If you shoot in PAL mode, will it produce 25 fps footage? If so, can you really tell the difference between 24 and 25 fps?

I've converted 5mk2 footage in Color, setting project at 25 frame, did all the color correction bringing back shadows, and highlight detail, then sent rendered sequence to FCP...
.... it worked!!

Happy New Year everyone!

I'm no Graeme Nattress, but I've been doing a ton of conversions to 25p using both Episode and Compressor (better results with the latter) as I need 25p for DVD output, among other things.

The video posted here is a little hard to judge, as there's so much going on, but Barlow is right on the money by simply checking "high quality motion compensation" in Compressor. I've been analysing a lot of footage frame by frame, and even at 100% it's very difficult to detect any loss in resolution, and the vast majority of frames have no artifacts due to the process. I won't hesitate to use this method to obtain 25p, even for large screen public viewing.

Oleg, this method only achieves 25p by dropping every 6th frame and retiming the remaining frames to the original duration. The same occurs if you drop 5D footage into a 25p FCP timeline and export it as a quicktime movie.

If you play the resulting footage frame by frame, you'll notice they're in sets of five frames with a slight jump between each set where the 6th frame has been omitted, unlike the method outlined by Barlow in which an entirely new set of evenly spaced frames are created.

Having said that Oleg, your method is super fast, doesn't create any artifacts or lose any resolution, and to be honest, at full speed, unless you're really looking for it, it's hard to notice any frames are missing. For work such as interviews that do not involve fast motion, I'd say this method will do perfectly fine.

for what i've read on the net, Apple's Shake is best for retiming.

I've heard that too Ralf, but Apple stopped developing Shake a while back, and given they're both Apple products, Compressor may be sharing the same technology.

In any case, Compressor does a very very impressive job. Coupled with the gamma solution provided by Color, I'd say anyone running Final Cut Studio can get a pretty good 5D mkII workflow established.

Josh, thank you. Great observation.

If the discussion to be continued, and Compressor does a great job,
does it make sense to convert to a 50 frame a second based footage for a good slow motion if needed and edit everything shot with the camera on a 1080 50P timeline?

Hi Oleg, one downside of using compressor is it takes a loooong time to process the footage, so personally I'll only use it when necessary (presumably creating 50 new frames per second as opposed to 25 will take even longer). 50 fps Prores files are also much larger, so for storage/handling, that's another thing to consider.

Remember when you first exported your footage from a 25p Color project, you didn't realise 1/6th of the frames were missing? I don't think any viewers will notice either. I've shown footage using the simple 'export in 25p timeline' method to several non-techie people and even when I ask them to look for an issue with the frames no one can spot it, unless I play the footage frame by frame.

So my plan is to use this crisp, ultra fast method for fairly stationary shots, and to mix it with footage processed with Compressor when there's a lot of motion involved. Final Cut Pro won't know the difference, and I don't think viewers will either.

Josh, thank you, agree with you!

Thanks for posting this Barlow. Looks pretty convincing to me. While I'd love to see Canon add 24P to the camera, I'm secretly hoping they take the 5D's front-end and mate it up with a proper "video" body with full controls and various frame rates.

That's the hope. Not holdin' my breath on it though.

As much as I like Canon, they're still only going to do what's in their best long-term interests and not necessarily what their users want at the moment.

The techno-drip from any of the major camera manufacturers will be as slow as possible, and the only reason we are seeing HD video from a full-frame DSLR is because Red has somewhat disrupted the market, if only due to hype and perception...not necessarily sales figures.

In the meantime, I think some clever guys will make very interesting films with the 5D MKII.

I don't know this software. You mean Color uses no other than the drop frame technique?

I have a little more faith in Canon. But I'm biting my nails waiting to see what the full package ends up looking like.

It's possible they already made deals with specific vendors for 1/3" or 1/2" CMOS chips and are already committed to that solution for the next generation XL's and can't change course for something more radical. I hope not. Maybe they'll release a limited edition full-frame 5D type camera for professionals, but at a price point that won't bleed their video business but satisfy their high-end constituents. Dunno. It's all up in the air right now.

I am saving my pennies for a 5D though. I've been wanting a high-end DSLR anyway. The DSMC approach RED is taking is making rethink that purchase though. Perhaps a S35 Scarlet?

I guess, in the end, it really depends on how this world economy pans out. Canon could be killing a lot of R&D projects right, for all we know. I have no idea what my next film will be and what budget it will be at.

I guess I'm a bit more agnostic even though I'm a pretty big Canon camera/camcorder fan...but they do work in mysterious ways, don't they? ;)

I just think they have a niche with smaller chip pro-to-prosumer camcorders in the video market and we probably have no idea how difficult it would be for them to turn the ship on a dime and make a powerful hybrid of the full-frame dslr mated to a proper video camera body...and deliver it all at prices that everyone's used to.

And a lot of the people that buy Canon camcorders wouldn't really want to deal with full-frame DOF in reality. It's not easy for event guys, to say the least.

DSMC...I still have my quibbles about the hybridization of the two realms. I just think they're different disciplines that will never fully exist in harmony as equals in one camera.

I think another possible market reality about this newfangled HD video in a full-frame DSLR might be the simple fact that a lot of photographers were quite happy with their 5D's, etc, and now a threshold might've been reached where extra megapixels just isn't as sexy as it used to be--voila!!--half-baked flakey (but exceedingly beautiful) HD video in the new 5D.

Isn't globalization just the s**t?

Color's role is colour-correction. But it comes as part of Final Cut Studio with Compressor - Compressor has all the options you need for high-quality conversions.

Lens Adapter
 

Barlow, just out of curiosity, what adapter are you using to mate Nikon lens to the EOS body?

Thanks,
Michael