Contacting Canon re: adding 24p pulldown flags - Part Duex

[Doug Lange]

It is a good company that keeps everyone stating the "official" line on any given issue. It's at the VP and GM level where possibilities are entertained. If a simple, cost effective improvement is possible that substanially improves on the botom line and extends the product lifecycle, our request will be granted. On the other hand, if it is perceived that this improvement causes loss of sales to higher-end equipment...

Just for the record, my friends at Canon USA, I bought my HV20 at the same time as my XH A1:-)

[Scott Turkington]

Cineform's Aspect HD HDLink add on for Adobe premier makes pull down pretty painless. It performs the pull down as it captures the video in m2t format on your computer. By the time it's done capturing it's in 24p and ready to go. Just import the video into a 24p work space and start editing. I tried it with a little 15 min video I shot at a park and it worked really well. Just plug the camera in, fire up HDLink tell it to pull down, and hit capture. When I was done capturing I checked the properties on the captured video it was at 23.97 fps so I'm pretty sure it's that easy.

[Ray Bell]

Not to be busting balls on this issue, but I would be cautious as to what you guys are asking for....

why, because the HV20 is a " consumer " cam, that Canon put a not so consumer function, 24P.

When Canon puts that function on a " pro " cam they know that the pro has the knowledge and equipment/software to handle the function and without having to worry about folks writting in for added functionality...

So, if too many folks raise cane to get more functionality out of a consumer cam because some folks' choice of editor doesnt work friendly with 24P, Canon will just drop the function on future consumer products.


Don't think they'd do that??? Well they did it with their still Camera's...

Canon dropped RAW from all of their consumer P/S still cameras, with much
angwish amoungst it many supporters.... why, because Grandma wasn't using it and many folks just didn't have the software to handle RAW photos....

Canon did put in 24P functionality for the HV20... it works great, looks great and all anybody needs to utilize the functionality is to use the correct workflow... and Canon isn't going to lead anyone down that path... they know the Pro shops have the hardware/software, they also know the consumer just needs to step up to the plate and adjust their workflow to utilize the function...

Presently there seem to be two very capable work flows, and they support both Windows and MAC....

The easy way is Cineform, it don't get any easier than this and then there is the free software effort that seems to work just fine after you get all the components in place....

I just hope that Canon doesn't decide to par down any functions that may be on the Engineers table for the HV30, due to folks not accepting workflows where they may have to shell out more $$ or work a little harder in the free workflow arena.

[Martin Newsome]

I agree with what ray bell said dont stir the pot up to much they gave you great cam that you can get for less then a 1,000 bucks and for 200 or so more you add on the cineform and get the 24p pull down so for about 1200 added in with audio adapter to hand xlr inputs about 1,500 buck you got pretty good HDV camera with great image , but it woul be nice the HV30 had the flags and gain control and one xlr input :)

peace n luv


Martin

[Norm Goodger]

I concur, the 24P mode is very nice, but its also not an absolute necessity to get great video from the camera.. Standard mode works just fine for most shooting as I see it. If there is something that you will capture that will benefit from the 24P mode, then you'll have to get the software needed to be able to effectively edit that video..

Canon provided a great feature in a consumer format camera, if you want to manage 24P without the software, get a higher end camera, whose cost will probably be more than just buying the needed software to manage the video from the HV20.

[Steve Szudzik]

I think that part of it boils down to how 24p is presented by Canon though. They are touting 24p with this camera, which is great. What they aren't telling you is that it's extra $$$ to work with that format because they do not provide a means by which it can be easily worked with. The fact it's there in a format that pretty much none of the major NLE's can deal with natively is a bit of an eye raiser to me. Canon says you can shoot 24p which is correct, but where do they say anything about what you have to do to actually "work" with 24p? Nowhere that I've found. No list of available applications to support their implementation of it.

It's just a tad misleading on Canons part to push the 24p thing so highly and yet not to have a way to offer folks the ability to do anything with it properly.

--Steve

[Ian G. Thompson]

I agree with what you are saying Steve. That was my gripe from the start...that their advertising this as true 24P was kind of misleading. I did however take another look at their demo footage for the HV20, frame by frame and to my suprise the pulldown was not removed. If you look at some of the motion where the woman goes to take a seat at the bar it (ghosting/blending) jumps right out at you. I was wondering why the video did not have much movement overall ...like their upper end cams demos.

For those concerned about Canon dropping the 24P because of user complaints...I highly doubt it. What Canon did was raise the bar for other brands to catch up. I suspect within the next year or so other manufacturers will start to introduce this feature (and then some) in their brands. If they (Canon) were to pull it out of the HV30 then it would be their loss (R U Listening Panasonic?)

[John C. Chu]

As an enthusiast/hobbyist, I am perfectly happy editing the footage from this camera in a 60i timeline.

I had no illusions about what this camera is when I bought it---an affordable high-def *consumer* cam with 24p. This camera is targeted towards me in this regard.

It's great to push the envelope with consumer gear, but I don't expect it to have pro level features that the target market for this camera won't need or appreciate.

If one needs those features, I suspect they should be looking at the prosumer gear.

I would hate to see Canon pull this feature from future cameras just because it is more trouble than its worth.

[John Machtinger]

Ray, what you are saying is a legitimate concern, especially given your example of their not including RAW mode in their "enthusiast" G7 still camera. However, see the next paragraph and I think panic about their doing this with 24p is not warranted yet.

Until better sensors are developed, we should not see 24p in the HV20 as any kind of "pro" feature. It's a consumer feature in the truest sense. Its function for consumers is not to emulate a filmic look, but to enable shooting indoors without the use of lights. This is the sole reason many educated consumers are buying the Canon over the Sony. When you switch to 24p, especially with CINE mode on, indoor shooting suddenly becomes possible in regular light! This is a tremendous feature of the camera. Who wants to use a camera-mounted light, or turn on all the lights in the room, when shooting family, friends, a party, etc.? This is not how consumers want to use a video camera.

It's implemented poorly, however. First, it drives me NUTS that I have to do something like 14 button presses to switch from 60i P mode to 24p CINE mode, and another 14 to go back again. These are the two modes where the HV20 shines for a non-pro who just wants to record memories. Good light, and low light. (Perhaps this is again fixable via firmware, to be added to the quick-access menu, but I'm not holding my breath.)

Second, to have this mode which is so useful and not have it work with editing software is even worse. And if they can fix it with firmware, they should. This is a new model. This is an important feature. They should make it work better than it does.

[Ray Bell]

I don't want to go out on a limb and claim that new and better software is on its way to support the HV20 in 24P mode... and please understand I'm a windows user of Adobe products... so having said that, the Adobe software that " might " support the HV20 in 24P mode is still in Beta testing. Adobe claims it is to be released on July 15th.... so I guess we all have to wait and
see if this software will handle it... but even that software wont be a cheap upgrade. The beta software that is being tested won't even support HD video yet, it will be when its released. So the only way that we have been able to work with CS3 product is because folks like Cineform have released the software and we just manually overide the installation and force the Adobe software to accept our HD inputs... so we know that workflow
works and Cineform is working bugs real time... ya gota like them just for that fact alone... much less that they have a product that works perfect now with the HV20....

Black Magic is also working with us on the HV20 with real time capture...
From what I've seen so far the Cineform/BlackMagic solution to live capture
is working perfect.... so those two company's seem to be getting it right....

I guess Canon could have written there own software editing solution, but I think they may have learned the lesson with the still cams...

They make very nice cameras, but they are not a software house....
so they expect you to buy their cams and you choose what editor to use.
A good buisness model if you ask me... that way you get to choose between windows, Apple or whatever and within those platforms you get to choose a company to work your video's with....

[Thomas Smet]

Originally Posted by Ian G. Thompson

I agree with what you are saying Steve. That was my gripe from the start...that their advertising this as true 24P was kind of misleading. I did however take another look at their demo footage for the HV20, frame by frame and to my suprise the pulldown was not removed. If you look at some of the motion where the woman goes to take a seat at the bar it (ghosting/blending) jumps right out at you. I was wondering why the video did not have much movement overall ...like their upper end cams demos.

For those concerned about Canon dropping the 24P because of user complaints...I highly doubt it. What Canon did was raise the bar for other brands to catch up. I suspect within the next year or so other manufacturers will start to introduce this feature (and then some) in their brands. If they (Canon) were to pull it out of the HV30 then it would be their loss (R U Listening Panasonic?)

The camera does do 24p exactly like it is advertised. 24p is 24p. How you edit it is a whole other issue that isn't up to Canon. When 24p DV cameras first came out no NLE supported them. People did not yell at Panasonic saying that the camera didn't give them 24p. The camera did give them 24p but there needed to be a way to deal with that 24p which was hard at first. This camera is not much different. It shoots 24p but it is up to us to figure out how to use it. 24p is not supposed to be easy to work with. Even without pulldown issues there are a lot of other complications that go along with true 24p editing. Canon needed to make the style of 24p from the HV20 as easy to deal with as they could in order to make it so everybody who picked up the camera could shoot and edit stuff that had a 24p look to it.

Whats funny is if Canon would have called the 24p something else like SONY did with Cineframe24 or how Canon did with 24F then half the people on this board would be trying to figure out why they didn't just call it 24p. It's 24p because the chip is scanned 24 times per second as true progressive frames. In fact no other HDV camera out there right now can do this without some sort of pixel magic.

[Jules Ruez]

Having done the 24p workaround it's not that bad. I was DREADING it the first time. But now it's "whatever." Sure, Canon should have put the flags in there, and I'm sure it was a deliberate omission, but for $950 the camera is a beast, so I can't complain much. I'm not doing any film outs right now so it's really not hurting me much if I don't use 24. De-interlacing to 30 suites me just fine. And if I the need arises, I'll just have to do the 24p workaround.

[Ian G. Thompson]

Originally Posted by Thomas Smet

The camera does do 24p exactly like it is advertised. 24p is 24p. How you edit it is a whole other issue that isn't up to Canon. When 24p DV cameras first came out no NLE supported them. People did not yell at Panasonic saying that the camera didn't give them 24p. The camera did give them 24p but there needed to be a way to deal with that 24p which was hard at first. This camera is not much different. It shoots 24p but it is up to us to figure out how to use it. 24p is not supposed to be easy to work with. Even without pulldown issues there are a lot of other complications that go along with true 24p editing. Canon needed to make the style of 24p from the HV20 as easy to deal with as they could in order to make it so everybody who picked up the camera could shoot and edit stuff that had a 24p look to it.

Whats funny is if Canon would have called the 24p something else like SONY did with Cineframe24 or how Canon did with 24F then half the people on this board would be trying to figure out why they didn't just call it 24p. It's 24p because the chip is scanned 24 times per second as true progressive frames. In fact no other HDV camera out there right now can do this without some sort of pixel magic.

You are correct when you say that it does what it is supposed to do. When the DVX first came out there was no NLE support to remove the 24P. We just might br barking down the wrong tree trying to get Canon to add flags etc. It does not hurt to voice our concerns though. If they acknowledge them in our favor then more power to the people. If not then we will more than likely settle for the route that the DVX took and wait for the various NLE's to support this version of 24P.

My original gripe had to do with what I considered misleading advertising. I was upset that Canon's "bar scene" footage was smooth and had no artifacts (ghosting or blending) unlike the footage the rest of us were getting on our own cams. That was until i took another close look. The video was shot in a way where there was not much movement overall and was very short compared to all of their other cams (including the HV10). I can't speak for anyone else but I felt like the footage was trying to mask something by using short pans and cuts with not much movement. The only real heavy movement in that video is when the bartender shakes the drink mix. Other than that there is movement when the woman takes a seat at the bar. That is what caught my attention. I noticed some ghosting/blending. I realized that Canon did not use any special technique to remove the pulldown but they kept it in the footage. So... we are left with the same and now it seems that it is up to us to figure out a way to remove it.

I think if we give it some time, just like the DVX, the NLE's will catch up and find a way to remove pulldown. We know it can be done without the use of flags (Cineform, Steve's .exe file etc.). Though it would have been nice if Canon included a capturing device that did it from the jump.

[Peter J Alessandria]

OK - so here's what's going on: My initial contact with Mr. Ishizuka was to pass along my overall satisfaction with the HV20. I really do feel it's a great camera and expressed that in my email. He responded in kind, thanking me for my email. I then replied with another email raising the 24p flag issue.

That was Monday and I never heard back from him directly. But today (Friday) I got an email from Canon Support saying Mr. Ishizuka had passed along my message and that they were going to "study the mater right away and determine the most appropriate resolution." The email continues:

"For that reason, I'm asking for your patience and cooperation while we
conduct our research. Once we reach a conclusion, we will again reply
to you and work toward making our conclusion publicly known as well."

The email is signed by a "Customer Relations Representative".

So... I'm not really sure what to make of this. Initially, I thought they were just blowing me off. But on closer look, I think they might be taking the issue seriously. First, it wasn't the form response we've been seeing elsewhere on the issue. Second, what's the reference to "making our conclusion publicly known"? Does this mean they've heard enough about it from all of us that some kind of announcement will be made? Third - "Customer Relations Rep" - is that different from whom other people are getting responses from? (And maybe I'm reading too much into this and they are blowing me off. ;-) )

If I didn't hear back from him this week I was going to suggest that for those who are interested, we send a form email of our own to Mr. Ishizuka. I'd draft something that people can cut and paste and email (or mail) directly to him (of course people can edit the form if they like.) I have to think if he gets a few hundred highly similar emails from different people, he'll see there's some orgranization behind the request and that may prompt him to take it more seriously. (From what I can tell, Ishizuka is the head guy in the US for Canon's Consumer Imaging Products division, which includes all their non-pro camcorders and digital cameras).

However since I did get the support email, I think we should hold off and see what comes next.

Also, I recognize not everyone who reads this thread is in agreement on pursuing the matter further - or at all - with Canon. I understand that. Anything I send or suggest sending would be respectful and cooperative in tone. Still I don't see any harm in letting our concerns as customers be made known. I think it's worth playing this out to see where it goes.

[Peter J Alessandria]

Alright guys - finally got my reply and unfortunately, it's not what I was hoping for:

Dear Mr. Alessandria,

On behalf of Mr. Ishizuka and Canon U.S.A., Inc., we have concluded our review and study of your questions regarding editing video footage with the HV20 in 24p mode.

The Canon HV20 HD camcorder 24p Cinema Mode is intended to give the look of film when viewing on a television set or monitor. We have explored this matter thoroughly and reiterate that there are no plans to modify the HV20's feature set in any way. For true 24 frame production, we recommend the Canon XH A1, XH G1, or XL H1.

Once again, thank you for your interest in Canon products.

Sincerely,
Cathleen Combs
Senior Manager, Customer Support Operations
Canon USA, Inc.

My reply:

Dear Ms. Combs -

I am very disappointed that Canon has decided not to add the flags necessary for pulldown removal when shooting 24p with the HV20. I purchased this camera specifically for the 24p feature. As you know, without those flags, removing pulldown and editing the HV20's files as 24p is not currently possible with most of the major NLE software packages. It seems strange Canon would include such an exciting feature like 24p, but then not give its customers the abilitiy to take full advantage of that feature.

My disappointment notwithstanding, I do appreciate you and Mr. Ishizuka looking into the issue. I remain an appreciative Canon customer and was sincere when I said the HV20 is a great camera.

Best wishes,

Peter Alessandria

So where do we go from here? I am considering posting Mr. Ishizuka's email address here for people who want to send their own email on the issue. But I don't want it to be used to harass or disparage him or Canon. What do you guys think?