and slowing down to 80%.

Doesn't "cadence" specifically refer to the ordering of the fields? Sounds like we are discussing the look that results from the process due to exposure time of a given field or frame, which is not a function of the cadence per se.

It's possible that the show is shot with 35mm film, at 29.97fps. This does give a "smoother" look.

It's used for commercials all the time, but I don't know how much for series - it does increase the film and lab budget considerably.

Bill Engeler

Ah, then I phrased it wrong, the blur is not the same, not the cadence.