[Adam Smith]

I’m not sure about preventing it… but my best quick fix once it’s happened is to do the reverse. Put your mouth close to the eyepiece and suck – sort of the opposite of whistling. Draws cooler surrounding air across the diopter and usually de-fogs things enough to keep shooting.

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Video Photographer / Avid & Final Cut Editor

[Adam Smith]

[Steven Moore] “One other question about P2CMS: After Ingest, reading from the P2CMS created folder, my clip thumbnails remain yellow.”

In P2CMS the Ingest tab is to select clips and add them to the database. The other (err… “Database”?) tab is to browse clips that are in the database.

Yellow clips in the Ingest tab signify that they have already added to the database… so if you use the Ingest tab and surf back to the P2CMS database of ingested clips, then of course everything will be yellow.

Basic workflow would be to mount your P2 cards or drives, use Ingest to view clips, modify metadata, make selects, and import into the P2CMS Database. Then switch to the database viewing mode and use the metadata checkboxes to display the clips you wish to view or export.

Note that if you’re using FCP without some third-party tool to access the MXF files directly, you will have to Export selections of clips from the P2CMS Database for FCP to import. The database uses a different folder structure than the standard P2 card structure, so FCP cannot import directly from the database. I’ve found that when you are in the database, right-clicking a file will show the Export function greyed out, but it IS available from the File menu. Export will copy the selected clips (with verify if desired) to another location, and place them in a standard FCP-friendly folder format. I keep my P2CMS database on an internal drive and export selects to my RAID for editing.

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Video Photographer / Avid & Final Cut Editor

[Adam Smith]

How do you plan to deliver your film to the festival – and by extension do you really need a true progressive scan movie at 23.98?

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Video Photographer / Avid & Final Cut Editor

[Adam Smith]

If you use Panasonic’s P2CMS software it will create a database of your P2 offloads and recognize clips that have already been offloaded. Clips already in the library appear with a yellow tint.

So you could shoot, offload, leave the media on the card for safety, and go shoot more…and when you offload the second time just skip copying the tinted clips.

I keep my P2 database on an internal drive, and before I edit I have P2CMS duplicate only the clips I wish to use onto my RAID. (I have Raylight so I work with the orginal MXF files without re-wrapping… and I also feel better having yet another copy of the footage.)

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Video Photographer / Avid & Final Cut Editor

[Adam Smith]

Thanks for the input guys.

I’ve been looking at the P2 Gear, but couldn’t imagine that it would be any faster to offload than going directly out of the camera. I do like the fact that it’s dedicated equipment built for field use.

I’m not a huge fan of the laptop offload idea, but it may be both the most cost effective and fastest performing solution.

Tom – that’s interesting stuff you’re working on there.
Be sure to post on the Cow when you’ve got it perfected!

-Adam

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Video Photographer / Avid & Final Cut Editor

[Adam Smith]

[Mike Edge] “I was going to shoot 30p because that’s the look I’d like. 24p looks too jerky when there’s camera movement and 60p looks like the news (30p still looks jerkier than I’d like, but it’s a compromise). However, I did some tests today comparing the 480i and 720p shooting modes and they looked nearly identical when played back on a standard definition TV. Would changing the film mode (Film or Video) make the image move smoother?”

Frame rate is the only thing that will affect smoothness of motion. You’ll have the same motion whether you shoot 480i30p or in 720p30 and downconvert. Film/Video mode only applies to shutter terminology and variable frame rate functions.

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Video Photographer / Avid & Final Cut Editor

[Adam Smith]

[Matthew Romanis] “Is this something that only exists in NTSC?
I shoot 25p for 50i playback all the time and never see the combing issue that is on Jason’s footage.”

Disclaimer: I haven’t viewed Jason’s footage.

I don’t see how it could be different in PAL – but then I don’t work in PAL.

Regardless of the image source, on an interlaced playback device you have to update the image by one field every 60th of a second, which would mean every 30th of a second you’d be blending fields from different source frames. And if those source frames differ, then the blended frame will obviously be transitioning from one to the other with potential visible combing.

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Video Photographer / Avid & Final Cut Editor

[Adam Smith]

Sure thing. When I first got my HPX500 I was very excited about and then somewhat confused by the quality of my fancy new progressive scan video when viewed over standard-definition TV.

Now if I’m shooting HD for downconvert to NTSC broadcast I go 60i, 24p or 60p.

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Video Photographer / Avid & Final Cut Editor

[Adam Smith]

Ahh.. I’m not sure what you mean by ‘crispness’.

The number of frames per second would not affect any sharpness or quality of image, only smoothness of motion… and depending on camera settings, possibly motion blur.

How are you viewing the footage?

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Video Photographer / Avid & Final Cut Editor

[Adam Smith]

On horizontal motion, yes there’s gonna be combing when played back on an interlaced format.

Each interlaced frame is made up of two fields, sampled a 60th of a second apart and creating smoother motion playback. A progressive recording at 30p is made of full frames recorded every 30th of a second of course.

But when you view a progressive scan source over interlaced signal, it HAS to update the image every 60th of a second… so those 30 progressive frames are split up into 30 pairs of matching fields.

So in motion, you’ll see combing between frames (on horizontal motion) as the signal updates in an interlaced fashion. It’s got to blend from your first matched pair of fields to your second matched pair… so between those pristine looking progressive frame pairs there’s gonna be one mixed as it interlaces the two. And the next pair the interlace will be hidden with matched images again, but the next it’ll be quite apparent again…

Horizontal motion will really show off the issue, with static footage it’s likely hard to see at all.

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Video Photographer / Avid & Final Cut Editor