Canon XL2 24p Standard + Premeir Pro 1.5
 

Hi,

I did my first shoot with my XL2 in 16:9 24p standard, and editted in Premiere Pro 1.5. For the most part everything seems fine. I export the footage and it looks good. However, there is two short scenes that exhibit a strange behavior. They seem to flicker horizontally at a high rate. This only happens when I play it in windows media player. Watching the original footage captured from the Camera, also on media player, it looks fine. The problem happens when I export from Premiere. At first I thought I cut in the wrong place, so I tried several exports of this area, but they all exhibit the same flickering problem. The flickering problem is not normal. The aspect ratio seems to keep getting squished and extended horizontally at a high rate. This only happens for these particular scenes. So the clip runs fine, until it reaches this point, then for the next 3 seconds it flickers, then it continues fine.

Is there some setting I'm missing? From what I understand, after reading the rest of the posts, 24p standard just gets written in 60i using 2:3 pulldown. In post we can edit on 60i timeline normally.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
amir

This is a known bug in windows media player. It can't handle 24P material correctly and may be getting confused during the export. Have you tried playing the file in another media player, like Quicktime?

Other players
 

Paul,

Thanks for the reply. I have tried WinDVD and I have tried actually making a DVD out of the footage. In both cases the footage looked fine, although it looked a little too stuttery, I'm not sure if that's normal.

what confused me, is that when playing it in media player, it was fine for the most part, except for specific segments. I'm not so sure what's so special about these segements.

I will try it with quicktime player and see if it has the same problem.

I'm also wondering if premiere pro 1.5 has issues with dealing with 24P. I read something on their site, with regards to that, but it was not so clear.

thanks
amir

It has nothing to do with WMP... this is a terrible bug from Premiere that ONLY exists in PPro 1.5. It is the ONLY editor on planet earth (including Windows Movie Maker) that will handle DV but NOT 24p standard in a 29.97 timeline. It INCORRECTLY rebuilds the "C" frame thinking that it is 24P Advanced or 2:3:3:2. There is no fix, there is not workaround, you simple have to use another program. ANY other version of Premiere will work. LAME LAME LAME from Adobe... I make such a stink they gave me a free upgrade to 2.0 although I am using FCP more and more... here is an example of the "C" frame from footage that PPro 1.5 improperly interpreted as 2:3:3:2 24PA...

http://members.aol.com/ashvid/Cframe.jpg



ash =o)

Ash:

So, when we are using PPro 2.0 and shooting 24p Normal we should just edit and export in a normal DV NTSC 29.97 timeline right?

Yup, works fine in every DV editor besides PPro 1.5, works perfect in 2.0...and 1.0 for that matter.



ash =o)

Thanks Ash...it seemed to be working fine, but then again I am a little crazy. Seriously though, thanks for all your hard work responding on these forums, especially with a busy normal life.

That's good to know. I never witnessed that since I have always edited in PPro1.5 using 24p advanced. I figured that if just for kicks I ever want to film-out my stuff, there is nothing to change. The judder seems to be the same from 24p and 24pA anyway.

The Windows Media glitch is a real issue, even with 24pA. Some versions of WMP even have trouble keeping the damn 16:9 ratio intact during playback.

Other than this, is it worth going to PPro 2.0? Does PPro 2.0 handle the new XLH1 24f frame mode from Canon?

XL H1 & 24f
 

Hello Amir,
I just purchse Canon XL H1 and going to shoot a commercial, and I want to have a film look, I beleive I should use 24f SD 16:9.
Now when I import to Premiere Pro 1.5, could you please tell me, what preset I should use, and then if you can giude me, how should I export on DVD so thy can broadcast. I really get confused with the frame rates and pull downs, how do they acctually work, if you can please educate me with couple words, or just give me step by tsep instruction, what preset to use, after I capture, do I need to interpret footage? and how should I export to have the movie look, video..



Thank you in advance

The bug is always there, it is just particularly noticeable in areas of brightness or contrast and is vastly accentuated if you have a transition or cut happen in or out of one of the bogus "C" frames.

Premiere Pro 2.0 is a great product especially when paired with Raylight or AspectHD. It is definitely not without bugs/quirks though...


ash =o)

Presets/process I use
 

Thank you all for the input. I tried using PPro 2.0, and the problem went away.

Nerses,

I have the Canon XL2, so I'm not quite sure how similar it is to the XL H1. But I did shoot footage in 16:9 24p, and the footage does have the film motion look. In the XL2 I set the following presets to give it a look that I like, (note, this is just personal taste though)
- Pressd the blacks
- set the Gamma and color matrix to cine
- brough the pedestal down almost all the way
- I also used 1/48 shutter and kept the iris open 1.6

In Post with PPro 1.5, I just select a Widscreen project and just capture the footage I took from the Camera. With 24p standard the Camera captures in 24 frames/sec progressive, but then records on tape in 60i using the 2:3 pulldown. PPro automatically removes this pulldown.
The Pulldown is just a method that's used to convert 24 frames/sec progressive to 60 fields/second interlaced. 2:3 pulldown is good for film look if you're not going to film. the 2:3:3:2 pulldown is good if you plan to take your work to film. Below are a couple of links that explain these pulldowns in more details.

http://www.zerocut.com/tech/pulldown.html
http://www.adamwilt.com/24p/#24pRecording

Note, however, the problem that I ran into using PPro 1.5. When I exported some 24p footage, it exhibited strange behavior. You might run into this as well. With PPro 2.0 I didn't see this problem.

Once in your footage is imported in PPro, you can just edit normal, as you do with 60i.

To get the film look, you'll need to get the lighting right while you're shooting, and then play with color correction in post to get the final desired look for your commercial.

I haven't gotten to the point where I produce DVDs yet. But I have done it before with 60i footage, and as far as I know it should be the same process. You just export your footage in DV format, then use your DVD authoring program to make the DVD.

However, there might be other tricks with 24p DVDs that I'm not quite sure about. I have read some posts on the Canon XL2 Watchog board, that might be helpful. Here is a link to one

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=68206

Hope this helps and good luck with your commercial.

thanks
amir

thinking about 16x9 24p, but had some questions...
 

I just got an XL2 and am about to start a large outdoor project, and am going crazy trying to figure out what setting to shoot on. I'm thinking about 16X9 24p advanced, but I had some questions...

I've heard something about the way that 24p with normal pulldown is recorded. Is it true that there are particular points in the footage where transitions don't work as well, since certain frames are duplicated?

I want to shoot 24p advanced so I can work with true 24p footage. Is it true that a DVD player can recognize this and add pulldown on the fly?

And what if I need to add pulldown to this same footage manually so that I can make it available for TV? What I'm saying is can standard editing software take a true 24p timeline and convert it to a 2:3 pulldown format once the project is complete with all its bells and whistles?

you will need something like Final Cut Pro I think. If you don't have that use the normal 24p

Yes, this is absolutely true.

You can do this on your final render with your NLE. As already mentioned Final Cut Pro will handle all this, but so will Avid, Vegas, Premiere, or Edius. Pretty much any mature NLE you find can now handle both native 24P advanced and pulldown removal/insertion.

Bryan:

From what Barry Green says, shoot 24pA if you're going to DVD or filmout AND if you're going to be on a 24p editing timeline only. If you are going to be mixing footage, like interlaced and 24p on the same timeline for whatever reason (because you are using two different cameras), then shoot 24p and edit on a 30i timeline.