HELP! HDX900 shot PAL by accident! Need to transfer,

[Gary Adcock]

more info….

is is 720p50 or is it 720p25 /50?

or is it 720p50 over 60….

the are 3 or 4 different options but need much more info to answer some what coherently

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows

[Matt Kerstein]

I did not shoot it.Our operator said it was at 720 50P.( Accidently!?)The only way I could get it to play into my panisonic 2600 was go into system frequency on the 1400 deck and change it to 50i/25? I think. (I’m at home now. Not in front of edit bay)
Just upgraded our Visitor channel 7 on Maui after years of BetaSP & D2. Ahh the good old days. Having some growing pains with going HD.
Can’t get to play off a sequence without fram rate issues. Digitizes fine via SDI and palys back on the desktop looking fine but not out to the Panisonic Monitotr. Don’t see that flavor under view or sequence settings. Must be missing somthing. AJA control panel is set to 720 50P for for format
Mahalo, Matt
AJ-1400 deck
HDX-900 cam
G5 (last of the power PC’s)
6GB RAM
FCP 5.2
Kona 2
Satamax 4TB

[Walter Biscardi]

You can edit the 50p just fine on your system, but you will not be able to print back to the 1400 in 720/60. You’ll need to print out at 720p/50 and send it to a post house with a terranex or other format conversion equipment to convert the PAL to NTSC.

You can also try Shake if you have it. We had a similar situation happen here, though it was just the standup for a project. I was able to convert the 720/50 to 720/60 in Shake. It was not perfect, but very good, good enough for one shot in a 30 minute show.

Compressor has some built in format conversions, but I’m not sure I would trust them.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Broadcast and independent productions.

All Things Apple Podcast! https://cowcast.creativecow.net/all_things_apple/index.html

Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi

[Matt Kerstein]

Walter,
Thanks. It’s of aerials over the active lava on the Big Isle of Hawaii. So I’ like to have a clean dub without motion jitter or any other bogus look.
Any post house that you know of that can do the best posible transfer?
Mahalo,
MauiMatt

[Evan Mcintosh]

Matt,

The good news is the material is progressive and they’re aerials. Aerials are often shot at ‘off’ speeds, usually overcranked, so depending on your material, it may even look better when conformed to a normal NTSC rate.

Try taking a 50fps clip into Cinema Tools (make a copy first–it will change the original file) and use the Conform feature to adjust the frame rate to 29.97 or 23.98. The clip will play in slow motion, which may end up smoothing the motion. If you like it, you can do a batch on all your clips. This involves no PAL to NTSC conversion voodoo–and would be perceptably lossless, except for the speed change. Alternatively, you could conform to 59.94fps (not sure Cinema Tools will do this directly, perhaps use Motion or AE) and the footage will be sped up 20%.

Another option is to drop every other frame (to get to 25p) and conform to 23.98. It’s more work, but the speed change would be minimal.

It all depends on the material what looks best (helo speed/height/shutter/mount/subject). Give it a try and report back.

Evan McIntosh
McIntosh Productions LLC
Atlanta, GA
HDX900 owner

[Matt Kerstein]

Mahalo!.Will give it a try.

[Walter Biscardi]

[mauimatt] “Any post house that you know of that can do the best posible transfer?”

There must be some in LA. I use PostWorks in New York for all our conversions.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Broadcast and independent productions.

All Things Apple Podcast! https://cowcast.creativecow.net/all_things_apple/index.html

Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi

[Matt Kerstein]

Walter,
I had some interesting results making a 29.97 DVCPRO HD codec sequnce in FCP which gave a nice slow motion effect. But when I made a composite SD output DVD from the KONA. There was serious alaising or moraying look over any high detail, high luma area on the picture. A lot when viewed on a SD CRT. Is that a result of the original content being 720/50P?
Matt

[Evan Mcintosh]

Hey Matt,

As long as you used the Cinema Tools Conform feature to change the speed to 29.97p, the artifacts you’re seeing should not be the result of the 50p originiation.

To help me understand, are you taking composite out of the Kona and feeding a settop DVD recorder? What happens if you connect composite out directly to a CRT–does the same thing happen? If not, try using compressor to make the DVD–using composite to create the DVD negates many of the benefits DVD affords you–and many people watch their DVDs on component connections that will suffer much fewer NTSCisms.

Secondly, in FCP, under View:Video Playback–make sure the setting is for Kona 720p 29.97 8bit and that the downconvert is happening in the Kona control panel.

It’s possible that what you’re seeing is just NTSC at it’s finest. HD origination in general can exacerbate that–with it’s increased detail. Filtering in the Kona downconversion should take care of a lot of that, but you might try blurring the image ever so slightly in FCP. A directional blur in the vertical direction or the flicker filter can sometimes help.

Evan McIntosh
McIntosh Productions LLC
Atlanta, GA