Does 24p from DVX-100's or XL2's look good printed to film? Who's seen it?
 

Who has actually seen 24p from the consumer cams printed to film. Does it look like video still or closer to film like Star Wars Episode II? And how much better does it look as opposed to 60i?
I remember watching Tim Allen on film at the theatre before a feature it was like a pre-preview of Christmas With The Kranks. I could tell it was 60i video but it looked good, fluid.

There's an article here where they transfered to film dvx100 and pd150 footage.

http://www.lafcpug.org/reviews/review_dvx_pd150.html

Here's a comparison footage between the 2 cams you mentioned.. Not blown to film but might help.

http://www.dvxuser.com/articles/FirstXl2/

I went to Ifilm last month in LA and got to see the DVX blown up to 35mm film and HD blown-up to 35mm film projected in a theater setting side by side with straight 35mm film.

Ifilm is a company which specializes in making digital intermediates of film prints and taking DV and transferring it to film.

Anyway - to answer your question, yes I have seen the 24p blow-up and..... It looks great, but no better than a good digital projection of DVX material.

The best way to put it is that it looks as good as the DVX would look anyway, but it looks no better because of the film out. Compared to the oldschool NTSC interlaced blow-up I would say the DVX looks much better simply because its 24 frames and not some mish-mash of 60 fields and 30 frames.

The HD looked awesome and of course holds up the best on the big screen, and honestly some DP's are getting very very very good with the technology.

So: If you shoot 24p on the dvx or the XL2 and blow it up to film it will look like whatever you shot, if that makes any sense. Will it look like episode II? It might look better depending on the original footage.

My own two cents, save your money and just digitally project your films especially if they are shorts. If your shooting a feature, well let your distributor pick up the negative printing price.

Thanx Dean
 

You've been very helpful Mr. Bull. I needed that confirmation for my own self. I'm nervous about which way to go and I have one shot at this.

On a related note, do you know if most film festivals will convert your mini-DV footage into film or just project it straight out of the tape?

If they always blow it up, then shooting at 30p would pretty much kill it..

Dave, I can't image festivals will do the transfer to film for you at their expense. It's a very expensive procedure.