24f or 24p on canon xh a1

[Todd Terry]

Like on all cameras, the Canon’s “live” output is the same framerate as that which is being recorded in camera. If the camera is set to 24f, then the component, composite, S-video, and firewire outputs are all spitting out 24fps video. If it is set to 60i, then those outputs are all putting out 60i video. It doesn’t matter if you are recording to tape or not, or even if there’s a tape in the camera.

I’m unaware of any cameras that output a live signal that is actually a different framerate than that which is being recorded. I’m not even sure how that would technically be possible.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Luke Garza]

So then if I had something like a mxo2 then I could capture at 24f off of the component to pro res for much better quality. Has anyone done this and verified it comes out as 24f because I have looked on owners manual and it says anything out of component or even sdi on g1 comes out as 60i.

[Todd Terry]

[Luke Garza] “owners manual and it says anything out of component or even sdi on g1 comes out as 60i.”

I guess that is theoretically possible, if the XHA1 doesn’t truely have a progressive-switchable sensor and is using some kind of interpolation voodoo to get it to 24fps before it sticks to the tape. I haven’t used the XHA1, but was basing my post on my XLH1… which is the big brother to the XLA1 and electronically basically the same camera. All outputs on the XLH1 pump out whatever framerate the camera is set to.

It’s certainly easy enough to test though in about one minute or less. Hook your camera up to a monitor (component, composite, or S-video, whatever), turn on the camera, and see what the live video looks like. It will be clearly evident whether it’s 60i or 24p.

T2

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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Ahhhh….wait a second. I just thought of something that might be important….

Again, I’m speaking of my usage with the XLH1, though results should be the same.

With the XLH1 if you shoot HDV in 24p, the footage captures and imports as true progressive 23.976fps footage. BUT… if you shoot standard def 24f, the footage captures and imports as 60i video, but with the 3:2 pulldown applied so that it appears as normal 24p video.

Something similar might be happening with the component and HD-SDI outputs. They might actually be feeding a 60i signal of the 24p footage. It would still look like 24p, but would be in a 60i wrapper. I can’t say for sure that it does that, but it might explain the cryptic wording in the manual. Even if that’s the case, you should still be able to capture the live feed as 24p. In a 23.976p project it would capture frame-for-frame. In a 60i project it would capture 30fps but with the 3:2 pulldown applied. Either way it would look exactly the same (24p), although one might bring more post production challenges than the other, depending on your editing system.

It would be hard to know for sure without testing it.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Luke Garza]

So i agree with what you say it makes perfect sense. I went on convergent designs website and saw a video you download from h1 that was 24p which was recorded from sdi and appled 3:2 pulldown because it comes out in a 60i wrapper. So im guessing the same would be for component but then i was on another forum where someone was going to use a ki pro with h1 and they asked aja tech support and they sent them back this

That’s the answer I got from AJA.
Andrea:

The XLH-1 will always output 29.97 via the HD-SDI output.
The IOHD is auto detecting the correct format. There is now way around this if you capture with the IOHD. You will have to use 29.97
The only way to output 24 frame out of that camera is via Firewire.

Regards,
Gerald

Gerald Kaczorowski
AJA Video Technical Support

So i know aja knows their stuff but convergent design is selling this feature so im more confused at this point i guess.

[Eduardo Barraza]

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/59/858482