24p interlaced artifacts

[David Bogie]

Hope you get better advice soon.
If you shot 24p and are using a 24p timeline, there is no interlacing by definition.
So you’ve got a setting wrong somewhere.

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[Bill Dewald]

Did you shoot 24p or 24pA?

Did you remove the pulldown?

Even if you shot 24p, if you ingest as 29.97 and then cut that into a 24p timeline, bad trouble will result.

What framerate is FCP reporting for your clips? Do you have to render them in the timeline?

How to they look in a 29.97 timeline?

[David Bogie]

I got this in the Cinema Tools manual. Some cameras do a fake 24p by baking it into a 60i format. I do not know if the OP’s camera can be set to shoot 24p absolutely.

> Adding and Removing Pull-Down in 24p Clips
Cinema Tools and Final Cut Pro have pull-down removal and addition features that
address issues specific to working with 24p video. Pull-down, as first mentioned in
“Frame Rate Basics” on page 22, is a process that adds redundant fields to video in
order to distribute 24 frames per second into the NTSC standard of 29.97 frames per
second. Some camcorders, such as the Panasonic AG-DVX100, are designed to shoot in
progressive mode at 24 fps (literally 23.98 fps), and then record the video to tape as a
60-field interlaced signal by applying a special kind of pull-down called advanced
2:3:3:2 pull-down. With Final Cut Pro or Cinema Tools, you can remove the redundant
fields created by the camera’s pull-down, so that you can edit at 23.98 fps or 24 fps.
When you edit 23.98 fps video, you may need to output it to an NTSC monitor, record it
to an NTSC videotape, or send it to another type of NTSC device. Because the NTSC
standard specifies a frame rate of 29.97 fps, Final Cut Pro gives you a way to add
pull-down back into the video as you output it. To accommodate various circumstances,
Final Cut Pro provides a few different types of pull-down patterns for outputting your
23.98 fps video as 29.97 fps video: 3:2 pull-down, 2:3:3:2 pull-down, and 2:2:2:4 pull-down.
(These pull-down patterns are described in “Pull-Down Patterns You Can Apply to
23.98 fps Video” on page 215.)

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[Bill Dewald]

[david bogie] ” I do not know if the OP’s camera can be set to shoot 24p absolutely. “

Well, no NTSC camera can shoot 24p “natively”, or “absolutely”. Like the manual explains, these cameras record 24p across 60i with a pulldown pattern.

My guess is that the OP may not have removed the pulldown, or has done it improperly somehow. Changing editing timebases isn’t as simple as switching a mode on a camera…

If the OP isn’t going to film, the quickest fix may be to just cut in a 29.97 timeline.

[Benjamin Jones]

I shot the material in 24p but not the 24p advanced. Could this have anything to do with it? Even when I capture using the pulldown removal preset this does not solve the problem.

The footage is not going to film. Keep the ideas coming, I appreciate it.

[Bill Dewald]

Ah – that ‘splains it…

“Remove Pulldown on Capture” only works with 24p advanced pulldown. For standard pulldown, you have to remove it after the fact.

Use “Tools>Cinema Tools Reverse Telecine” on your clips, or use the Cinema Tools app itself.

But first, to double check –

What is the framerate of the footage that you ingested – does it need to render in the 24p timeline?

And – you are looking at this on an external monitor, right?

Also, under the Sequence RT tab, be sure the playback is not set to 2:2:2:4. That causes a judder…

[Chris Borjis]

[Bill Dewald] “And – you are looking at this on an external monitor, right?”

thats the key.

you are probably seeing this in the viewer which is an all too common problem on
all video apps on the mac. It will likely look just fine externally monitored which
is what really counts.

[Benjamin Jones]

Thanks for the help Bill. Here’s where I’m at..

When I capture the material at 24p and place it into a 24p timeline, it does not need to render, but I get the interlaced lined 1 out of 4 frames. I can see these lines on the canvas as well as on my external monitor. It does not allow me to apply the Cinema Tools Reverse Telecine because it says this only works on 29.97 clips.

So, if I capture the 24p footage at 29.97 and place it into a 29.97 timeline, I CAN apply the Cinema Tools Reverse Telecine and it gets rid of the 1 interlaced frame and smooths it out. Is this my solution? Although I shot the material at 24p, capture it at 29.97, place in a 29.97 timeline, and apply the cinema tools effect?

If this is the case, why would you ever capture 24p and edit in a 24 frame timeline?

Grrrr..

[Bill Dewald]

Ok – I think I have it straight in my head where things went wrong.

You shot 24p standard (which is a 2:3:2:3 pattern), and then captured with “Advanced 2:3:3:2 Pulldown removal”. Since the capture settings didn’t match the footage, the cadence was incorrect, leading to a interlaced frame every couple of frames.

So, to ingest your 24p Standard footage, capture normally as NTSC-DV (anamorphic, if it applies). Once the footage is ingested, run it through Cinema Tools in order to remove the pulldown, and ta-da – 24p DV footage.

[Benjamin Jones] “If this is the case, why would you ever capture 24p and edit in a 24 frame timeline? “

Here’s the diff – if you’re finshing on NTSC tape (like D-Beta, etc.), you really don’t need to have a 24p workflow. Just ingest the 24p footage like you’d handle your 30p footage, and enjoy the “film look”. This will especially save you a headache if you need to use 60i footage in the project as well.

Having a 24p timeline is handy if:

A. You want to make a 24p DVD

B. You may blow up to a progressive HD format

C. You may do a film-out.

[Benjamin Jones]

I now understand the difference between shooting 24p and 24pa. Bill thanks for the specific directions, but something fishy is occuring.
When I capture the 24p footage at the regular DV-NTSC capture rate like you suggested, I can not apply the Cinema tools effect that gets rid of the interlaced frames. Is this just something I have to deal with when editing in a 29.97 timeline? I understand the benefits of being able to mix 60i footage, etc. My LCD monitor still shows the interlaced frames, but do they go away on a NTSC monitor?

As an experiment, I captured the 24p footage with the advanced pulldown setting. Even though you said this is incorrect, capturing it at this setting allows me to add the cinema tools reverse telecine, which gives me NO interlaced frames and I think it looks better overall.

Thoughts? The reason I posted this question in the first place was because a client complained that the Rough Cut DVD I burned looked a bit ‘digital’ and ‘out of focus’. I thought it looked great (thought he may be seeing the strobing or interlacing) but since I don’t shoot in this format often I wanted to check my bases and make sure I wasn’t forgetting a step when dealing with 24p.