Is there anything wrong with capturing 24p in a 60i timeframe in Vegas??
 

If I really didn't want to go through the hassle of removing the pulldown, can't I just capture my 24p recordings into vegas into a 60i timeframe since it's that way on tape anyway??

What are the disadvantages to doing this?? What are the advantages to removing the pulldown??

Yes you can. That is the way Canon intended it, as a matter of fact, otherwise they would have included pull down flags.

There have been those who said they get ghosting, and other issues as a result. I have not seen any significant issues, though I did get NeoHDV anyway. Before I got it, I did not notice any significant problems I could pin on the 24p/1080i combo.

So my project properties should be HDV 1440x1080 60i correct??

And when I render as an m2t file it should be 1440x1080 60i not 24p correct??

I couldn't get NeoHDV to work with Windows Vista.

Yes, yes, and check with David Newman, to see when they will be Vista ready,,,,,

I'm editing 24p as 60i in Vegas 7. No real problems. But...

...with the flags, or software that can do flagless pulldown removal, there is no "hassle" involved.

Disadvantages: you will get some ghosting on certain types of files/renders. I've seen it on some .wmv files for viewing on computer. I don't notice it on my SD DVD's. Will be curious to see what HD-DVD's look like with 24p>60i footage.

Advantages are no ghosting, truer 24p film look, and 25% smaller files and faster renders (since you're tossing out six frames per second).

no ghosting, truer 24p film look?
 

Do you mean if I edit 24p video captured from hv20 in a 60i project in vegas, I can get truely 24p film look video, even if I watch it on a PC screen?

Victor, the 24P cadence will still be there even when you edit on the 60i timeline.

Think of it this way....the Hollywood movies you rent and watch on DVD were all shot in 24FPS film but the DVD you are watching is actually interlaced to allow your television to view it properly (somebody help me here). It's "sort of" the same concept. The so called "film-look" is still there but wrapped in an interlaced container.

You do not need to remove pulldown to get that "film-look." I think really the only time one "REALLY" needs to remove pulldown is if they plan on striping the end product to film for a theatrical release (someone correct me if I'm wrong).

I actually render everything on a 60i timeline to 29.97fps to an HDV file @ 60 Mbps instead of the standard HDV bit rate of 25Mbps. Then I take that file and run it through the free HV20Pulldown.exe software and it removes the pulldown very cleanly. No deinterlacing is involved and no huge intermediate files to deal with.

Hi Ian,
you are using Vegas 7? Do you capture with Cineform or raw? You capture as a 60i file, and then you render at 60Mbps - why? I assume you do yourediting with the 60 mbps file, or after the HV20 pulldown? Where does one get the "free HV20 Pulldown.exe at? Thanks - PK

Paul, you can get all of the necessary plugins in this thread at DV Info Net. If you read through there this guy named Steve Sudzik (sp) automated the whole thing by creating a .exe file called HV20Pulldown.exe.

http://www.szudzik.net/vegas/scripts/HV20Pulldown.html

What people have been doing is capturing their .M2T files with their NLE's and using this HV20Pulldown.exe file to remove pulldown and create intermediary clips (AVI files) then place those files back on their NLE's timeline for editing. After that they edit as usual and render out a final product. Well...each of those files are huge, real huge so you will need lots and lots of hard drive space. That irritated me so what I did was go back and tried a different workflow. Instead of removing the pulldown first and creating multiple large .avi files I :

1.Captured my footage with HDVSplit (free software and excellent tool).
2.Brought my footage into Vegas timeline and edited as usual on a 60i timeline.
3.Rendered that footage out @ 29.97 to MainConcept MPEG2 at 60Mbps, Best Quality (turns footage into a new .M2T file).
4.Bring footage into HV20Pulldown.exe and render it either Uncompressed, Huffyuv Lossless or Logarith Lossless into a huge .avi file. It looks amazing.
5.Bring that huge .avi file back into my Vegas timeline and then render that to any format I desire (in this case a more internet friendly format).

Pulldown is removed and the quality looks the same as the raw .m2T files (even when blown up 400%). There's not any perceivable quality loss. This beats having to take up a huge amount of hard drive space for the intermediate files. The biggest advantage is...it's all free.

You ask why I rendered it first to 60Mbps rather than 25Mbps? I can't quite put my finger on why...but my thinking is this...HDV is already a lossy format. I figured if I rendered a 25Mbps file back to another 25Mbps file then you might probably see some degradation in the image...but if I were to render it to a higher bit rate then you would retain a lot/most of the information. trust me...if you do it this way...then blow up a frame as big as you can...you will not see a difference with this and the raw image right down to the fine grain. What makes HDV HDV??? I believe it is the bit rate...25Mbps is HDV standard...any more...then it is not really HDV (though it is still MPEG2). Here I am not just raising it a little...but by a heck of a lot (remembering my purpose is reallly to retain as much of the original image as possible).

Anyways...I chose this method because unlike the DVX cams the HV20 does not have any flags in its encoding for NLE's to remove the pulldown. So whatever method the HV20Pulldown.exe software is using then it should work with a rendered HDV image as welkl as a raw image. Turns out it worked perfectly. No ghosting/blending and at a high quality.

Oh..and yes I am using Vegas 7. I don't use Cineform though it can be used as an option in the .exe program. But that's $$$. Excellent program by the way.

Turns footage into a new .M2T file??
 

Now I've understood your opinion clearly. But it was very interesting that you said in step 3 you "turns footage into a new .M2T file" because I've been working hard to make a new .m2t file after editing in vegas in vain. Can you explain in detail which template to choose in vegas render as dialog?

Sure....I use Vegas 7 and I click on File--Render As--
Where it says "Save as type" in the dropdown window I choose "MainConcept MPEG-2 (mpg)

Where it says "Template" i choose HDV 1080-60i

I click in the "Custom" section and make sure it says "Upper Field First" in Field Order

Set the video quality to High

Leave "Film Rate" at 29.970

Leave "Constant bit rate (bps) checked and raise that to 60,000,000

The "Output Type" should say HDV <<<This is what turns it into an .m2T file

Leave everything else at its default value and click "ok" then click "save."

You end up with an .M2T file at 29.97. Looks just as good as your individual raw files.

Take this .M2T file and run it through HV20Pulldown.exe and it removes all of the redundant frames (pulldown) and gives you one large .avi file.

Bring that back in Vegas timeline and render a more manageable file (for internet etc.).

This makes life so much easier...at least for me.

Thanks Ian
 

Thanks Ian for the explanation. I have Cineform Aspect and I was under the impression that if I am capturing with that, then Aspect will automatically identify and remove the 3:2 pull down leaving a 24p cineform AVI file to edit with. However, I still seem to see more uneven cadence in slow pans and artifacts then I would like. Example, I was in the cockpit of an airliner (before takeoff on the ground) and did a slow pan across the instrument panel. I was careful to be smooth and slow. However, when I look at the resultant DVD (this was done in PPro 1.5.1) the image seems to keep studdering and going blurry/ghosting on every third frame - a very consistent cadence when counting frames in slow motion playback. I mostly use Vegas 6, but on a quick test, I do like the ability in PPro to output straight to DVD without having to go through the DVD authoring program. So thanks again for the info. I look forward to trying this workflow, even if it is more complex, after all, its the quality that counts - PK

No Problem. Let us know how it works out for you.

Do I need to change the file extension mannally?
 

I've made a test just as you told me. Everything is fine except the default file extension is still .mpg and I must rename the file extension to .m2t to get a m2t file.