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to 24p or not to 24p, that is my question…
Hi there. I’m relatively new to my DVX100b and have only shot in 60i for my projects with it thus far. Mostly I’ve chosen this because a) it’s familiar; 60i handles motion more cleanly; and c) I was scared of the relative complexities in 24p editing.
Because everyone talks about how beautiful the filmic look of 24p can be, and I have a new project coming up, I went out and shot some test stuff in 24p and 60i just to compare. I do see what everyone is talking about in terms of the creaminess of the colors and the filmic look of the motion. What I also noticed on the stuff I shot is that the 24p clips I captured looked a bit dark to my eye, somewhat ‘slow motion-y’, and it seemed as if sharp focus was harder to achieve than in 60i.
My questions to the forum are:
The 24p scene file has a 1/24 shutter speed. Does 24p ‘work’ with a faster shutter speed and wd that help with the ‘dark’ look or does 24p need to be shot at 1/24? Does one typically need to use a lower f-stop with 24p than 60i–or, is the darker image I’m referring to not typically a problem for most folks?Some of the footage I shot in 24p seemed to be a bit out of focus whereas the stuff I shot in 60i with the same settings was nicely focused. I had the camera on autofocus most of the time, so I’m wondering if the difficulty with focus is because of the slower shutter speed in 24p? Or some other factor related to 24p? Or using auto instead of manual focus? I was doing street shots, so it seemed easier to just put it on auto focus while shooting these tests. Any illumination here greatly appreciated.
Last, but not least. I edit in PPro 1.5. If I edit on a 24p timeline, can 60i footage be used on the same timeline as the footage shot in 24p? Conversely, if I edit on a 60i timeline, can 24p footage be used along with 60i? I’m thinking of shooting interview footage in 24p and my outdoor cutaways with more motion in them in 60i, but don’t know if you can mix the two on one timeline. Also, because I’ve never rendered in 24p, what should I know about pulldowns and so forth. Please forgive my ignorance, and, again, any help here greatly appreciated.
Thanks! -
12 Replies
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Great Questions!
You’ve got a alot going on here, so perhaps you can find some answers by going to:
https://adamwilt.com/24p/index.html
Good site with lots of useful info.
Hope this helps.
Tim Scarpino
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60i is for realistic imaging, like on the Discovery Channel. 24P is for the surreal feeling that you get from a feature film. You are on the right track. Some people get a camera that shoots 24p images and they shoot everything that way. Big mistake.
As for the stuff that rolls out of a DVX, it is all 60i with the ability to display it as 24p or to remove the extra fields and have an actual 24 fps timeline. Try shooting in all of the modes and dumping it all on the same timeline. The technology is amazing and you’ll just have to know what the final product needs to look like.
Good luck.
Steve Wargo
Tempe, ArizonaIt’s a dry heat!
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Thanks Tim for the URL and Steve for the reassurance that different modes can co-exist in the same timeline. I think I need to learn more about pulldown and what goes into that, how that all works.
I got scared a bit by previous posters’ admonitions about putting 24p and 24pA on the same tape and timeline, thinking it might also apply to 24p and 60i footage, so I appreciate your green light there.
Love your “dry heat” tagline btw.
thanks again-
Ruby -
Ruby
You can put it all on the same timeline and look at it but you need to know if you are going to do any pulldown removal before doing so. I have NO experience doing this but many others do.
Noah has done everything under the sun, as has Adam Wilt.
Steve Wargo
Tempe, ArizonaIt’s a dry heat!
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If you’re using FCP, Noah Kadner has a new DVD set out that explains everything you’d need to know or would want to know about 24p editing from a DVX using FCP.
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Get the most from your DVX camera. The DVX Book and DVX DVD are now available on ebay and at Amazon (https://www.fiftv.com/db) -
Thanks Barry (love your book, btw). I’m PC-based (I edit with PPro 1.5), so can’t use FCP. I wish I could utiltize Noah’s stuff, because it sounds very helpful. Alas…
I read Adam Wilt’s piece on all things DVX, and confess with embarassment that I still don’t thoroughly understand the issues around various pulldown schemes and their ramifications for selecting timelines in PPro and/or mixing 24p and 60i footage on said timeline, as I described above.
thanks-
Ruby -
Some editors handle 24p and 24pa better than others. Sony Vegas, for example, doesn’t care whatsoever — you can freely intermix them, it’s intelligent enough to sense the pulldown pattern and remove it on the fly.
Apple FCP, however, can’t do that with 24p footage. It requires you to use an external step of running Cinema Tools on the footage.
I thought Premiere Pro 2 could handle proper pulldown extraction from both modes of footage…
—————–
Get the most from your DVX camera. The DVX Book and DVX DVD are now available on ebay and at Amazon (https://www.fiftv.com/db) -
“Some of the footage I shot in 24p seemed to be a bit out of focus whereas the stuff I shot in 60i with the same settings was nicely focused. I had the camera on autofocus most of the time, so I’m wondering if the difficulty with focus is because of the slower shutter speed in 24p? Or some other factor related to 24p? Or using auto instead of manual focus? I was doing street shots, so it seemed easier to just put it on auto focus while shooting these tests. Any illumination here greatly appreciated.”
Anyone, correct me if I’m wrong, but when in 24P mode, you must focus manually. You lose the autofocus feature when you aren’t shooting 60i.
Shooting in 24P, I always check focus before I start rolling. -
Thanks a lot. Very clear and to the point!
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I’m using PPro 1.5, not 2.0. But my confusion lies with what the process is for pulldown vs. exporting a timeline compressed for various output (e.g. DVD, web, etc). My understanding is that the only time you’d need to do a pulldown is if you were planning on doing a film transfer or outputting for 24p DVD players.
A) Are there any other times you’d need to do a pulldown? and
B) If you did need to do a pulldown using PPro 1.5, how does one do that?I feel clearer about the conditions under which mixing 24p and 60i footage on the same timeline is okay. And, I’m assuming that, if you do mix them, it should be done on a 24p timeline. Is that a correct assumption?
Thanks all-
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