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Eric Weiner
I hope this is the right place to put this post, there isn’t a SDX900 forum, but there seem to be other SDX900 questions here.
We have an SDX900, and we are trying to figure out what mode a series of tapes were shot in.
Either 24p, 60i, or whatever.
We are doing another shoot, and we want the footage to match.
Problem is that we don’t have any written records of which mode it was shot in. (And I have trouble telling visually.) Is there anyway after the fact, from just a tape, to figure what mode a tape was shot in?
Thanks!
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5 Replies
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I believe the user bits will carry metadata indicating the frame rate, at least it does in the Varicams.
JS
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Or load into an NLE and go through frame by frame on a broadcast monitor. Pretty easy to tell interlaced from progressive footage visually and you can count the pulldown pattern to determine 24pA vs. 24p, etc.
Noah
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Can’t you just playback the tape in the SDX? I believe that your tape will play correctly only if the camera is set to the mode that your recording is in.
I have an HDX, and I remember playing back a tape shot in 30p that did not playback correctly in the camera, until I reset the camera to the same 30p.
Or, dump your footage into your nle and look at the metadata.
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Panasonic HDX900
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I”m guessing NLE means Non-Linear Editing (system). We use Final Cut Pro, but I wasn’t able to find any meta data relating to shot mode. However, it’s highly posable I just wasn’t looking in the correct place.
It seems like I should be able to play the tape in the camera itself to find out, I’ll give that a try.
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Ahhh, the SDX900. I used one from 2004-2008, what a sweet camera that was….
The SDX900 records everything in 29.97 NTSC, either at 25 or 50 megabit DVCPRO. There is no electronic indicator after the fact to determine how it was shot. You need to bring the footage into your FCP workstation, and look at it. You can tell how it was shot by looking at single frames.
When you record at 60i, you are recording 29.97 interlaced frames to tape, but field 1 and 2 are sampled from 2 different frames. Every frame you look at will have interlace artifacts (sawtooth edges on things that move in the frame)
When you record at 30p, you are recording 29.97 interlaced frames to tape, but field 1 and 2 are sampled from 1 progressive frame. Every frame you look at will not show any interlace artifacts.
When you record at 24p standard pulldown, you are recording 29.97 interlaced frames to tape, but there is a 5 frame cadence you can see in still frames: W-W-W-S-S. W being a ‘Whole’ frame with no interlace artifacts, S being a ‘Split’ frame WITH interlace artifacts.
When you record at 24p advanced pulldown, you are recording 29.97 interlaced frames to tape, but there is a different 5 frame cadence you can see in still frames: W-W-W-W-S.
Load the footage, and press the right arrow to page through the frames…
Hope this helps…
Whole Frame:
Split Frame:
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