(another) 24pN question
 

I'm acquiring an HPX500 later this month (hopefully) and will immediatly start shooting a year long project with it, a documentary.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I intend to shoot 720/24pN to save card space - some of the days will be long and it will be difficult to offload cards. I would spring for a few more 16g cards, but I understand that they're going to be hard to get for a few months at least.

My question is - has anyone edited 24pN and output the final for broadcast? If so, did you wait until completion to add pulldown? How would that handle things like graphics and effects, ie dissolve and fades?

May sound like a dumb question, but I've never edited 24p w/o pulldown.

Also, while I'm asking, does anyone know why there is such a difference between the file sizes of 24p and 24pN? - it seems like it should only be a difference of 1/6, but it's way more than that.

If you do all your graphics, effects, dissolves, and fades at 24p on a 24p timeline, then that's the best way to go; add pulldown when you finish the project.

720p is normally carried as 60 progressive frames. pN mode stores only 24 per second. That's 40% of 60, so it takes up 40% as much space, meaning you get 2.5 times as much recording time per card.

Thanx Barry - In your opinion am I sacraficing anything down stream by going native? Like, with codecs and all... Or is adding pulldown later pretty much the same thing as recording it in-camera?

With 720pN, there is no change whatsoever in the recorded quality. The only thing you're giving up is redundant frames.

Steve,

We've done a host of commercial-broadcast spots using the HVX and 24pN exclusively; edited and finished in a DVCPRO 24p timeline with a final output to an uncompressed timeline for delivery to the client.

As Barry mentioned you're not losing a thing in image quality but you are gaining a ton of space on the P2 cards which on the 500 is going to give you massive amounts of record time.

I'm also going to throw in a bonus thought about workflow for commercial work; my introduction into motion pictures started with learning the film-flow - which meant 11 minute loads in the cans. Not a lot of time to get a good take and plenty of rushing about to switch cans and get the old ones off so we could have our end-of-day dailies to watch. Then came the HVX and 8GB cards; that gave us either 41 mins total before we had to dump-off in HOST mode or, 20 mins before a hot-swap copy was needed. To us this was a monumental jump in productivity and better flow for talent and camera crew to work with.

Now with the 500, we'll have over 160 mins before an en-masse HOST dump or, at least 80 mins before we'd have to start hot-swap copy. That's just an insane amount of continuous time - when compared to 11 minute film loads!

In so many ways, this little camera is about to drastically change much of how we work.

Robert - You're right - in a way, with commercials at least. I shot documentaries, narratives and commercials in nothing but film - 16, super16 and 35 - for 30 years - and was well used to the "workflow" you describe..

BUT, when you shoot video, you are (normally) also recording audio on the same medium.. When I was shooting film, double system, I could start and stop the camera while the Nagra or PortaDat kept rolling and I saved film but didn't lose audio...

Now, when shooting documentaries, I often let my video camera continue to roll while moving or changing filters, because I'm continuing to record audio (say in an interview, where my partner, who's not a soundperson, holds a 416 with a wireless transmitter) and I don't think about it. But, in the case of P2 cards, I would be using up a lot of needless space doing that...

SO... I either return to double system shooting (which involves always having an experienced soundperson with me, which can be impractical) or figure out a way to maximize my daily productivity on four 16g cards...

It would be nice if there were two FlashCard slots to record audio seperately.. Hmmm.. but it's not a likely thing to happen...

Maybe you should get the Zaxcom wireless transmitter with built in recorder. If you have the money and if they are actually delivering it

Haven't heard of it, I'll check it out...