PAL DVX100 and 25p editing... HELP! at DVinfo.net

Stefan Susini · July 25th, 2003, 02:08 AM

Hello,

first a big thank you to everybody on this very helpful forum, particularly Stephen Van Vuuren and Steve Mullen, i don't know what we would do without all their knowledge.

My question will be simplified at the extreme. It seems that full frame editing is complicated with the NTSC DVX100. At least the process of retrieval for capture and editing of progressive frames is complicated to understand, probably partly because of all the pulldown problems NTSC is facing.

PLEASE, what do you know about the 25p PAL situation when we want to edit the progressive captured frames?

I use premiere and a matrox rt 2500 and will try to stick to that, but i could consider other software options. You can't imagine the tons of paper i took from everywhere (particularly from threads of this forum) to understand the situation in 25p, but i'm contaminated by the huge quantity of 24p informations and by the quite complicated technical issues, particularly those related to the pulldown problems we don't have in 25p.

It would be fabulous if a genius like one of those present in this forum could make a brief topic on 25p editing and what editing softwares and capture hardwares handle correctly the 25p.

And by the way, what a fabulous little camera...

Thank you!

Stefan SUSINI

Peter Jefferson · July 25th, 2003, 02:26 AM

all you need to do is capture as standard DV PAL 25fps

do all your editing in 25p, then export as 25p using NO interlacing and only progressive.

the SW should do the rest

Stephen van Vuuren · July 25th, 2003, 09:16 AM

Stefan:

Thanks the kind words, but Steve Mullen knows a LOT more about CCDs and video signals than I do.

I'm more of a know a little about a lot...

Vegas does support 25p progressive quite simply according to info, though I'm all NTSC, so I have not done it myself.

For PAL, I have some question. Is normal PAL exactly 25fps or is it 24.97 or such to maintain sync? If so, does it drop frames or fields to make the frame rate?

If it drops full frames, you should be home free i.e. your original camera frames will always stay together. If fields are dropped, the some process will have to make sure you don't lose half a progressive field somewhere.

Email Sonic Foundry and ask them for a 25p whitepaper to match the 24p whitepaper they created (which is at the top of our forum) - they are pretty friendly and open to do stuff.

Barry Green · July 25th, 2003, 12:25 PM

PAL is 25.000 fps. The NTSC 59.94 issue came about when adapting black and white television to color. Originally black and white television in NTSC was 60.000 fields per second, but was modified to slip the color signal in, so it became 59.94.

If you're using a progressive-aware editing system, such as Vegas, you should have no issues whatsoever in editing 25p. If your editor supports fields only, then your main video won't have any problems, but incorporating graphics and effects may look a little odd because they may be interpreted on a field basis.

Use an editor that understands and works properly with progressive frames and you should have no troubles whatsoever with PAL 25P.

Andre De Clercq · July 25th, 2003, 01:03 PM

Stephen, "drop frame mode" (only existing in 60Hz(59.94) NTSC) doesn't drop information (frames or fields) but only timecode units in order to keep video timecodes in sync with the real time. (clock)

Stephen van Vuuren · July 25th, 2003, 01:27 PM

Thanks for the clarification about PAL. Sounds like 25p PAL editing is pretty straightforward.

NTSC, however, should be taken outside and beaten with discarded timecode...

Stefan Susini · July 25th, 2003, 01:56 PM

Sorry guys, the situation seems absolutely not straightforward. I wish some PAL folks participate in this discussion.

Here is what i tested with my associate: i shot a sequence in 50 i and switched to one in 25p. I captured the sequence containing the two with my matrox and generated a matrox RT avi file. I imported it in premiere 6.0. Then i exported it in uncompressed avi file with "no fields" option. I also exported it doing Tiff file (better than that i don't know).

Result: catastrophy, there is no difference between the 50i and 25p modes. In both i have the fields perfectly visible while looking the sequence on the pc (i obviously did not look at the sequence on TV). Extremely embarrassing.

If you have comments, you are greatly welcome. I also tried the dvfilmmaker demo: it just blurred quite nicely the result, but it is of no use, i could have bought another camera if i wanted to do that.

I NEED to retrieve the original full frame information. Even if it is splitted in two fields during recording due to DV codec, i NEED to be able to find an editing tool which rebuilds efficiently the two fields. It was in m little afternoon experiences NOT possible, i got a an interlaced result (with a bit of a cine-look obviously, but this is not the central interest of this camera, the central interest is to rebuild the original full frame information). I really don't know where the full frame information is if i can see the different fields during a movement. If really full frame i should see two field at the same place, not two fields having moved like in interlace mode. Really weird

Vegas is not mentioning any 25p support.

I'm disappointed and think it is time for panasonic representatives to clearly say what hardware/software supports efficiently the full frame 25 progressive mode. It is not our job to do countless hours of efforts, but theirs. I want a real full frame to appear on my pc. Now!

It seems my experiences of the afternoon irritated me... Considering this cam costs 4200 US$ in Europe, you can understand my frustration.

I hope that somebody on the other side of the atlantic has a good solution...

Stefan

PS: for Stephen Van Vuuren: 25p is really 25p, not a 24.97 or anything like the NTSC situation.

Andre De Clercq · July 25th, 2003, 03:01 PM

What is the refresh rate of yr PC monitor? I would not advise to evaluate pro scan on a pc screen (scan conversion..)

Stefan Susini · July 25th, 2003, 04:54 PM

I don't understand the point you are raising, probably because of my lack of knowledge and because i don't know what pro scan is. I'm judging a tif file, the result of what the camera seems to have recorded. What i know is that i can not break a full frame image into an interlaced image looking like an interlaced recorded in the ccd (and not a full frame image split in two fields, which looks very different). But it is what i see when looking at my monitor. A tif file can not be influenced (since it is a static image) by the monitors refresh rate, or i miss something important, please explain me that.

I can simplfy the question: has someone the experience of capturing 25p PAL and having then looked at his captured images in an uncompressed format (uncompressed avi or tif files) and seen beautiful fields (with no interlaced characteristics, that could be played on tv) or beautiful frames (that could not be played on tv but are good for transfers on film)? Has someone seen that? and with what hardware/software combination... please send me just an image taken during a pan movement... i'm curious...

Stefan

Stephen van Vuuren · July 25th, 2003, 05:22 PM

Here's forum Vegas info:

http://www.sonicfoundry.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=196875&Page=0

Andre De Clercq · July 26th, 2003, 03:32 AM

Sorry, I didn't read close enough and "while looking the sequence on the pc " misleaded me. I wonder if field order is not yr problem. As you know prog scan frames in DV are being split into two fields (belonging to the same frame). If you don't have the right field order set, you will have frames which have the wrong fields combined.

Stefan Susini · July 26th, 2003, 05:56 AM

Hello everybody,

first, sorry André i did not understood "pro scan" meant progressive scan, i thought it was sort of a software. I was really tired yesterday night... when using "prog scan" on your second mail i got it...

To answer your question about the wrong fields order, i looked carefully at my tif files and there is a regular progression in the lateral pan movement, so it seems not a problem of order in the fields, but really that these fields were recorded as 50i. If they came from a full frame, i should not see a progression in the movement from one field to the other, i should see a slight back and forth... but i will anyway raise the point with my more skilled associate.

Thank you Stephen and Barry for the forum advices, i hope i will find some help. I hope, Barry, that what you heard from Vegas rep's is wrong, if not then panasonic is just selling a false 25p PAL camera...

I hope other comments will still come here on that thread or subject.

Thank you all,

Stefan

Stefan Susini · July 26th, 2003, 07:03 AM

Hi again,

i have some news and it ended up in a new question on the Vegas forum and i will keep dvinfo forum updated with their answer.
____________________________________
Hello,

it is not entirely clear if vegas supports 25p from pal panasonic AG-DVX100.

In the official documents it is not mentionned.

I found a forum text from sonicdennis (sonicfoundry rep) saying:

For the most part, yes, the existing PAL support would have (theoretically) worked with the 50i/25p version of the DVX100, with the only problem being that Panasonic didn't mark the 30p footage as progressive, so I'm guessing they made the same mistake with 25p. With the previous version, you can use the Media Properties settings to treat the mis-marked streams as progressive, but with the new version (4.0b), Vegas now detects all variants (25p/50i/30p/60i/24p/24pa) using the special Panasonic coding in the DV headers, so it will work without messing with the media properties. Again, I've never tested with the PAL version of the camera, but we coded it so 25p/50i should be properly detected.

IT IS SAID THAT IT HAS NOT BEEN TESTED BUT SHOULD WORK. PLEASE, HAS SONICFOUNDRY TESTED AND CONFIRMED THAT VEGAS HANDLES CORRECTLY THE 25P AND RENDERS FULL FRAMES... IT WOULD BE A MAJOR LEAP FOR US PAL USERS...

Stefan SUSINI

Piero Dellino · July 26th, 2003, 08:39 AM

Dear Stefan,

I tried to replicate your situation with my system (AG DVX 100E), and it seems it's working perfectly. The only variance with yours is that I'm working with a Mac via FireWire and using Final Cut Pro 3 as editor. My scene was shot at 25p and input to the systmem with no field. I then generated a sequence of tiff files and opened them with Photoshop. They are beautiful 720x576 images at fullr esolution with no interlacing artifacts. I hope it helps.

Good luck

Piero

Peter Jefferson · July 26th, 2003, 08:49 AM

guess i better install the update then hey...

but even if you dont, you can set teh media properties to 25p and Vidcap takes care of the rest...

ill have a look when i get a chance...

July 25th, 2003, 02:08 AM	#1
Stefan Susini New Boot Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: EDENA Company, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND Posts: 13	PAL DVX100 and 25p editing... HELP! Hello, first a big thank you to everybody on this very helpful forum, particularly Stephen Van Vuuren and Steve Mullen, i don't know what we would do without all their knowledge. My question will be simplified at the extreme. It seems that full frame editing is complicated with the NTSC DVX100. At least the process of retrieval for capture and editing of progressive frames is complicated to understand, probably partly because of all the pulldown problems NTSC is facing. PLEASE, what do you know about the 25p PAL situation when we want to edit the progressive captured frames? I use premiere and a matrox rt 2500 and will try to stick to that, but i could consider other software options. You can't imagine the tons of paper i took from everywhere (particularly from threads of this forum) to understand the situation in 25p, but i'm contaminated by the huge quantity of 24p informations and by the quite complicated technical issues, particularly those related to the pulldown problems we don't have in 25p. It would be fabulous if a genius like one of those present in this forum could make a brief topic on 25p editing and what editing softwares and capture hardwares handle correctly the 25p. And by the way, what a fabulous little camera... Thank you! Stefan SUSINI

July 25th, 2003, 09:16 AM	#3
Stephen van Vuuren Space Hipster Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Greensboro, NC Posts: 1,508	Stefan: Thanks the kind words, but Steve Mullen knows a LOT more about CCDs and video signals than I do. I'm more of a know a little about a lot... Vegas does support 25p progressive quite simply according to info, though I'm all NTSC, so I have not done it myself. For PAL, I have some question. Is normal PAL exactly 25fps or is it 24.97 or such to maintain sync? If so, does it drop frames or fields to make the frame rate? If it drops full frames, you should be home free i.e. your original camera frames will always stay together. If fields are dropped, the some process will have to make sure you don't lose half a progressive field somewhere. Email Sonic Foundry and ask them for a 25p whitepaper to match the 24p whitepaper they created (which is at the top of our forum) - they are pretty friendly and open to do stuff. __________________ stephen v2 www.insaturnsrings.com

July 25th, 2003, 01:27 PM	#6
Stephen van Vuuren Space Hipster Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Greensboro, NC Posts: 1,508	Thanks for the clarification about PAL. Sounds like 25p PAL editing is pretty straightforward. NTSC, however, should be taken outside and beaten with discarded timecode... __________________ stephen v2 www.insaturnsrings.com

July 25th, 2003, 05:22 PM	#10
Stephen van Vuuren Space Hipster Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Greensboro, NC Posts: 1,508	Here's forum Vegas info: http://www.sonicfoundry.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=196875&Page=0 __________________ stephen v2 www.insaturnsrings.com

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July 25th, 2003, 02:26 AM	#2
Peter Jefferson Inner Circle Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Aus Posts: 3,884	all you need to do is capture as standard DV PAL 25fps do all your editing in 25p, then export as 25p using NO interlacing and only progressive. the SW should do the rest

July 25th, 2003, 12:25 PM	#4
Barry Green Barry Wan Kenobi Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: North Carolina Posts: 3,863	PAL is 25.000 fps. The NTSC 59.94 issue came about when adapting black and white television to color. Originally black and white television in NTSC was 60.000 fields per second, but was modified to slip the color signal in, so it became 59.94. If you're using a progressive-aware editing system, such as Vegas, you should have no issues whatsoever in editing 25p. If your editor supports fields only, then your main video won't have any problems, but incorporating graphics and effects may look a little odd because they may be interpreted on a field basis. Use an editor that understands and works properly with progressive frames and you should have no troubles whatsoever with PAL 25P.

July 25th, 2003, 01:03 PM	#5
Andre De Clercq Major Player Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Belgium Posts: 804	Stephen, "drop frame mode" (only existing in 60Hz(59.94) NTSC) doesn't drop information (frames or fields) but only timecode units in order to keep video timecodes in sync with the real time. (clock)

July 25th, 2003, 01:56 PM	#7
Stefan Susini New Boot Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: EDENA Company, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND Posts: 13	Sorry guys, the situation seems absolutely not straightforward. I wish some PAL folks participate in this discussion. Here is what i tested with my associate: i shot a sequence in 50 i and switched to one in 25p. I captured the sequence containing the two with my matrox and generated a matrox RT avi file. I imported it in premiere 6.0. Then i exported it in uncompressed avi file with "no fields" option. I also exported it doing Tiff file (better than that i don't know). Result: catastrophy, there is no difference between the 50i and 25p modes. In both i have the fields perfectly visible while looking the sequence on the pc (i obviously did not look at the sequence on TV). Extremely embarrassing. If you have comments, you are greatly welcome. I also tried the dvfilmmaker demo: it just blurred quite nicely the result, but it is of no use, i could have bought another camera if i wanted to do that. I NEED to retrieve the original full frame information. Even if it is splitted in two fields during recording due to DV codec, i NEED to be able to find an editing tool which rebuilds efficiently the two fields. It was in m little afternoon experiences NOT possible, i got a an interlaced result (with a bit of a cine-look obviously, but this is not the central interest of this camera, the central interest is to rebuild the original full frame information). I really don't know where the full frame information is if i can see the different fields during a movement. If really full frame i should see two field at the same place, not two fields having moved like in interlace mode. Really weird Vegas is not mentioning any 25p support. I'm disappointed and think it is time for panasonic representatives to clearly say what hardware/software supports efficiently the full frame 25 progressive mode. It is not our job to do countless hours of efforts, but theirs. I want a real full frame to appear on my pc. Now! It seems my experiences of the afternoon irritated me... Considering this cam costs 4200 US$ in Europe, you can understand my frustration. I hope that somebody on the other side of the atlantic has a good solution... Stefan PS: for Stephen Van Vuuren: 25p is really 25p, not a 24.97 or anything like the NTSC situation.

July 25th, 2003, 03:01 PM	#8
Andre De Clercq Major Player Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Belgium Posts: 804	What is the refresh rate of yr PC monitor? I would not advise to evaluate pro scan on a pc screen (scan conversion..)

July 25th, 2003, 04:54 PM	#9
Stefan Susini New Boot Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: EDENA Company, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND Posts: 13	I don't understand the point you are raising, probably because of my lack of knowledge and because i don't know what pro scan is. I'm judging a tif file, the result of what the camera seems to have recorded. What i know is that i can not break a full frame image into an interlaced image looking like an interlaced recorded in the ccd (and not a full frame image split in two fields, which looks very different). But it is what i see when looking at my monitor. A tif file can not be influenced (since it is a static image) by the monitors refresh rate, or i miss something important, please explain me that. I can simplfy the question: has someone the experience of capturing 25p PAL and having then looked at his captured images in an uncompressed format (uncompressed avi or tif files) and seen beautiful fields (with no interlaced characteristics, that could be played on tv) or beautiful frames (that could not be played on tv but are good for transfers on film)? Has someone seen that? and with what hardware/software combination... please send me just an image taken during a pan movement... i'm curious... Stefan

July 26th, 2003, 03:32 AM	#11
Andre De Clercq Major Player Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Belgium Posts: 804	Sorry, I didn't read close enough and "while looking the sequence on the pc " misleaded me. I wonder if field order is not yr problem. As you know prog scan frames in DV are being split into two fields (belonging to the same frame). If you don't have the right field order set, you will have frames which have the wrong fields combined.

July 26th, 2003, 05:56 AM	#12
Stefan Susini New Boot Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: EDENA Company, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND Posts: 13	Hello everybody, first, sorry André i did not understood "pro scan" meant progressive scan, i thought it was sort of a software. I was really tired yesterday night... when using "prog scan" on your second mail i got it... To answer your question about the wrong fields order, i looked carefully at my tif files and there is a regular progression in the lateral pan movement, so it seems not a problem of order in the fields, but really that these fields were recorded as 50i. If they came from a full frame, i should not see a progression in the movement from one field to the other, i should see a slight back and forth... but i will anyway raise the point with my more skilled associate. Thank you Stephen and Barry for the forum advices, i hope i will find some help. I hope, Barry, that what you heard from Vegas rep's is wrong, if not then panasonic is just selling a false 25p PAL camera... I hope other comments will still come here on that thread or subject. Thank you all, Stefan

July 26th, 2003, 07:03 AM	#13
Stefan Susini New Boot Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: EDENA Company, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND Posts: 13	Hi again, i have some news and it ended up in a new question on the Vegas forum and i will keep dvinfo forum updated with their answer. ____________________________________ Hello, it is not entirely clear if vegas supports 25p from pal panasonic AG-DVX100. In the official documents it is not mentionned. I found a forum text from sonicdennis (sonicfoundry rep) saying: For the most part, yes, the existing PAL support would have (theoretically) worked with the 50i/25p version of the DVX100, with the only problem being that Panasonic didn't mark the 30p footage as progressive, so I'm guessing they made the same mistake with 25p. With the previous version, you can use the Media Properties settings to treat the mis-marked streams as progressive, but with the new version (4.0b), Vegas now detects all variants (25p/50i/30p/60i/24p/24pa) using the special Panasonic coding in the DV headers, so it will work without messing with the media properties. Again, I've never tested with the PAL version of the camera, but we coded it so 25p/50i should be properly detected. IT IS SAID THAT IT HAS NOT BEEN TESTED BUT SHOULD WORK. PLEASE, HAS SONICFOUNDRY TESTED AND CONFIRMED THAT VEGAS HANDLES CORRECTLY THE 25P AND RENDERS FULL FRAMES... IT WOULD BE A MAJOR LEAP FOR US PAL USERS... Stefan SUSINI

July 26th, 2003, 08:39 AM	#14
Piero Dellino Tourist Join Date: Jul 2003 Posts: 1	Dear Stefan, I tried to replicate your situation with my system (AG DVX 100E), and it seems it's working perfectly. The only variance with yours is that I'm working with a Mac via FireWire and using Final Cut Pro 3 as editor. My scene was shot at 25p and input to the systmem with no field. I then generated a sequence of tiff files and opened them with Photoshop. They are beautiful 720x576 images at fullr esolution with no interlacing artifacts. I hope it helps. Good luck Piero

July 26th, 2003, 08:49 AM	#15
Peter Jefferson Inner Circle Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Aus Posts: 3,884	guess i better install the update then hey... but even if you dont, you can set teh media properties to 25p and Vidcap takes care of the rest... ill have a look when i get a chance...