Shooting progressive with HC1?

[Michael Jordan]

I don't know all that much about shutter speeds, but I noticed mine was set at 1/60 for the default, which makes sense because it's once per field. So I tried setting down to 1/30, thinking that would be once per frame and would give me progressive video, but it didn't. It looks "choppier" on a television screen but on the computer there are still the interlaced lines.

Is it at all possible to shoot progressively with the HC1? I'd really like to.

[Alex Thames]

No, it shoots interlaced. And the CF24/25 functions aren't very good.

[Mikko Lopponen]

HC1 probably has the fields flipped. For no reason too, when shooting in 1/30 there should be no interlace lines.

[Michael Jordan]

Originally Posted by Mikko Lopponen

HC1 probably has the fields flipped. For no reason too, when shooting in 1/30 there should be no interlace lines.

Why are there interlaced lines if there should be none? Is it, like, the 1/30 image being recorded to B field frame 1 and A field frame 2 instead of A and B same frame?

[Alex Thames]

Why wouldn't there be interlace lines if you're shooting 1080i, which is interlaced?

[Mikko Lopponen]

Originally Posted by Alex Thames

Why wouldn't there be interlace lines if you're shooting 1080i, which is interlaced?

When you shoot at 1/30 there is no way to make it into two interlaced fields in one frame. Unless the fields are flipped like Michael said.

1/30th should be basically like progressive because 60i has 30 frames per second. Interlacing isn't a "special kind of signal", it's just two frames encoded into one. There's only one frame when shooting at 1/30. Or 1/15, 1/3 etc.

[Michael Jordan]

Why would the fields be flipped? To purposefully 'disallow' progressive in this lower-model camera? Or for some other technical reason?

Anyway, thank you for answering my question. :)

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Michael, I'm thinking you're not understanding that frame rate and shutter speed are not the same thing? No matter what shutterspeed you shoot, the camera is interlaced in this particular model. Not to keep you from shooting something the way you want to shoot it, it's an interlaced camera source. The A1 does offer CF30, which I personally like very much, and is used quite a bit. Additionally, if you'll be going to 24p, the PAL model of the cam shoots CF25, which is very nice on its own, or you can convert that easily to 24p.
No, you cannot shoot progressive at any time with the HC1. You can deinterlace in post and lose some resolution, or you can keep it interlaced. Either way, this cam is interlaced only.

[Thomas Smet]

Actually there is the the Cinema Effect mode which kind of looks like garbage but if you can find a way to remove the pulldown with software then you will have progressive images. The motion is kind of jerky due to the faked way of creating those 24p frames plus the camera uses a shutter speed of 125 with the Cinema Effect mode which makes it even jerkier. Maybe it will look good enough for you.

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Originally Posted by Thomas Smet

Actually there is the the Cinema Effect mode which kind of looks like garbage but if you can find a way to remove the pulldown with software then you will have progressive images. The motion is kind of jerky due to the faked way of creating those 24p frames plus the camera uses a shutter speed of 125 with the Cinema Effect mode which makes it even jerkier. Maybe it will look good enough for you.

Actually, when the extra frames are removed using CineForm, the movement isn't jerky at all. It looks as it should. If your camera management isn't as a 24p camera should be managed, of course there are problems stemming from operator error, but not from anything frame-rate related.

[Michael Jordan]

Originally Posted by Douglas Spotted Eagle

Michael, I'm thinking you're not understanding that frame rate and shutter speed are not the same thing?

What is the difference? It was my understanding (just through observation) that shudder speed controlled how long the shudder was open before printing what it took in to the frame? When I really lower the shudder speed, it gets very choppy, so I assumed that's what was going on (still always at 60 fields per second, but a bunch of fields showing the same image from the most recent shudder "refresh").

Is there a website you could recommend to explain this stuff better?

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

The frame rate is "how many individual frames are displayed/recorded per second." In America, it's always either 24 or 30 frames per second. If it's interlaced media, there is no 24 frames per second (fps) format. It's always 60 interlaced frames, which is the same as 30 half-frames.
In most of the rest of the world, it's 25 frames as a progressive, or 50 half-frames interlaced, per second.
Shutter speed is how fast the shutter is opening/closing per second. You could have a shutter speed of 1/8000, but that doesn't equate to 8000 frames per second, as that would generate incredible slow motion. You can shoot 1/60, which is common for film-destined, or film-like destined media, and that shutter speed is recorded in a 30 fps sequence, or a 24p sequence. However, 24p is usually shot in increments of 24's, ie; 1/24, 1/48, etc.

Think of it this way..
you can have 1000 people painting pictures at one time. However, the boxes that are used for shipping the paintings to the store only hold 60 paintings each. Therefore, you can have 1000 people painting, 10 people painting, or 10,000 people painting pictures, but still, only 60 paintings can go into a box at once.
People painting=shutter speed
Boxes containing paintings=frame rate

Does that help you make sense of the differences?

[Mikko Lopponen]

Originally Posted by Douglas Spotted Eagle

Does that help you make sense of the differences?

That explanation doesn't really matter in this case because the frame rate of 1/30th shutter speed is 30. 1/3th shutter speed has a frame rate of 3 per second. You can't interlace those frames. You can't make 60 interlaced frames out of 30. UNLESS the camera displays the fields in the wrong order. That wrong order won't make any difference in an interlaced monitor because there are only 30 frames, but it will cause progressive monitors to show interlace lines.

The fields are flipped because sony engineers didn't spot the problem. It won't show up on any interlace monitor and progressive monitors always show interlace lines on 1/60th material. They won't care that it's possible to make 1/30th look progressive. It's like at the bottom of the "to do list".

I haven't actually looked very closely at the 1/3th shutter speed files, but 1/30th does have fields flipped.

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

What do you mean "the Sony engineers didn't spot the problem?" It's HDV. HDV is *always* uff. And of course there are interlace lines, at any shutter speed. It's *always* an interlaced output from the HC1.

[Thomas Smet]

Originally Posted by Douglas Spotted Eagle

Actually, when the extra frames are removed using CineForm, the movement isn't jerky at all. It looks as it should. If your camera management isn't as a 24p camera should be managed, of course there are problems stemming from operator error, but not from anything frame-rate related.

Spot even the Cineform website shows examples of how Cineframe24 can be a little bit jerkier then true 24p or even 25 CF. I know it works well but it is not a perfect 24p.