Cineframe24 revisited (EDITED FOOTAGE)

[Steven White]

If you wish to evaluate the motion signature of CF24, processed and edited, I offer this file for you to download. I don't care what you've read - I've read it too. I don't care how much you disagree with the "philosphy" of how CF24 is acquired. This is the result of using it.

Notes:
- this is a rough edit
- it is going to be (after a lot of post) a lightsaber "fight"
- no colour correction/rotoscoping/special effects/audio tweaks/ADR have been performed
- Without the context of what's going on the "plot" may not be evident.
- I appologize for the cinematography.
- if you can't see the potential of what this footage could look like, consider the following: (with colour correction, lightsaber composited, etc) http://s94963366.onlinehome.us/Eclipse/teaser.jpg or (cheap sky replacement, colour correction, ghost effects) http://s94963366.onlinehome.us/Eclipse/teaser2.jpg (no, ghost effects will not be implemented for the whole thing. I am not that much of a masochist). And yes, both of these stills are CF24 video frames.
- eventually the full version of this flick will be offered online in WMV9 and/or the H.264 codec

Workflow:
- Shot Nov 21 2004 on Sony HDR-FX1 in Cineframe24, shutter speed 1/60, steadyshot on, 4 people total in the production (including actors), no monitors, no microphones, no lights, no bounce cards etc. Weather was overcast/rainy/foggy.
- Captured with Cineform HDLink 3.1 beta as Cineframe24, pull-down removed, scene detect
- Edited in Premiere Pro 1.5.1 with AspectHD 3.1 Beta in 1440x1080 24p timeline pre-set.
- Copy/pasted into After Effects 6.5 pro 1440x1080 (PA = 1.33) 23.976 timeline for Quicktime compression
- Compressed to 320xwhatever 23.976 fps Sorenson3 file. Quality 40%, keyframes every 400 frames, audio IMA 4:1 16-bit mono.

Personal comments:
The motion signature of CF24 doesn't bother me in the slightest. The cinematography, acting and editing do, but I think the raw video looks fine. The performance of CF24 will depend largely on how you shoot and what kind of motion you're shooting. However, in some instances I think CF24 can be tastefully used, and for this purpose, I am quite happy with it.

http://s94963366.onlinehome.us/Eclip...tinvssteve.mov (12 MB) please right-click save-as.

-Steve

[Shannon Rawls]

VERY NICE!

I know some used car salesmen will come in here and tell you how CF24 is worthless and that you should shoot 60i and buy their program instead.

But I say...

VERY NICE and GOOD JOB!
Man....Obi Won was whippin' that young boys behind!

*smile*

- Shannon W. Rawls
(i'm still out workin', but i'll be back to chop it up with the good people of DVinfo soon)

[Steven White]

I know some used car salesmen will come in here and tell you how CF24 is worthless and that you should shoot 60i and buy their program instead.

In all fairness, there are legitimate possibilities for motion rendition and image quality improvement by working from 60i sources, using adaptive deinterlacing and time-resampling algorithms.

However, the Cineframe modes should be approached from how they suit your workflow - and if you account for the TIME it takes to run all of these re-sampling algorithms, you get set way back. This workflow was painless. By the time all the footage was on my hard drive, it was ready to edit, and I didn't have to go through the hassle of manual pull-down removal, deinterlacing or anything else.

So have a look naysayers, and convince yourself that this is herky-jerky and unusable. It's quite possible you see things differently than I do and I'm personally very curious as to how people feel about the motion playback.

-Steve

[Joshua Provost]

Steve,

I have read about Cineframe 24 with great interest. I think it uses a novel technique to arrive at 24 frames, basically sampling every 1/20, then 1/30, and so on. Played back as is with the pulldown, it should look much like any other 24 frame source played back with pulldown.

Further, where it is captured, the pulldown removed, and played back at 24p on a computer, it will still maintain the 2:3 style cadence, because the images were sampled at a 2:3 interval.

There is one major danger. You could get a very strange cadence under certain circumstances. That is removing the pulldown, editing, and burning to DVD as 24p with pulldown added on playback.

When it is played back, if the frames fall properly on the 2:3 cadence, it will look like the original, the frames will be displayed for the same interval at which they were captured. However, if it is one frame off, the intervals won't match up, and the cadence will be too fast, then too slow, etc. in relation to the moments the images represent.

I wish I had a better way of communicating this. Anyway, chances are that some of your cuts will fall on the right frames, and some won't. I would theorize that on DVD playback, you could see some motion that looks good, and some that doesn't. Web delivery or delivery with the original pulldown retained will look "normal."

Josh

[Steven White]

No worries Josh, I've read through all the hypotheses before I even SHOT this. I'm pretty confident I know exactly how Cineframe24 works in terms of its field sampling, I'm perfectly aware that re-applying a 2:3 pull-down could exacerbate the motion translation and result in extra strobing as well on a 60i display. Your concerns are all valid.

HOWEVER, and this is a pretty big however - this content is meant to be viewed as progressive content. It is being designed for playback at 24p on a display operating at 24p - either with a 3:3 pull-down (i.e., monitor operating at 72 Hz, re-displaying the same frame 3 times). These features are being built into a lot of future displays - and the result is that the motion rendition of the file should look no worse than it does from this file - natively rendered at 23.976 fps.

Saying the 2:3 pull-down will make the situation worse is like playing HDV on an SD TV and saying you can't tell the difference between it and an SD camcorder. It's like saying making a 16x9 DVD is a waste of time, because it's going to be viewed on a 4x3 TV. I didn't buy an HD camcorder to watch it in SD and go through N generations of standards conversion. I bought it to be played back on an HD monitor from an HD source, and in this case, at 24p. In other words, I'm catering to the highest-common denominator - not the lowest... (well, there is that Star Wars thing. ;) )

My choice of Cineframe24 wasn't out of ignorance or being misled in any way.

-Steve

[Patrick Jenkins]

n other words, I'm catering to the highest-common denominator - not the lowest... (well, there is that Star Wars thing. ;) )

Hey all right! Another member of the anti-LCD club :)

[Richard Lubash]

Originally Posted by Steven White

Captured with Cineform HDLink 3.1 beta as Cineframe24, pull-down removed, scene detect
-Steve

This may be a kind of goofy question but is there a way to achieve this result (capture with pull-down removed) using a Mac workflow for editing in FCP5?

[Steven White]

Another member of the anti-LCD club

I wonder if you might clarify the meaning of this statement? I'm wondering if there's something technical about LCDs I'm missing.

Dunno about Mac workflows I'm afraid. You can remove the pull-down in a number of programs and render to intermediates manually... but I don't know if there's any software that does with HDV on the fly specifically like HDLink does.

-Steve

[David Newman]

I understnad the instinct that removing pull-down then reapplying it seems like the situation (motion judder) could get much worse. I initially left this way also, one reason I was reluctant to have Aspect HD remove the pulldown in the first place. However, after lots of paper scribbing I proved this not be the case, the preceived motion judder does not get worse when going back to 3-2 pulldown (even when unaligned to the original pulldown.) My inital goal was to prove why CF24 is really bad and I discovered that is wasn't. I need to formally write this up. Anyway, that was months ago, sense then we added automatic pull-down removal to Aspect HD and I'm very happy that we did. My opinion is this is no risk in reapplying pull-down -- you can editing 24p (from CF24) with confidence. For most dramatic projects CF24 looks excellent.

[Alex Raskin]

David, Steve: now in very simple terms :)

Say FX1 is static on a tripod, shooting in 1/60 shutter, CF24.

A car is passing by with constant speed in front of the camera, across the frame.

After capturing the footage with Aspect HD's 24p pull-down removed, and playing from PPro 1.5.1's 24p timeline, will the car's motion be fast-slow-fast or constant?

[Steven White]

after lots of paper scribbing I proved this not be the case, the preceived motion judder does not get worse when going back to 3-2 pulldown

That's good news. It would be nice to see it written up formally but at this point, your word is good enough to me. One wonders if formal paper on it would convince many of the naysayers anyway. My plan is to just insidiously create CF24 content and see if anyone notices. I'll hide the top-and-bottom edge flickering with some 2.35:1 cropping... mua ha haaa.

will the car's motion be fast-slow-fast or constant?

The CF24 stutter will still be there. I find this is barely perceivable to begin with, and only really detectable on smooth and continuous motion. In this clip, have a look at the shot where the prop is flying through the air (classic projectile motion), and at the panning during the epilogue. You probably won't notice in many other shots.

When I was rotoscoping this footage, the CF24 irregular time sampling was certainly present: in a many cases key-frame interpolation didn't work quite as well as it should have... but since I use tweening just to get close, it didn't make a lot of difference in terms of productivity. It was certainly faster than rotoscoping the footage at 30 fps.

Obi Won was whippin' that young boys behind

Well actually - that was me, not Obi-wan. Thanks for commenting on the content Shannon! Harsh editing criticism is welcome as well.

Cheers,
-Steve

[Steven White]

Another weekend come and gone, another chance to play editor.

This is the first part of the flick... Some more panning here and a few different shots. Identical workflow to the first post, save I used the release version of AspectHD 3.1

http://s94963366.onlinehome.us/Eclipse/EclipseP1.mov

Notes
- in the 2nd shot, he's looking at the combatants in the distance. With the compression, you're not going to see it, but once the FX are completed and the bit-rate increased, it should be plainly visible.
- the long blank pause will be a title card.

Completed shots (for resolution appraisal) look like this:
http://s94963366.onlinehome.us/Eclis...ics/shot01.jpg
http://s94963366.onlinehome.us/Eclis...ics/shot02.jpg
...(change the #)...
http://s94963366.onlinehome.us/Eclis...ics/shot10.jpg

-Steve