P2 imports at wrong frame rate

[John-michael Seng-wheeler]

Yes is does. And you can use ether 1080i24P or 24PA with PP. If you’re going to edit anything in FCP7 you should use 24PA.

I don’t know about v7 but FCP6 wouldn’t remove the pulldown from 24P footage, only 24PA.

Just a little history to explain why all this is so confusing, The reason for this extra frame business is because DVCPRO HD was originally a tape format. On tape, your options were 720P60P or 1080i60i. To record anything else, the camera would adapt the format you wanted into one of those two.

So, to record 720p24p for example, it would record duplicate frames since the tape had to run at 60 frames a second. To record 1080 24P the camera would use a 2:3 pulldown to stick 24P into 60i, just like movies on TV have done for years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecine#2:3_pulldown

Now with P2, the tape limitations are removed. To the original formats were added a few others that work with the file based workflow. One of those is 720P24PN. The N stands for “Native”. Meaning that it actually records at 24P rather then 24P stuffed into 60P

The 1080i formats are just as they were on tape, but that doesn’t mean that 1080i24P isn’t true 24P. It’s got a 2:3 pulldown on it, but when you open the footage in your NLE the original 24 frames are extracted from the 60i video, and you have true 24P.

Anything else you’d like to know about P2? I’ve been shooting with an HPX-500 for 3 years now and I know the format well.

[John-michael Seng-wheeler]

Oh, the one thing I didn’t explain. the A in 24PA stands for “Advanced”, meaning the camera will use a 2:3:3:2 pull down instead of 2:3. (which really should be called 2:3:2:3)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2:3:3:2_pulldown#Advanced_pulldown

[Laura Gruszczynski]

Thank you all so much. It’s starting to make sense.
I think. 🙂

So I should shoot 720p 24PN to avoid the extra frames that 24p was giving me? And I will get true 24p video. Doesn’t 24p give a more filmic look to the footage? Won’t 24PN that look more like video?
And the HVX200 doesn’t shoot 1080p? Or does it?
I don’t see 1080p in the manual.
Thanks,

Laura

[Ben G unguren]

IMO the very first step is to remove that pulldown! Don’t have your editing program remove the pulldown on the fly; it just makes life more painful later on (like when you need graphics, etc — you have to re-export everything at 24).

Ben Unguren
Motion Graphics & Editing
http://www.mostlydocumentary.com

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[John-michael Seng-wheeler]

yes, 24PN will give you 24p video. So will any other format that camera shoots that has the letters “24P” in it’s name. The camera just records each of them differently. And the HVX-200 does indeed shoot 1080p. It’ll be called 1080i/24P in the menu, because it’s recording 24p on a 60i format with a pulldown.

So you can shoot 24p in ether 720 or 1080, Look for 720P/24PN or 1080i/24PA in the menus and use those.

However, whether you should be shooting in 24p is a totally different discussion.

You should chose the format you shoot in on a project by project basis, rather then defaulting to one format.

1080i
1080 30p
1080 24p
720 60p
720 24p

Your camera shots all of those, and they all have their uses. Learn about all of these and use them wisely.

And don’t bother about removing pulldown manually, Premiere Pro and After Effects both do it correctly and on the fly, as they’re supposed to. That’s just part of the design DVCPRO HD. Pulldown, extra frames, they’re all supposed to be removed on the fly by the editing application. Any Program which doesn’t isn’t properly supporting the spec.

[Jeff Brown]

[Laura Gruszczynski] “Doesn’t 24p give a more filmic look to the footage?”

I’d call this a “common misconception.” Film does typically run at 24 FPS, but what really gives something a “film look” as we might think of it is (in no particular order) the gamma curve of film, the cinematographer with 20 years of experience, shallow depth-of-field and no zoom lenses, a great colorist in post-production, a lighting crew with a grip truck… you get the idea ;>)

-jeff

[John-michael Seng-wheeler]

A “common misconception” that has been pounded into our heads by the marketing departments of camera manufacturers.

Any “quick fix” like 24p to make your videos look “film like” is all marketing, The only time in recent memory that I’ve shot in 24p was when I was shooting alongside a 5D, which is limited to 24p.

It’s kinda ironic that everyone get’s so caught up in the allure of 24p shooting when in fact all they’re doing is copying the one undesirable aspect of film.

24 frames per second was chosen as a compromise.

In the days before sound, film could be run at any speed the director wished, even within the same movie. Slower frame rates would be used for static scenes and faster fame rates for action. The projectionist would very the speed of the projector to match as the film played. This is why silent films are aften so fast, do to being copied to tape at 24 frames a second rather then at the speed that they were meant to be projected at.

However, when sound was added to the mix, a standard frame rate had to be decided upon.
24 frames per second was found to be fast enough to give smooth action and good sound fidelity, vs the cost of the film.

So, 24 frames per second is actually based on the cost of film, not artistic an decision, so why are we copying it?….

[Laura Gruszczynski]

That sounds like another whole conversation! 🙂
Thanks everybody for your input! My question has been answered tenfold.

Laura

[Jeff Brown]

Another $0.02… For shooting, if you have a choice and are in NTSC-land (North America), I’d recommend “30P” — which is, of course, really 29.97P, unless you are shooting high-action content like sports. Non-interlaced (progressive) is nicer to work with in many ways, and certainly translates better to computer screens (which are progressive). If you have a camera where you can control “shutter speed,” some test shooting should find a sweet spot that eliminates any “strobing” look while not blurring things too much.

-Jeff

[John-michael Seng-wheeler]

Yeah, I use 30p a lot too. Because it’s actually exactly the same as 60i (since it is just 60i with the second field recorded at the same time as the first rather then a 60th of a second later) it can easily be used interchangeably with 60i footage in the same project. In my documentary work I shoot at 60i, but switch to 30p for interviews, which are against green screen.