Varicam 24P online issues

[Mike Most — account bouncing, bad address]

You haven’t explained a few things, in particular, what your online format/deliverable format is. Assuming that it’s 1080/24p, which is the most common HD deliverable format, you really would be much better off cutting in a 24 frame time line. You also haven’t mentioned what kind of online system you’re assembling on, which also impacts what you deliver. In most cases, a “proper” facility is likely to cross convert your 720 material directly to 1080p on playout using the deck as the cross-converter, so if your offline is in a 24 frame environment, this becomes a bit more straightforward, as all of the timecodes will directly match.

Of course, my first question is why you went the “hard 24” route in the first place, when life could have been much simpler if you went with 23.98 as your base video frame rate – since all the Final Cut presets are predicated on that, as is almost all post sound work. There is absolutely no difference in the number of frames, just in how fast they play. Having a one to one correspondence with film frames is not affected.

[Ben Squires]

Hi Mike,

The online is going to be on smoke or nitris – I’m not sure as i haven’t been told.My understanding is that it is going to be kept at 720 and not uprezed, and I have to point out that this whole project is being dictated by the onliners – true 24P – 720 – even the varicam has come from them, none of which are choices I necessarily agree with but have to cope with. I understand of course that 23.98 is simply 1/1000 slower and would have been my chosen format to create an easy workflow in FCP and post. I guess that they decided on 24 true as the shoot is MOS, so there is no post sound work ( i.e no DAT or protools sessions that are overly complex).

Regards,

Ben

[Gary Adcock]

[ben squires] “The online is going to be on smoke or nitris – I’m not sure as i haven’t been told.My understanding is that it is going to be kept at 720 and not uprezed, “

Not possible on Nitris, it does not support 720p.

“I have to point out that this whole project is being dictated by the onliners – true 24P – 720 – even the varicam has come from them, none of which are choices I necessarily agree with but have to cope with.”

As mike said most OL ,even in LA is done at 23.98 NOT 24.0

“I understand of course that 23.98 is simply 1/1000 slower and would have been my chosen format to create an easy workflow in FCP and post.”

no it is not, the timebase is not slower nor odes it have less frames, it is a counting system that allows for realtime downconverts whereas 24.0 needs to be delayed to playback on SD equipment.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows

[Gary Adcock]

[ben squires] “I’ve trailed through the posts for a definitive answer to this “
you have tried the Varicam forum?

“I’m currently working as the dailies editor on a 2 month shoot on the Panasonic varicam, shooting 24P ( Camera frequency at 60 not 59.94)” Correct that this would give you 24.0 instead of 23.98 as a timebase. The number of frames is the same.

“To get this into FCP, I’ve butchered the 60 fps ( which is actuallty 59.94 of course) to a framerate of 60 FPS.”
That is not correct, if the camera was set to 60hrz then the tape is 60hrz NOT 59.94, – 60 fps is not 60 or 59.94 hrz- it is 60fps.
Camera frequency and frame rate are 2 different very different things.

“This still shows up in FCP as 59.94 though.” Then you did not set the deck to output 60hrz, in the menus- this is a manual process and needs to be set to be correct. 60hrz tapes played out thru the deck set to 59.94 are being physically slowed down for palyback and this is not a good thing,- not to mention that your TC is now not accurate.

“Given that the want to online from the original master tapes ( which are at true 24/60), how will an edl reflect accurate cuts and should the edit be done in a 24P timeline or 59.94 for best line up with the original camera masters.”

There is not issues off-lining at 23.98 then finishing at 24.0 if that is understood at the START process, however, because you have modified the timebase of the clips by capturing the 24.0 content at 23.98 there will be a number of nagging little issues with time base not being the same.

“Material has gone in over the 1200 deck, obviously at 60 FPS, as the pulldown removal is unavailable if the framerate in the Video set-up is anything other than 59.94.” this does not make since- if your timebase is set to 720p24 DVCPROHD FCP will remove the frames correctly. if you are trying to handle the offspeed materials that is another matter.The deck has to be set to play 60hrz to be able to remove the frames on the fly.

720p baseband (HDSDI) is always 60fps in the US, Canada and Japan and 720p50 in the rest of the world.

gary
post instructor @ HD Expo’s Varicamp– a 3 Day workshop for Varicam Owners.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows

[Ben Squires]

Hi Gary,

I’m using firewire as an input not hdsdi – I’ve not been able to get anything in to FCP other than 59.94 with varicam tapes – . Without pleading ignorance, as I’ve said, I mainly grade these days and is the first time i’ve done anyhing even approaching an ofline for years. I can’t work out how to change the deck to 60FPS instead of 59… but I’m assuming this is to do with firewire input?

[Mike Most — account bouncing, bad address]

>>Not possible on Nitris, it does not support 720p.

That’s not quite correct. It doesn’t support 24 frame variations of 720p, primarily because there is no 720p/24 video format. It does support 720p/60 (59.94), because that is a standard video format.

>>no it is not, the timebase is not slower nor odes it have less frames, it is a counting system >>that allows for realtime downconverts whereas 24.0 needs to be delayed to playback on SD >>equipment.

Also not quite correct. It DOES run slower, but it does not have fewer frames. It simply makes a second a bit slower than a real time second. The “counting system” you’re thinking of would be drop frame time code, which makes up for that real time discrepancy by skipping some numbers in the counting sequence (frames 0 and 1 every minute except for multiples of 10 minutes). On some tape formats – HDCam SR, for instance – “hard 24” formats can be played back as “video speed” formats directly, with no delay. In fact, on a properly equipped SR deck, you can even play back 23.98 as 25, or vice versa, with no delay.

[Mike Most — account bouncing, bad address]

None of that should make any difference. If they really need this to be “hard 60” they can do that during the online. Personally, I’d be curious to know why they feel they need it.

If they’re really onlining in 720p, my guess is that this means 720p/60 (because, once again, that’s the only existing video format, there is no such thing as a 720/24p video format), and if that’s the case, you might want to talk to them prior to offlining, and find out if they want a 60 frame EDL or a 24 frame EDL. Asking questions here might be interesting, but only if you ask them first.

[Ben Squires]

Thanks Mike ( and Gary) for your input..relating to 23.98, i thought that it was 1/1000th slower, as 23.98 is always NDF in this format ( i think). I did a test this morning, and with the deck in 60/24 mode, FCP reads no video : although the camera masters are at 60, FCP can only read 59.94( as a deck setting) as an input from the 1200 over firewire, regardless of my timebase settings internally in FCP.Mike, are you essentially saying that it can be cut then at 59.94/23.98 and the master played out to a 60 and 24 ( for cinema) master easily enough then?

Regards,

Ben

[Gary Adcock]

[ben squires] ” I did a test this morning, and with the deck in 60/24 mode, FCP reads no video : although the camera masters are at 60, FCP can only read 59.94( as a deck setting) as an input from the 1200 over firewire, regardless of my timebase settings internally in FCP”

First you would have needed to make a custom setup in FCP, or modify the 720p24 easy set up. FCP has the ability to do this, as I said I did this over the weekend ( albeit with a 1400 deck- but how the 2 decks function are essentially the same).

The menus need to be set in the 1200a deck manually and if you do not have BOTH the FW and HDSDI (AJ-YA120AG) boards installed in the deck – No you cannot set the deck to output 60hrz.

SYS menu 25 set to 0000
030 set to 0001 (HD Freq)

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows

[Gary Adcock]

[Mike Most] “That’s not quite correct. It doesn’t support 24 frame variations of 720p, primarily because there is no 720p/24 video format. It does support 720p/60 (59.94), because that is a standard video format.”

Mike

Being able to play 720p and supporting 720p are 2 very different things,
Nitis cannot do over HDSDI what the current versions of adrenaline can do over FW – ie; dealing with the redundant frames generated when the footage is captured in a varicam and allowing the user to handle the content as it was shot.

720p24 is supported via editors much like 480p24 is while, not a playback format suitable for broadcast it is considered a usable format for post. Yet if the user’s applications and workflow are not compatible to handle the footage in the manner the camera-person intended – then another avenue needs to be pursued.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows