as i said, i think pete already answered this question. he's been involved in many static camera rez tests, so i think his info is trustworthy.

with the cost of a native 24F/P camera these days, why even bother with de-interlacing? if you can afford a film-out or even a film-out test, surely you can afford to shoot 24F/P in-camera.

That is not an answer from Pete Baur that is a question.

DVFilm obviously know their apples from bananas as they appear to make a better fist of the conversion than their rivals.

If you consider a static scene 24F will drop res by the default 12% but 60i-24P converted material would not. So I can see some advantage in converting from 60i to 24P. How much res one would lose in motion video is down to how clever the DVFilm deinterlacer is.

TT

With the fact that this has been cleared up, the removal of 24F from the CF24 category, in which it was only placed incedentally/accidentally, this will likely be the prevailing sentiment for the Canon HDV camera owners - why in the world shoot 60i when I can shoot 24F, even with a resolution hit? It would likely have to be a gain MUCH larger than 12-15% to convince most people to forgo a 24F origination and a 24P workflow. For many people, since the advent of and en masse migration to the DVX100, a 60i workflow has been simply a "thing of the past" - for better or for worse. Granted I don't work on many things that call for it, but I can't remember the last time I did ANYTHING with 60i origination, and I loathed every minute that I did - always looking for new solutions to "de-ugly" my video footage. Coming more from a film background, I've never liked the look of interlacing, it just seems crass to me. I am sure there are those who would disagree, or place more importance on lighting, depth of focus, etc. - for me it was always 24P that made me feel more at home - and you'd be hard pressed to get me to go back, it would have to be for a real good reason.

We're getting a lot of business lately converting FX1/Z1U from 60i to 24, or film outs from 60i/50i, or from 60i/50i where the clips were converted to 24P/25P before editing. Some examples are "Fastwalkers" a feature that was shot FX1 at 60i and "Deficit" a feature in Mexico that was shot Z1U at 60i. For _these_ cameras at least the benefit of the crystal-clear 60i/50i mode vs the somehat fuzzy look of CF25 or CF24 is apparent to everyone in involved in these projects and well worth the extra time and money.

The Canon and 24F has not been widely adopted yet for film transfer here. We get lots of footage now from the HVX200, and also that has been the focus for us in the last year with our Raylight product. Because the HVX200 cannot experience a 15-frame dropout like the HDV cameras I have been happy to recommend it, because filmakers always ask us to fix dropouts and the 15-frame ones where the ugly patch follows the object around for half a second are pretty hard to fix. But probably you could get equal results with the Canon 24F as long as you can avoid that situation.

Regarding canon 24F vs 60i converted to 24P, I would be happy to run a test if someone will send some test footage in the original (mpeg2 stream) format. Make sure the camera is locked down, perfectly in focus, and identical sharpen settings in each mode. A focus chart and some live action would be welcome. We have an upload site that I can email out.

Are you requesting this for DVFilm's internal usage in determining what will be the best for future customers, or for potential client use? More to the point are you needing footage from the H1/A1/G1 to run tests at no charge to the footage provider, or a test for the footage provider at their expense?

It would be a no-charge test, and the results would go on our website and onto our 35mm demo reel, which has samples from many different DV and HD cameras. Whoever provides the footage gets a free print, and our demo reel is typically loaned out free (or for shipping costs) or can be viewed free at our facility here in Austin or at the film lab that we use. There are other ways to view the reel, for example at a private screening room or movie theater, however there is usually a charge for that the filmmaker must pay.

marcus, i'm frantically running around trying to get out of town by thursday, but if i simply snail-mailed you an XH A1 HDV tape using 24F mode, would you be able/willing to use it?

I just PMed Barlow Elton, since he just did a test, not the 24F vs. 60i, but 24F HDV vs. 24F 4:2:2 component out, hope you can use that as well....

Excuse my sarcasm, but it took you guys 43 posts to get to the conclusion that you need to do a test. Brilliant!

"And now for something completely different." -- DON'T do the test!

I think its great that Marcus is kind enough to do a test and post the results on his website. Problem is there will be some idiot(s) [you know who you are] who will read the results of this test and think, "all I need to do is turn this dial thingy to 24f, use my professional grade $10 9" LCD monitor on set and those nifty looking accurate waveform and vector scopes in FCP and I'm all set for a film out."

Then when it looks like crap, because it probably will, you [idiot] will need to spend a lot more money correcting the myriad of mistakes that were made because you were too cheap to take the time and do a test for YOUR production. Good for the company doing the transfer not so good for the producer.

What do you think your going to feel like when the first time you screen your pride and joy and the blacks are muddy, there's little if any detail in the highlights and there's more grain than there needed to be? An idiot?

[sorry didn't get a lot of sleep last night. Chris, sorry for using the "I" word...]

This is not in place of a project specific test, as per the rest of his site, it is in conjunction WITH a project specific test, perhaps even guidelines FOR making that project specific test.

This is not the only end result of the thread, this thread verifies that 24F IS acceptable for transfer at DVFilm.

I'm guessing that if you have about $40K [0.30 per frame] then 24F is acceptable.

And the test, I guess, is to find out exactly just how acceptable 24F is....and for the most part, it's usually a case of someone else having 40K, and finding your 24F film sooo compelling no matter what format, that it's surely worth it for them.

Chuck, the spirit of these boards is RESEARCH. Regardless of how many of us actually ever print one F or P frame to actual filmstock is not the point. You cant just say "never gonna happen" whats the use. I agree measurebating can get annoying but its useful to a degree. I may not see the 80 line vertical difference between 60i and 24f, but I am glad somebody researched it and discussed it in detail, so I know what the sacrifice is when using 24f. The point is if anyone ever finds themselves in the position of being able or needing to do a film out or even just wondering how decent a film out would look, not only will they have specs on how to do it but real live test results as well. Research for research sake may seem pointless, that is until you absolutely need it.

And by the way, lots of filmmakers make short films, and some of them make film outs for these 5 - 10 minute long films ($2250-4500), so its not such an unthinkable possibility that some A1 film outs are gonna happen.

24p
 

if going to film print..i would suggest to use...hv20

http://www.camuser.co.kr/cam_vm/VID_...3/mokryun2.wmv

beautiful footage -- in bright light at least equal to the A1

BTW -- the video seems to stutter -- how was it encoded ?? what bit rate, codec, frame size etc did you use -- was it shot 24F ??

The whole point of this test is to compare 24F with converted 60i and since the hv20 does not shoot 24F it would seem strange to suggest it.

I'd just like to thank Marcus for engaging with the spirit of the thread. Cheers!

TT

low
 

here's low light footage


http://www.camuser.co.kr/cam_vm/VID_...007/03/low.wmv


manual exposure from -1 ~ -12

Exactly why I brought this up in the first place, for someone to have FOR THE RECORD. Not only that, Marcus has not only updated his website specs for the delivery requirements for the H1/G1/A1, but is making an offer no one here should be able to refuse - a test transferred to film for free, albeit for their uses, still free nonetheless, which is above and beyond the call of duty - still even HE sees the need to come to a conclusion on this, and have a fixed set of recommendations, again not a substitute for conferring with a transfer house, and running your own test based on your project material, but just as a point of reference. That is a service for which many filmmakers have been looking to DVFilm for, clients or otherwise, and I for one want to make it known that it is certainly appreciated by the filmmaking community as a whole.

I'd say we could set up a poll or contest... maybe more work than I think for someone else :)

I'll have to find the link but there's a trailer callled Man II Man... shot with the A1 and a 35mm adpater... would be nice to have this part of the test to see how much more the image will be soften up using the adapter than not using an adapter..

Also any thing that Stephen Dempsy shoots would be a good example of the film out look... if I lived in Seattle I'd be at his door step begging him to teach me how to shoot... but maybe not I might become live there full time in the Washington Pen... with a room mate named Bubba...

No offense to any Bubba's out there...

Also I'd like to see some green scene and a slo-mo...

I fully agree, that's why I also posted earlier that I was happy that this thread didn't got closed, because it holds valuable information that people later can look up.

It did get locked at one point, but was reopened for Marcus' comments, and the way it progessed after that, including everyone taking a deep breath, is a testament to this community as a whole. This will be great info to have in the search.

Do wish I could change the title though to read "24F IS Good Enough For Film Transfer". Chris? Anyway to do that?

Markus, since you're updating the out-dated information about what is or isn't suitable for film transfer at DVFilm: how about the Sony HVR-V1U/E/P progressive format, the 24/25/30 PsF?

It seems to me the only way a meaningful test can be done on this issue is for somebody to shoot something with the Canon camera at 24F, then shoot exactly the same thing from exactly the same position at 60i and send both to DVFilm. Then you can see if the resolution difference makes any difference.

From tape-to-film transfers I've done over the years, the most important things are the quality of the original video and your choice of facility to do the transfer. As I posted earlier, DVFilm did excellent work for me on a project a couple of years ago. It was all standard interlace DVCAM footage with two different cameras, a DSR500 and a DSR250. The 35mm print projected in a theater looked as good as the original video. And, in shooting 24p footage with the XH A1, the resolution in that mode is significantly higher than the DSR500 shooting DVCAM, so it's logical to expect a transfer to look as good or better than even the 2/3" chip camera shooting DVCAM.

One thing I remember from the transfer at DVFilm...they had recommended the titles be put on a separate file at 24p because the end quality would be better (my master was 60i). I didn't do that because there wasn't time, and the end product looked perfectly fine. I'm sure doing it right would have made it look even better, but my point is, with a good facility and good lab, you're going to get a good looking print if your original video is good. My attitude is that I'd rather keep everything progressive all the way even if it involves that slight loss in resolution. Remember that with the Canon system, you're talking about the difference between the Canon at 60i and the Canon at 24p, and its resolution is high enough to begin with in 60i that you can loose a bit with no big problem. But if you chose to shoot 60i and go to film, my experience is to let DVFilm do the conversion rather than doing your own deinterlacing in the computer.

I just had a project transfered to Dbeta by a fiend that works in a pro editing house in Nashville & we had a long talk on this subject.
Seems that for me 60i is the way to go. Just the fact that if you have a shot you want to slow down, you've got that possibility with all your clips & since I'm working on a new doc, having the footage for "stock" seems better in 60i also.
60i just seems to me to give you more choices as to what you can do with your footage overall.
Chris

film vs hdv
 

this is film trailer the few outdoor shot looks very much like hv20

http://www.camuser.co.kr/cam_vm/VID_...ark_h1080p.wmv

here's hv10 upconverted to 4:2:2

http://www.camuser.co.kr/cam_vm/VID_...2007/03/sd.wmv

http://www.stefweb.net/mantoman/Trailer%20TEST%205.wmv

for anyone who's interested. It is, by far, not the best but the best-employed 35mm adapter footage I have seen to date. It is effective, clean and unobtrusive. Most shots have little DOF effect, but the film look is there. Add some more resolution and you'd have a superb 16mm replacement digital video recorder.

heres a tip...

DONT TELL THEM ITS FRAME MODE

once you're done editing, simply render out as native with no pulldown..
voila problem solved..

Great advice
 

I love that! Will remember it. I guess same apply for those located in PAL world.

Pavel