Brightsign 24p playback?

[Walter Soyka]

[Per Argentine] “We’ve done a 1080p 23.976 video for an installation but it seems Brightsign doesn’t officially support 24p playback. When I play the video back on the Brightsign it converts it to 29.97 which looks terrible. Tech support says 24p isn’t an option, but I had heard that someone had figured out a workaround. Anyone have any ideas? If all else fails what’s the best way to convert to 29.97 from an Avid? “

In installations, the display drives all other decisions. Producing media at the wrong frame rate means you must either reconsider your playback system or make some compromises on the media.

I recently did a project with some mixed frame rate media that we displayed on Brightsigns. We ended up using 720p60 and playing the 24p media with the 60p variant of standard 3:2 pulldown. If you don’t mind the loss of resolution, this might be an option.

I’m not sure offhand how the Brightsign is handling the 23.976 to 29.97 fps conversion. You could try adding standard 3:2 pulldown and using 1080i, but depending on your display system, it may not look any better. You could also try duplicating every fourth frame (1-2-3-4-4-5-6-7-8-8), but the motion may look a little stuttery.

Finally, depending on your media, you could try using optical flow retiming to handle the 24p to 30p conversion, but this could get soft and blobby.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
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