Question about 24p modes on XL2...
 

Hello all,

The XL2 gives you two options for capturing footage at 24p: 2:3 and 2:3:3:2 (I think I typed that right). I'm interested in shooting in 16:9 at 24p and editing in Final Cut HD. I did some test footage at 24p using the default settin of 2:3 and was able to edit it in Final Cut. I subsequently read that the 2:3:3:2 pull down mode was NLE "friendly". I'm not really sure what the difference is or which way I should have the camera set.

Any insight is appreciated.

Matthew

2;3 is pulldown for ultimate distribution to Video.
2;3:3;2 is pulldown for ultimate transfer to film.

The frame duplication pattern is "undoable in 2:3:3:2, while it is more or less permanent for 2:3. IVTC works on 2:3:3:2.

Thank you!

24P And Slow Motion Question
 

I have yet to experiment but this has been something I've wondered for awhile and more so since getting a camera capable of 24p.

Seems to me if you wanted to slow motion some of your footage that was shot in 24p you would get quite the stagger as there are less frames in the mix. As I understand it in film when planning on doing slow motion they speed up the camera so they have more frames. With this in mind, if you were planning on doing some slow motion would you be better to shoot that in 60p ? In theory this seems to make sense but from what I've seen on television shows that use home movie type footage, when slowed down it still looks like a slowed down camcorder. We know that 60p innately has more of a " camcorder " look than 30 or 24p, but shouldn't it be a close match when slowed or stretched ?

Would love to hear what some of you might know about this.

- Ray

how can one shoot 60p?

6oi , my bad.

- Ray

If you don't need to slow it down too much, shooting 30P and slowing it down to 24p (20% slower) to match the rest of your 24p footage will give you the best results. It will still be progressive but with a bit less motion blur than 24p.

I've never been a fan of 60i acquisition and I've always found it to be ugly looking, even when slowed down, so I personally would not do it. Your best bet is shooting in 30p with the shutter set at 1/60th to get sharp progressive images and if you need more than a 20% slower motion, use the Twixtor plugin (a bit tricky to use, but can give very nice results). You can also use simple frame blending effect in Premiere if you don't have the Twixtor plugin.

I wish we could shoot 60p....

Anyone know a way to do this in Premiere Pro 1 that looks decent? with 30p footage.

There's a program (twixtor I believe) that allows you to "create" frames. I think what you would do is shoot in both 24p and 60i and then correct with the program.

Here's where you can find some info on it.

http://www.revisionfx.com/rstwixtor.htm

Here is some 24p cinegamma footage
 

Okay. Here is some footage for you.

One video is the XL2 in 16x9, Cinegamma ON, Cinecolor On, Color gain +2. All other settings are default. I just got my replacement XL2 at 6:15 this evening and after assembling it I went out and shot this footage. It was turning to dark and it was cloudy so no magic hour footage. Just some "almost dark" to dark footage. No gain was used on any of these and the shutter is 1/48. Because of time constraints I had to do run and gun so no tripod and no really great composition. I tried to focus on motion as many have commented on the 24p not looking so much like film. So forgive the sloppiness.

The second video is one that I shot at work to do a comparison between the DVX and XL2 in the exact same environment. It will alternate between 16x9 and 4x3 pillarboxed in 16x9 for the DVX footage. I didn't have a DVX100A or anamorphic adapter to compare. Since the significant benefit of the XL2 is 16x9 clarity I decided to do it this way. It also gives a chance to see the field of view of the XL2 in comparison. Also both were white balanced on the same whiteboard except for the outside footage where the Xl2 color balance is off. Also....the time of day is different so that affects the colors.Now....this one is really sloppy as it was never intended to be viewed by anyone but me. I used it to compare colors and sharpness and ultimately decided on the XL2.

Now before I get flamed I was actually still in love with my DVX when I shot this and was reassurring myself that the DVX100 was the girl for me. So I was extra careful to make sure everything was set right for the DVX to have a fair chance! But ultimately the Xl2 stole my heart.

In the 2nd clip I use the default f6 preset of the DVX and same settings on the DVX listed above.

Please don't criticize the cinematoraphy and realize I mainly did this so those of you who have been craving 24p cine footage can see it. In all fairness the cinegamma does not have a major effect on the image the way the DVX does. IT is subtle but works. BUt if you want the "saturated colors" of the DVX you may have to tweak in post.

These 2 files are .wmv files renamed to .wmvx so that you are forced to download them and not stream them. Just rename the extension and enjoy. Hope you see the potential of the Xl2 but don't expect the cine settings to blow your doors off. Also if anyone else wants to host these feel free as I know that this is going to p**s off my webhost because of the bandwidth.

Thanks

file1=30mb
http://www.iciclestudios.com/images/..._cine_24p.wmvx

and

file2=59mb
http://www.iciclestudios.com/images/...e-compare.wmvx

Pinnacle Liquid Edition has one of the best slow motion tools I have seen built into an editing program. It does create new frames in between such as most expensive plugins do. I however never tried it on 30p or 24p.

Thank you so much Marty. Can't tell you how much I wanted to see some 24p footage from the XL2. One question. Was this shot using the standard 3:2 pulldown or 2:3:3:2 mode?

Thanks for the footage!!

I mirrored the files here:

http://xl2.stylezracing.com/xl2_cine_24p.wmvx
http://xl2.stylezracing.com/xl2-dvx-cine-compare.wmvx

<<<-- Originally posted by David Lach : Thank you so much Marty. Can't tell you how much I wanted to see some 24p footage from the XL2. One question. Was this shot using the standard 3:2 pulldown or 2:3:3:2 mode? -->>>

2:3:3:2 mode or 24PA for short! Premiere Pro automatically removes the extra frame for a true 24 fps movie.

I also find it interesting how in the DVX-XL2 clip there are some scenes that they look very close and then others that the colors are so different! Even though I had the cameras white balanced the same. Especially the shots of the crates in the warehouse.

I'm not saying one is better than the other just that they have totally different responses color wise in the same situation. The DVX definitely reacts more film-like to certain lighting conditions....but sometimes at the cost of losing information in these areas. Truthfully my partner and I had gotten into the habit of turning the CInnegamma off and shooting with it flat. Believe me when I say it is much easier to get the DVX look in post than it is to fix a shot that got messed up because og a highlight blowout caused by the Cinnegamma circuit.

Peace!

By the way....to all here who were following my saga, my XL2 was sent back to Canon and replaced. They didn't say it was defective but gave some cryptic message about an issue with the lens. So I now have a new XL2 and will be posting often with my experiences.

tweaking with the rgb gain can also achieve the saturation many dvx users seek...

btw.. i can't seem to download the files...

<<<-- Originally posted by Kevin Chao : tweaking with the rgb gain can also achieve the saturation many dvx users seek...

btw.. i can't seem to download the files... -->>>

its on a unix server so it is case sensitive. There is another set of links for a mirror copy of these. I anticipate catching flack from my website provider so these may have to come down soon. Hopefully Tre can continue to host these if that happens.

Marty - Thank you very much for posting this. That footage was really good, I loved the night stuff in the first one.

Hopefully we will see more and more footage posted here in the weeks to come.

<<<-- Originally posted by Jim Exton : Marty - Thank you very much for posting this. That footage was really good, I loved the night stuff in the first one.

Hopefully we will see more and more footage posted here in the weeks to come. -->>>

thanks. I should add that the RED color that you see at night is caused by lights that actually cast that color. When you are there in the real world your brain cancels that out....so when I first saw it I was like.....WTF. But it captured it as is. I didn't have anywhere to white balance so I had to use indoor.

Thanks alot Marty,
I am kind of suprised that you favored the XL2 since I read your post about the colors being more true and saturated on the DVX. I think all the shot's look great and I am assuming that the clips with a more pronunced color are the DVX since I was not sure somtimes which was which other that the colors look a little brighter. Did you show these in a specfic order .i.e DVX then XL2 or vice versa. It would have been nice if you could of labled each shot but I think I could tell which was which.

Also in the dark shots does it seem the DVX is more sensitive than the XL2? Anyways thanks for the great footage!

Look at the width of the video to see the different camera shots.

" It will alternate between 16x9 and 4x3 pillarboxed in 16x9 for the DVX footage."

Marty

Just a few comments on what I'm seeing in your footage. As was said, its difficult to get a read on some of these because the response seems to change with each setup (I think this is mostly due to changes in lighting..looks like you shot all the XL2 footage in one swoosh, and then camera around with the DVX...so the changes in daylight are affecting many of the scenes)....in some of the shots the xl2 seems significantly more saturated than the DVX, but what is most notable is the smoothness of the image. In several instances where the DVX has an edge on saturation, the image seems to fall apart more than one would expect. I've always avoided the cinegamma settings on my DVX because I felt they caused noticeable noise and posterization to the image (about the same as fixing in post)...is your DVX the original or the A version? The A version shouldn't do this.

Overall, I think its clear to me why you chose to stay with the xl2...and thank you for your comparisons, as I haven't spent much time doing this kind of A-B thing...your footage will be helpful when we get around to a two camera shoot someday.

Barry

Barry,
All of the Indoor shots are under the "exact same" lighting conditions. there is no outside light in those shots....all artificial light. Only the outside of the building where you see the CEI sign and I pan toward the warehouse is it natural light. And yes. that part was shot the next day.

I had already sent my XL2 back and decided to recreate the same shots (approximately) with my borrowed DVX to convince myself that it would look just as good. As I said in the original post I was essentially hoping the DVX would look as good. I wanted to stick with the DVX. I even took extra time to make sure that I white balanced properly on the DVX as footage I shot here 2 months ago looked very greenish and grey. However when I A-B'ed them in the timeline I found I really preferred the XL2. Which actually p**ssed me off cause I wanted that extra cash back! But at the end of the day I am very happy with XL2.

Also....my employer has purchased all of the accessories for this thing so I am no longer worried about the financial difference in the 2 cams....since the biggest issue was affording the accessories.

Edit: The DVX was the original or "classic",

I guess this is the kind of footage we were waiting for. Thank you for posting and risking server death.

i still can't seem to open the files... it states that it is no longer on the server or something like that... i can't open the mirrored links either...

marty... why'd you have to send you xl2 in in the first place?

<<<-- Originally posted by Kevin Chao : i still can't seem to open the files... it states that it is no longer on the server or something like that... i can't open the mirrored links either...

marty... why'd you have to send you xl2 in in the first place? -->>>

I just tried again and the links work for me. Are you behind a firewall or something?

Without going into great detail I was concerned that there was a problem. Canon tested it and said that there was an issue with the neutral density filter being in the on position even though it was slid to the off position. Then they sent it back to the vendor to give back to me.....with no paper work or description if they fixed it or what might have been wrong. So this vendor, a DVINFO.NET sponsor, said they didn't feel comfortable sending it back to me so they gave me a brand new one.

no firewalls... i'm no a mac... that shouldn't prevent me from hitting up the links tho... barry's footage and others come up just fine... maybe the dv gods don't want me to see your footy...

did your lcd flicker on both cameras in 16:9 mode... i know the discussion is shot to death, but since you had two xl2's, just ought to know...

Kevin,
I have seen no flicker on either camera. Sorry.

But I would like to comment on something that others have pointed out. Everyone says that 24p defaults to 1/24 shutter speed. I have not had that experience. However I have turned my camera to 24p postion and never changed it. So maybe once you change it from 24-30-60i and back it goes there....I don;t know.

It seems odd as the way the XL2 functions is it will turn on a little red light insid ethe viewfinder to remond you that you are in a "non-default" shutter speed....for example in 30P it is off when you are at 1/60th. Any other shutter speed and the light turnd on to warn you.

So even if the camera defaults to1/24 you are warned and can correct before shooting. However I really don;t think this is an issue unless you are changing frame rates all the time.

Um, 24p / IVTC Film ?
 

So I just brought in my fist capture from my first little test shoot. Sony Vegas appears to be considering it to be IVTC Film 23.976 and not 24p. So is that right ? If I change it two 24p it looks pretty bad. What am I missing here ? Sorry if I'm ignorant but new to 24p and a wee bit confused.

- Ray

23.976 is the way to go, whether it be Vegas, FCP or Premiere Pro. 24p is for film transferred to your NLE for editing. The reason it's not true 24p is because NTSC video isn't true 30p or 60i, it's 29.97p or 59.94i. So your XL2 footage should be edited in 23.976p, not 24p.

That being said, if your goal was to later transfer it to film, you could edit it in true 24p. All you would need to do is convert the audio from 48 000Hz to 48 048Hz. It is not supposed to look bad when you edit in 24p. It just throws the audio out of sync. It might be a compatibility issue with Vegas.

24p flicker
 

On the xl2 I've tried 24p with 2:3 pulldown(standard) 16:9 and played the dv tape into a 16:9 tv and there is a flicker present with movement, especially pans. Why dont I notice this flicker on films transfered to vhs rented from block buster. Any ideas? Thanks.

here's two possibilities you could look into:

1) your shutter speed was set too high. The highest the shutter speed, the jerkiest the movements will look. Normal setting should be 1/48th of a second. Slower will smooth motion, but also add motion blur. Experiment with those settings. 90% of the time you'll want to shoot 1/48th, however, for specific uses, you might want to use 1/24th, 1/60th, or any other rate.

2) You move too fast! This might seem like a dumb answer, but beleive me, it's not. Videographers tend to be used to make fast pans with crisps results because the image is normally sampled 60 times (fields) per second. Now on film or in 24p with the XL2, the image is sampled at a 24fps rate. Much slower. Film cameramen understand this reality linked to their medium and they know just how fast they can move/pan before the motion seems too flickery. Sometimes, special action scenes in films with lots of fast camera moves will be shot at a faster frame rate, like 48p or 60p, to get more samples per second. There is no easy solution here, 24p means you need to be more careful about your movements. If you do fast paced stuff, you might want to consider the 30p option on the XL2.

for fast panning pieces (like the movie speed or a michael bay movie), does it make sense to shoot 60i and convert to 24p since we can't shoot @higher progressive fps? will that match 24p (for little movement drama scenes)?

It's funny that this should come up now, but it was only inevitable that it would. Being a DVX100a owner I remember going through this conversation over a year ago. Here is the most straight forward answer you can get.

When shooting 24p, you can't handle the camera like a video camera, you need to treat it like a film camera. The reason that you don't notice "strobbing"(as it is often refered to) in movies is that 90% of the time, it is hidden. HOwever, it is still prevelent, filmaker have just learned how to keep the viewers eye from seeing it. Even if you shot at 60i and converted to 24p, the strobing would still be there, it is just inherent to the slower frame rate of 24fps. The way that you hide it is #1 learn the panning speeds for focal lengths. The longer the focal length, the slower the pan needs to be. #2 if you must pan faster than the focal lenght will allow, get something in the frame that the eye can follow, like a moving car or a moving person, something to take the eye away from the background. If you watch any motion picture (shot on film) on DVD, and watch for fast moving backgrounds, you will see lots of stuttering. It has nothing to do with the camera at all. In fact, it is funny now that the Xl2 is displaying the same characteristics as the DVX, because so many people were 100% convinced that it was the DVX itself causing the strobing. Well, all I can say to those people is, "you missed out on a great camera and now your going to find that it is the same with every other camera that shoots progressive video" HA HA HA!

Sorry for the childishness, but you have no idea how many heated arguments I got in over this. People are just convinced that it doesn't happen with film.

I suggest looking up some "filming" techniques and incorporating those techniques into your current shooting styles. It is not hard to follow these rules, and if you do, your footage will look 100x better than any 60i video could ever look (as far as film look goes that is).

hey stefan,

you're absolutely correct. now that i think about most films have panning shots that follow a character or a group of people or something. that's awesome =). thx for the suggestion.

New 30 second XL2 24P edit sequence
 

I was bored today and decided to put together a little edit sequence using the XL2 and post it here. It's nothing fancy but hopefully some will think it's cool.....

www.starcentral.ca/trailers/PumpkinGirl.wmv 1.5Mbps / 6.0MB / 0:33 seconds

Canon XL2 NTSC, 24P, 16:9, 3:2 pulldown, -3dB & 0dB, 1/48th. Manual mode, some cine gamma settings, Canon XL1s 16x lens, 500 watt Lowel DP light with spun and daylight gel indoors, 75 watt yellow flood light and late evening daylight outdoors.

It's cool.

that yo daughter?

anyway i like the XL2's quailty in low-light. is this better than XL1s in low-light anyone know? i have it but i've not utilized it enough to know.

Well the recommended illumination by Canon for both cams is 100 lux.. but really such a rating is meaningless.

Having moved over from the XL1s I would honestly say from what I've seen so far that the low light capability of the two cams are similar.

Note that so far I have only been using the XL1s stock lens on the XL2 and not the new XL2 Flourite L IS lens - not sure if this would make any substantial difference.

Thanks for that clip. I can't wait to see more videos shot with the XL2.