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HVX 200 slow motion 24p
Hello,
First off, I apologize if this topic has been brought up before. I’ve been searching for answers and I’m still a bit fuzzy on the subject.
This weekend we will have access to an HVX to shoot a music video. The camera we are borrowing to the best of my knowledge does not come with P2 cards, so we are planning to shoot 720/24p onto tape. There is one shot where we would like “good” slow motion — the “film” kind, no frame blending, and still able to mingle with the regular ole’ 24p footage. I’ve been reading that we need to set the camera to 720p/24pn and the framerate to 60 to achieve this. Is this correct? And are we able to do this without P2 cards? If not, is there a way to do it so we can create this awesome looking slowmo later on in post? I thought I had it figured out when I read something that said we could set the camera to 60p and then use Cinematools to make it 30fps, but that’s when my DP brought to my attention that the rest of our footage will be 24p.If anyone has any tips or can link me to any sites that can explain it, that would be great. Hopefully we will get our hands on the manual a little earlier too and try figure it out from that.
Thanks!
-Sara
p.s. I hope my post doesn’t sound entirely too confused. I’ve worked with hvx footage before but sadly not the actual camera!
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8 Replies
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The HVX200 shoots HD to P2 only. The tape deck only records DV. So you’ll need to get your hands on some P2 cards if you want to shoot HD with this camera.
Then use the 720p/24pN mode. You can shoot up to 60 fps slow motion, which is about 2.5X slow motion. It will be automatically converted to the right format in FCP.
Noah
My FCP Blog. Unlock the secrets of the DVX100, HVX200 and Apple Color and Win a Free Letus Extreme.
Now featuring the Sony EX1 Guidebook, DVD Studio Pro and Sound for Film and TV.
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Thank you for your response. A couple questions — is there ANY way to shoot 24p onto tape? I directed/edited a film last year and my DP told me he shot 24p, and the footage was all on tapes. I’d have to double check the footage to see if it really was 24p but I thought it was…
Second question, you said that with a P2 card I can shoot 60 fps which is about 2.5X slow motion. Then can I set the fps to 48 instead so I get 2X slowmo? On second thought this sounds like a stupid question — but I figured I would ask it anyway. Haha. I suppose I should get ahold of the camera soon because I can probably figure a lot of this out if I can see it in person.
Thanks so much,
-Sara
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The HVX shoots SD to tape (DV25 only) but there is a 24pA mode that when captured into FCP the pull down is removed and you have true 23.98 frame rate (24P). You lose the slow feature without the P2 and shooting 720p/24p though.
Yes there are several steps of slow-mo, I think the panasonic website list them.
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BTW- P2 cards are rentable for like $50/day…
Noah
My FCP Blog. Unlock the secrets of the DVX100, HVX200 and Apple Color and Win a Free Letus Extreme.
Now featuring the Sony EX1 Guidebook, DVD Studio Pro and Sound for Film and TV.
https://www.callboxlive.com -
Unfortunately our budget doesn’t allow for P2 cards – we’re spending most of it on the lights and grip package! And after double checking with the guy we’re borrowing the camera from, it is confirmed that he doesn’t have P2 cards. So we are most definitely shooting to tape — 480i/24p. I’m going through the manual as well but it corroborates what you guys are saying – that I need to shoot 720p in order to utilize VFR.
I guess what I”m asking now is, is there some other way to get a similar effect shooting 480i/24p? Either in camera, in Final Cut, or in another program such as Cinematools?
Thanks so much — I appreciate everyone’s help.
-Sara
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Wow- that’s kinda nuts that you have budget for grip and lighting but not $100 more to be able to shoot high definition? These days SD aquisition is becoming less and less useful. Might be a decision that comes back to haunt ya. Sure you can slow standard footage down to slow motion but it looks really cheesy compared to in-camera slow-motion.
Noah
My FCP Blog. Unlock the secrets of the DVX100, HVX200 and Apple Color and Win a Free Letus Extreme.
Now featuring the Sony EX1 Guidebook, DVD Studio Pro and Sound for Film and TV.
https://www.callboxlive.com -
In response to the other comment about P2 cards:
Quite frankly you will be wasting your time if you DON’T shoot on P2 cards. You won’t have HD footage and the whole point of shooting on the HVX is to have decent looking HD at a user friendly cost. From one director to another, do yourself a favor and cough up the money yourself if you have to. There is barely a point in shooting the project if you don’t. Seriously- you will HIGHLY regret it if you don’t shoot on P2. Especially if you have a lighting budget – are getting free lights – whatever.
Don’t waste your time and the crews time by delivering a substandard quality just because someone couldn’t scrape together a measly hundred bucks. And heck, if you’re a student I’m sure someone will be able to give you a discount. (As a director, I would rather not buy groceries and spend that money on the project to not only better represent myself, but to give the best quality production available to the band as well!)
Also, if your DP actually knows what they are doing, they should know this stuff and should have already rallied to shoot on P2.
Best of luck with the project. I sincerely hope you take our advice.
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I know this post comes far after the last, but to anybody reading this, the last poster is totally correct. While, in my opinion, SD footage is still a viable medium, especially with more and more projects becoming solely for web-delivery, (not to mention that blu-ray is still pretty expensive) the basic concept as I understand it is that more information (ie resolution and light into the camera) yields a shallower depth of field, and an overall sharper, more pleasing picture, no matter how you down-rez it.
More importantly for your project, however, I can tell you that personally having tried many configurations both in camera and post to deal with slo-mo, here’s the basic facts:
1. I don’t claim to be an expert on the HVX, so I may be mistaken, but I’m 90% sure that setting the camera to 720p24 and 60 frames will NOT give you true slo-mo in post. The second 60 fps setting has more of a shutter speed effect. What you actually need is 720p60 (and 60 fps). Otherwise, you will only capture 24 really sharp frames.
2. Putting this footage into a FCP timeline will NOT automatically convert them. You need to use Cinema Tools (yes, I know that there is a built-in DVCPro framerate converter in FCP, but it involves creating a new project and frankly, Cinema Tools is less hassle). Use the Batch Conform option on your clips. You can do two things from here: you can confrom them all to 24 fps, which is 2.5x slo-mo – do the math in FCP with the speed option to convert to 2x slo-mo – or conform them to 30p, then use the Cinema Tools Batch Telecine to convert them to 24p, or just throw them into a FCP timeline that is set to be 24p. From here, you can use the time tool to convert back to realtime. Unless you need exactly 2x slomo, I recommend getting the extra .5 slomo. Then you can just do speed=250% to get real-time playback.
3. Unless you are doing a lot of handheld shots, consider using a laptop to capture straight to FCP instead of P2 cards. This gives you the option of immediately naming your clips, instead of getting a bunch of “PAO2O983902-FDOPA9UEWO” (yes, I exaggerate). If you have a really stable external HDD, this is a great way to capture and I’ve never had problems doing it.
That’s the basics of slo-mo on the HVX. I think that was most of what I’ve learned about how to do it. However, a couple other things I saw in this thread:
-Most people don’t mention that the 24pA mode on both the DVX and HVX when shooting to minidv will NOT automatically have the correct selection in FCP. Make sure your capture settings are set to the 24pA mode when importing tape. There’s also something about this mode that has never quite worked out for me, something to do with dropping the extra frames – FCP is never really happy about that. Typically, I find it easiest to shoot in this mode but capture in 29.97. It still looks good, and seems to keep FCP from crashing when importing tape. Maybe that’s just me.
-I have in the past found some programs that use interlaced footage (dv) and make some pretty impressive slow-motion effects by frame interpolation, rather than frame blending. I can’t remember what it is, but if you google it I’m sure you’ll find something similar. Of course, this isn’t free, so you may as well rent P2 cards and get HD.
All this is based on my own tests and experience, so if anybody has physically tested anything themselves and has contrary information, please post it here so that I and others reading this thread can be better equipped for the future.
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