What's the Best Format for Stock Footage???
 

This is less of an EX1/EX3 question than it is a general video format question, but I didn't see anywhere else to post so thought I'd start here. For several years I've been collecting stock footage at 1440x1080 60i. Why? Because that was the best my cameras could do.

Now I have the EX1 and EX3 and I'm wondering if I should switch to 1920x1080 30p. Why? Because I can easily convert to 60i and might even have less jaggies. Plus, it should convert better to the 24p formats. I realize that if I drop the resolution to 1280x720 I can even go 60p, but I don't think I want to do that (with all due respect to the Planet Earth folks).

I know the first question to ask when choosing a format is "who's your customer", but with stock footage it's hard to say. In fact it could even be companies working in PAL. Thoughts? Suggestions? Thanks. (Oh, and most of my work is wildlife which usually don't give you a 2nd take to capture in another format.)

30p to me the worst format to shoot on or stock footage. Why? It can't be easily converted to PAL or 24p and to me is only really good for NTSC and is best suited for footage that you know will only be uploaded to the Internet.

I would say 1080/24p is the most universal format to use as it is easily converted to PAL and NTSC viewers are used to seeing it. High-end wildlife documentaries that were shot on film were more than likely shot 24 frames per second and not 30.

For the record I shoot most of my footage (reality shows, documentaries, events) at 1080/60i and really have no preference for 24p productions except when shooting narrative work. Take a look around stock footage galleries and see what format pops up most. That should give you the right answer.

Most stock libraries and agencies require footage to be either 24P or 25P. Interlace footage is not liked at all as it is very difficult to standards convert. 30P has a limited market and is not easy to down convert to 24P as you must drop frames. Without good quality frame rate conversion it has a stuttery motion that viewers are not used to seeing. 24P converts to 30P by adding pull-up, which viewers are used to seeing. It converts easily to 25P by speeding up by 4% which most people don't notice. 25P is accepted as is by half the world straight out of the camera, the other half you simply slow it down by 4% to get to 24P.

I just checked the top 10 video downloads for the last three months at iStockphoto. Eight out of the ten were either 30 fps or 29.97 fps.

And now just checked Pond5, their top sellers for the past month have almost all been 25 fps clips. I've been selling stock and shooting 30 progressive, I like the higher temporal resolution. But now I'm thinking 24 might be a more sensible approach. Thanks Adam and Alister for your thoughts. And of course thanks to Dan for thinking to ask the question in the first place.

Mark, don't read too much into those figures. The clips will have been selling for other reasons than framerate.

Thanks to all. I kind of knew it was a question with no easy answer. I'll contact a few of the stock footage sites and see if I can get a response from them. Assuming I can I'll post it. Thanks again.

I contacted Pond5 (as that's where I sell my own stuff) and they wrote back to say they prefer 30p, so that's what I'll continues to send them I guess.

Artbeats recommends 1080 30p. Progressive for sure over interlaced. 30p has more info than 24p and converts nicely to 60i. Also, progressive scales and compresses much better than interlaced - both for computers (internet) and TV.

At least from this we can pretty much say that P is an absolute must.

Yep. Though I personally think 25p is best since it converts into all formats well. Red Scarlett may be interesting since you could shoot all your stock footage at 1080p/50 and totally future proof it for a long time to come.

50P would be nice, but just as hard to get to 60P or 60i. I'm with Simon 25P, is the way to go as it is so easy to get to 24P and then 30P.

The whole system infuriates me. In the digital world there is no reason why we can't have totally worldwide standard framerates.

24p is useless IMHO. Working with it is like making a really nice pasta dish then throwing manure on it. Do people really like the 'pulldown skip' effect?

Why can't US televisions accept 25p and 50i either? Why do they artificially restrict them in this way? Its absurd. Grrrrrrrr.

Anyway yes, I agree with Alister, 25p is the way to go for the moment.

I've wondered the same thing, Simon. I've made comments, suggestions, asked questions. Based on their replies, you'd have thought I made some scurrilous remark about their mothers!

Doubt this will help but we feel you should be driving on the right hand side as well.

That is quite funny. But it misses the point. I should be more clear. In the UK, and indeed most of the world, TV's can accept most standards. So I could put an NTSC signal into my TV and every TV I have owned for a good many years and it would display it just fine. But in the US they take exactly the same TV models as the ones we can buy over here but they take out the ability to display PAL and other 50hz signals. I can only assume it is a lame anti-import measure. But it is totally at odds with most other countries TV's which can accept both 50hz and 60hz signals.

It does miss the point and I do agree with you.

We should be able to drive on the right hand side and the left hand side at the same time!

It would be fun :o) Then we should put the steering wheel in the middle. How about 27.5P

PAL, NTSC, PAL, NTSC ............ PAL, NTSC ....????

This has been a stumbling block for me for the last four years, I have purchased several software conversion applications to take PAL footage to NTSC - none of them with any great sucess. Now I have the EX3 and I can switch to whichever I want. Currently I am shooting in NTSC as the US market is big for my project.

I was surprised that with the introduction of HD that manufacturers didn't standardise on a viewing format as well, but then they spent so much time trying to make up their minds on Blu-Ray or HDTV that they forgot about the basics.

Oh well, as Simon says, NTSC can be played on PAL sets - even if does mean slightly lower resolution, but then the HD to SD downconversion is not producing 100% satisfaction anyway. (at the moment)

???? You mean your country puts the consumer's needs ahead of corporate needs???

What a novel idea?

John

Nothing to do with the country. The manufacturers just enable TV's and equipment to accept all signals. In the US I don't know who makes the decision, but they cut out the ability to display 50hz video.

Also note that in PAL countries most DVD players can play both NTSC and PAL DVDs.

In the good 'ol days the frame sizes were different too.
PAL
625 lines or 576
NTSC
525 lines or 486

In HD world everywhere
1280x720
1920x1080

Now if all sets could handle
24p, 25p, 30p, 50p, 60p, 50i, 60i, we'd be "golden"

but crikey you'd still have a bloody mess in your NLE timeline.

BTW All this really means that NTSC frame rates are the only one's that play everywhere as long as USA TVs can't play PAL frame rates.

And I thought it was more to do with the countries voltage 50hz UK or 60hz USA (I know the power is measured in Watts)

My experience in the US has been that most of the more recent big brand name TV's (Sony, Panasonic, Samsung) etc do support PAL via the composite or component input, the same goes for the big brand DVD players, many do play NTSC. The problem is with the huge numbers of TV's and DVD's made by companies we do not see in Europe such as Magnavox, Vizio, Polaroid, Emerson and so on. These sets are sold in their millions in stores such as Wal-Mart and are very much NTSC only.

All the DVD's that I have released for worlwide distribution have been NTSC as a result. With HD this should be less of an issue as modern HD LCD's and Bluray players are more than likely to support both 25P and 30P, at least now the frame sizes are standard around the world.

Broadcast however is a different matter as TV stations are often transmitting in both HD and SD, so the frame rate must be correct for the SD PAL or NTSC transmission.

One More "Recommendation"
 

In regards to the frame rate/type for stock footage, this is what I got from AlwaysHD:

"As far as "best format," we used to say 1080 p30 because it allows for the greatest number of easy conversions, but lately there seems to be a trend toward 25p and 24p. I definitely lean toward progressive over interlaced."

As stated in previous posts, it seems to be unanimous to go with progressive (not a surprise), but as to the frame rate its either 24, 25, or 30p. (As for me, I'll probably default to 30p in part because I've started some projects in that format, but if I have time I may shoot some 24 or 25p as well - gotta love the flexibility of the EX1 and EX3.)

Thought I'd offer an alternate opinion.

I prefer 1080i because it seems to handle slow motion a lot better. 30p gets real strobey looking at around 50% speed. 24p is almost unwatchable at 50% (depending on the content of course).

Key is temporal resolution for what you're doing. 60 "units" per second allows for higher number of "snapshots" per second so there's more "snapshots" in the slow mo. Optical Flow filter would have more to work with for example.

Actually for that reason 720p60 is good for slow mo since you start with 60 progressive frames.

If you feel like that in the US, just think what other European countries feel... :-) I remember being told years ago that the golden opportunity that was missed was immediately after the Second World War, when there were very few private cars on the roads, most of the street signs had been taken down, and there were no complicated road junctions so it would have been fairly easy (and cheap) to do.

But at that time the extent to which cars and lorries would cross the English Channel couldn't be even dreamed at, and most of the car export market was to other left hand driving countries anyway, so it didn't seem worth bothering with. By the time it came to be seen as a good idea in principle, the cost of adapting complex road junctions alone effectively ruled the idea out.

But to come back to video, then whereas with cars there is no intrinsic advantage to driving on the left or right, there are advantages to 50Hz systems over 60Hz ones. There's no such thing as DF TC in 50Hz systems (whew!) and a much easier releationship between real time and no of frames. If 4% speed up/down differences are accepted, there's also no problem with showing film on TV without having to use 3:2 pull down.

About 25 years ago there was a US proposal for a worldwide TV standard based on 1125 lines and 40 frames/80fields/sec interlaced. Regrettably, it never got taken up, especially since by now it would probably have evolved into 1080p/40 - much better motion rendition than any of 24,25 or 30 progressive fps, yet more technically practical than 50 or 60p.

For the full story see EBU Technical Review , then "HDTV" under "Hot Topics", then article 311 - "The development of HDTV in Europe — a tale of three cities: Dublin, Dubrovnik and Geneva"

Interesting stuff, from a historical point of view. I always wondered why my steering wheel was on the right hand side and if only that 40mhz standard was adopted, just think I could have been driving on the right hand side at 40 mph instead of a juddery 30 mph.

Not sure where this has got us in terms of knowing what frame rate to shoot at. Perhaps the best thing to do is ask your stock library what format they want the footage in.

Was the answer supplied by the earlier poster (via his stock agency) that 30p might be the best an accurate answer? It also sounded like they were leaning toward 24/25p, though. But it sounded like 30p had the easiest jump to other formats.

Not the 50Hz based ones. 30p may be best for an agency which deals primarily with customers in the 60Hz world, but for international exchange 24/25p is far better. It's acceptable to speed up 24p to 25p but not simply slow down 30p to 25p.

Excellent point, David. Thanks.

Another vote for 25p!