what is the best documentary format: interlaced or progressive?
 

Hi,

lately I found out that there are a lot of people doing their docs in the P mode or in F-mode in my canon case. I tought that interlaced was the way to go because of being more practical in post.( isnt it even possible to use some sort of 25f filter in post?)

and what about tweaking? I like some presets on my canon XHA1 wich I downloaded from this forum, but isnt it better to use the standard one with the same idea, being easyier in post?

grtz..

i'd be interested in the suggestions in this thread as well. I just got my xh-a1 last week and the first project i'd like to work on is a short film which is actually a mockumentary. I'm planning on editing in FCE 3.5 HD.

I'm shooting everything 24F (I'm in NTSCland) with my XH A1. I've shot with it on two different documentaries that have played theatrically and on cable. There is no problem with FCP in editing HDV in the progressive modes. Sony Vegas also handles it OK. Avid, however, does not. Progressive 24 (or in your case 25) frames per second looks more "filmic" to people. My primary reason for doing it is that there are no pesky interlace artifacts to deal with when exporting for DVD or web useage.

In FCP I capture with the HDV 1080P24 setting, edit in the corresponding 23.98 timeline, export as full size HDV, then convert in Compressor to whatever format I need to deliver.

Everybody I know who does documentary or narrative work is shooting progressive. The only interlace things I've shot in the past two years were for a corporation; but everything I shoot for my corporate clients is 24f.

I'm just starting out but I'll be trying interlaced because of a chat I had with DP Ben Allen.

We were talking about the different formats and he explained that people were used to seeing 24p in drama (an expectation of fiction) and interlaced in news/doco (an expectation of reality).

While a progressive image might look better does it give the viewer the sub-conscious expectation that this is not 'as' real

I hear in China they don't have this problem because the majority arn't used to the film image

just a thought to promote discussion

60i looks like news because it looks like television, which can be just as unreal in it's own way. In a documentary, 60i looks real, but it also looks unprofessional, that is, if you want your movie to look like it was done by guerilla filmmakers on a shoestring budget and passion, shoot 60i/50i. If you want your movie to look like it had an actual budget (even if it didn't) shoot 24p/25p.

You'll notice that local news usually shoots in 60i on location, but the big nightly news shows shoot in 30p in the studio.

60i unprofessional? I'll keep that in mind next time I rent a 700 series DigiBeta...

As someone who has shot interlaced footage in SD AND HD on 4 continents that has aired internationally as documentaries, interlaced has it's place and that place is broadcast in SD and broadcast in HD (1080i). Not everyone is making a "movie". Some of us make high end documentaries and those certainly can be interlaced...

30P in the studio? Never seen that in my days in TV studios.

thanks..
 

hi,

so shooting interlaced can give more artifacts exporting to dvd or web? are there more advantages/disadventages to using both formats? what about work in post, colorcorrecting, ..etc

grtz niels

My current workflow is shooting HDV at 720P60, so I have 60 PROGRESSIVE frames per second that migrates to SD at 60i VERY nicely while maintaining progressive for post or for the web.

Don't get me wrong: I love working in progressive, it's just inaccurate to say that interlaced footage is "amateur" when virtually every SD broadcast is interlaced and a goodly number of HD broadcasts are as well.

I agree
 

I agree, there is nothing amateur about shooting interlaced. My 2008 associated press excellence in photography first place award is for a piece that was shot on interlaced video. To me it is simply an aesthetic choice. Progressive scanned images look more film like, and tend to be associated more with more careful camera placement and moves, and more careful lighting. Interlaced video does a good job handling motion though, and is great for doing fast paced things where there are lots of camera moves. To me interlaced also has more of a live, happening right now in your face immediacy that works well for some things, but not for others. The choice in which to shoot I think should come down to the aesthetic feel your trying to create with your images.

Why not mix it up alittle?
When I do interviews, I tend to use progressive, while when I am covering a event I tend to use 50i.

I don't disagree with Boudewijn on this, however, these forums are FULL of people asking "how do I mix formats" and "my quality sucks because I'm mixing formats" questions so I would encourage you work all these issues out BEFORE tackling a major production with money and reputation on the line.

What I like about 60P is that I have no interlacing or field order issues going to any of:
-1080i60 HD (top first field order)
-CCIR601 video (top first field order)
-NTSC DV (BOTTOM first field order)

whereas I need to be careful if I move back and forth between interlaced footage with differing field orders (THIS is where the developers of DV as a codec MESSED UP!)

Where MY issues begin is on international release to PAL/50Hz countries (something I personally haven't had to sweat yet - I've had stuff released there but the producer took care of all that). This is where 24P begins to REALLY shine from a LOGISTICAL standpoint.

Thank you, Shaun, for dismissing the rather strange notion
that interlaced is "amateurish".

Having said that, a short note to
Terwingen Niels (who lives across the pond):
I've been happily shooting interlaced
(1080i / resized in post to SD for delivery)
until... a few days ago!, when I found out
that my main customer (Swiss Public Broadcasting) in 2012
will be switching all its six channels to HD in the 720/50p flavor.
Other European brodcasters will do the same,
and it appears that 720/50p will be the de facto European HD standard.
So, there's stuff to ponder, here... (F25, for example, for us Canon A1 users?)

Anyhow, on the interlaced vs. progressive issue, an EBU paper
(http://www.ebu.ch/CMSimages/en/tec_d...tcm6-59454.pdf)
points out that (quote)
"As a rule of thumb, for interlaced production, it is better to use one high quality professional de-interlacer at the playout point, rather than placing the burden of de-interlacing on the many (and less effective) consumer devices in the home. An additional advantage is that broadcast encoders can operate moderately more efficiently in terms of bitrate requirements with progressive signals derived from interlaced than with interlaced HDTV." (unquote)
To me, that reads like "ok, if you have interlaced productions, we'll air them anyhow, and
we take care of the deinterlacing process" - which helps lowering my stress level.

We'll se..

Best

Vasco

Thank you!
 

GREAT information ...and THANKS Vasco for the 'heads up' on changes in the future. VERY, VERY useful for a new XH 1A owner :-)

Here's a thought, shoot the one you prefer the look of.

Seriously, people can argue the pros and cons of interlaced over progressive or progressive over interlaced but ultimately the decision should be yours, not what a bunch of people on the net think.

Oh, and BTW shoot progressive.

Shoot the format your end user/broadcaster wants. Careful consideration should always be given to your work flow and final delivery before the camera is ever turned on. Finally 1080p or 1080i is the easiest to convert or downconvert to other formats.

Bill,

Just to let you know, starting with version 3.5, Avid will capture Canon's 24F, but it cannot capture the tape's timecode.

This is a hassle, but probably not a deal killer. It's also not entirely clear that there isn't some subtle issue when 24F's timecode b/c quite a few NLE's have had problems w/ it. Avid is very stringent with timecode b/c it assumes you might want to recapture and conform at a higher quality format. This is probably not going to be the case w/ HDV since the data rate is so low, no down-convert during intial capture is going to be performed.

And of course Avid handles many other 24P formats just fine.

I'd shoot 24P simply also b/c 1/48th shutter will give you more light than 1/60th.

YIKES, that I'll disagree with. Given the number of posts on DVI about how much 1080 downconverts look awful, I'll happily stick with my 720P60. Frame rate downconverts easily to 60i and 720 looks better (IMHO) than 1080 when downconverted to NTSC/480. Going to PAL may be altogether a different story because the math is different.

ABSOLUTELY correct.

Shaun, what shutter speed do you use when shooting 60P?

No, not correct at all. Well partly correct:) All broadcasters have delivery specs that should be adhered to, but that doesn't always include a preference over interlaced or progressive acquisition format.

Also, the OP didn't state this was a broadcast documentary, so again I advise make a decision on which you prefer, but with the added caution that it must fit your delivery specs.

Peter: whatever shutter speed is appropriate for my material. NORMALLY, I use 1/60th if I'm looking for "normal" motion characteristics and/or I may be working under ballasted lights (like fluorescents) but if I need a strobe effect OR to stop motion, I'll shutter up as required.

Liam: I don't disagree with your comment but given the sheer number of motion artifacts I see on broadcast TV that I can safely assume are a DIRECT result of wrong field order or 3:2 pulldown or bad transcoding I maintain that is SAFEST to shoot and deliver in the same format. Do I? Heck no, BUT I'm knowledgeable enough about MY workflow to know where the "pinchpoints" are and avoid them.

Broadcast standards exist for a reason: the broadcaster has little to no interest in working with a small indie producer to fine tune THEIR workflow so that material that completely disregards well thought out submission protocols can be ingested at cost of time and labour to the broadcaster. AGAIN, the above assumes broadcast delivery.

DV/DVCam was pretty much the WORST thing to happen to broadcast TV as the field order is reversed from the CCIR601 standard and has different pixel/line attributes. It revolutionized acquisition but has caused SO MANY issues with broadcast video from small indie producers that don't do the due diligence in supplying appropriate content.

I hear you Shaun. Luckily in PAL land issues over pulldown and inverted field dominance are minimal and when we're working with a national broadcaster there are strict guidelines, but there are also choices of taste. I guess the trick is to know the difference between a stylistic decision and delivery requirement.

Liam.

What are the disadvantages of shooting at 1080i and deinterlacing it?

Hi all... Well this is some interesting topic, glad to find it here and as a talk about look and viewer perception as a "delivery" atribute, instead that a mere tech thing.

In guess that, in the land of the third-eye blind, Perception is God!!! We tend more and more to think in terms of "perceived quality" and "perceived obsolescence" (and worst: planned obsolescene), and becoming more and more emprisoned by technicalities that keeps us away from the old good road of enlightment and truth. A shame.

Anyway, I think this topic (the starting question that opens this one) arises from the whole lot of options available this days. But, you must know once you took one way (either by chosing a given mode, or a device with a given method) you better stick to it.

Deinterlacing is a serious quality compromise. It will kill detail, no mather how filmic you may see it. If you shot interlace, keep it that way till the end. By then, if you want to deliver for a non-interlaced medium, well, is up to you. Better have a good processing workflow!
Not to say, if you combine deinterlacing with downconversion!!! Creepy!

And I'm saying this as a "serial deinterlacer" on recovery! It was fun, but now is all over thanks god!! I've renounced to any form of process leading to frameblending (speed changes, negative speeds). I simply prefer to keep my image as clean and even across the the project as I can.

There was something around in previous posts, is that thing of amateur/pro around interlaced/progressive. I guess what is really amateurish is tryng to pass deinterlaced for progressive, clip framerate changes for slo-mo, DV for 16mm... And the list goes on an on...

I've using the old deinterlacing trick since the early days of DV. It was easy to stand out of the crowd if you knew how to postproduce your video... a deinterlace here and a letterbox there, some contrast or color punch, and you were making something more "filmic"... Yes, I'm talking of student work, as nobody on TV gave a heck about filmic gimmiks... They wanted, and still want kosher video for broadcast (and of course, prefer not to show 15 minutes dreary films of hippie vampires). But it was a hit, and everybody was asking how you did it!!!

But then, the cinelook, cineframe, 24p frenzy took over the world, and everybody was doing that someway or the other... Think about the Z1s and the P2s and the DoF adaptors... All this goldrush for the "poor man's cine(look)" has produced millons of videos, that at the end are to be undeliverable. Not only in terms of being or not broadcast kosher, but in the means their own makers didn't have a clue about what to do after showing to friends and not being selected in any festival... Not to say that most of us are really narrative handicapped!!! The reality is that you can't make marble from flintstone, no mather how you polish it...

Sorry for ranting, people, just my few first posts on DVinfo and I'm quite excited. ;)

Saludos desde Patagonia!!!

Thanks for that!
Do you know if they're thinking about implementing 1080p at all anytime soon?