[Alan Okey]

[Scott Sheriff] “I think this was pioneered by the TV show, Miami Vice. I remember reading about this in Shoot or Post mag back in the day. They had Rank build a custom 35mm FSS that ran at 29.9, so they could go Negative to 1″ without pull-down, and it gave them higher quality low light shots, and the shows trademark look.”

Very cool. I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure I remember reading that Star Trek: The Next Generation was shot at 30fps as well. It would be interesting to compile a list of high profile episodic TV content shot on film or video at 30p.

[Alan Okey]

[Scott Sheriff] “pretty bold talk for someone that doesn’t have a clue about frame rates and technical standards.”

[Scott Sheriff] “No matter how cool you think it is to pound a square peg in a round hole, the rest of us watching you do this are shaking our heads.”

[Scott Sheriff] “This is a complete myth, urban legend, or whatever you prefer, that is constantly being regurgitated by a bunch of beret wearing urban hipsters, and Michael Bay wannabe’s. “

I am in complete awe. I nominate this for post of the month. After I stop laughing, that is…

😉

[Alan Okey]

[Walter Soyka] “Of course, at those prices, they might not care.”

I think you nailed it. A client who really cares about its image will listen to reason from experts and understand that spending the time and money to do things right in order to make the best impression is ultimately worth the investment. That doesn’t necessarily mean spending a ton of money, but it does mean being open to expert advice.

[Alan Okey]

[Charles House] “They want the FINAL OUTPUT FILE to be 30p. They also told me, in the same breath, “24p looks so much better, 24p looks great, a lot of out shooters shoot 24p because it looks better.” “

I’ll bet you $100 that if you shoot in 30p and delver them a 30p file, they won’t even know the difference. The difference between 24p and 30p is incredibly subtle, and only a very perceptive client would be able to spot the difference. Any client with that level of visual sensitivity would already be delivering in 24p.

[Alan Okey]

[Charles House] “It looks like dogshit, as most shooters regard 30p native for looking, and I won’t be hired again, in favor of guys shooting 24p to 30p timelines.”

If I were the client and you delivered a product to me with 2:2:2:4 pulldown, I’d know that you were a hack and I would never hire you again.

Don’t use 2:2:2:4 pulldown. Even a partially blind person can see its atrocious motion effects. Using 2:2:2:4 pulldown really is unprofessional. If you drop native 24p footage into a 30p sequence in FCP, 2:2:2:4 pulldown is what you’ll get. Just don’t do it.

The problem is that 24p doesn’t nicely convert to 30p. 24p sits in 60i very nicely with 3:2 pulldown, but 3:2 pulldown isn’t possible in 30p. It’s possible in 60p, but that’s beyond the scope of this discussion.

Converting 24p into 30p (not 60i) necessitates either 2:2:2:4 pulldown (which really does look like dogshit) or frame blending in place of pulldown. Either solution is sub-optimal, and will look markedly worse than native 30p. It’s possible that by using Motion Estimation in Compressor that you could get an acceptable conversion result, but be prepared for very long render times. The irony with that solution is that by the time you get done using Compressor to convert 24p to 30p, the footage won’t even really be 24p anymore, it will be interpolated 30p, and you could have simply shot real 30p from the start.

I disagree that the difference between 24p and 30p is as pronounced as you make it out to be, or that there is anything inherently less “professional” about shooting 30p; it’s simply a different choice. I don’t know if you’re aware if this, but many television shows and commercials have been shot on film at 30fps. The temporal resolution of 24p vs 30p is much closer than that of 24p vs 60i or 60p. In my opinion, the artifacts of trying to shoehorn 24p into 30p are far more disagreeable that simply shooting native 30p.

Honestly, the best course of action would be to explain to your client the inherent problems of trying to put 24p into 30p, and show examples of why it’s a bad idea and why it looks extremely unprofessional. Show them samples of true native 24p and native 30p videos (not 24p in 30p) for the sake of comparison, and let them decide. Ideally, you could convince them to deliver native 24p video on the web. I’m baffled as to why they would feel that they have to deliver 30p on the web when it’s just as easy to deliver 24p. 24p will have better quality at the same bit rate (20% more bandwidth per frame), which should be additional incentive for them to deliver 24p over the web.

By using the proper workflow and demonstrating to your client that you can deliver a more professional looking product than what your competitors have been delivering, you will convince them that you’re worth hiring again because (A) you really know what you’re doing, and (B) you help them to present a more professional appearance. In other words, making them look good makes you look good. There is nothing wrong with gently educating a client when you are ultimately helping them present the best possible public image.

[Alan Okey]

3:2 pulldown was invented to allow 24fps film footage to be recorded and displayed on NTSC 29.97 interlaced video equipment. Any theatrical release film that you’ve seen on an NTSC SD broadcast has had 3:2 pulldown added. When viewing footage with 3:2 pulldown on an NTSC CRT monitor, it’s not really apparent to the naked eye when watching the signal played back in realtime that there is any pulldown added. However, if you were to step through the frame-by-frame, you would see the cadence of three progressive frames followed by two split interlaced frames. To be technically accurate, all of the frames are actually interlaced, it’s just that in three of every five frames, both fields are displaying the same source frame, so the interlacing is not visually apparent, while the remaining two frames will “twitter” as they are showing two different source frames displayed on alternating scan lines.

Video camera manufacturers introduced 24p recording modes on cameras to mimic the look of film’s frame rate. Tape-based cameras need to record 24p using 3:2 pulldown because tape formats are limited to recording broadcast spec formats (NTSC SD or 1080i60). When cameras that could record to solid state media became available, they gained the ability to record 24p in its native format, without pulldown. Some solid state cameras can record 24p either with 3:2 pulldown or natively (24pN).

Two flavors of 3:2 pulldown exist – Standard and Advanced. An excellent summary of the differences between the two types of pulldown can be found here:

https://www.adamwilt.com/24p/index.html#24pRecording

Shooting in the 24pA mode requires that pulldown be removed prior to editing, as not doing so will result in horribly stuttering, unwatchable footage. If a project will be edited in a 29.97i sequence, Advanced pulldown should not be used.

The decision whether or not to remove pulldown is mainly determined by delivery format. 3:2 pulldown becomes unnecessary (and indeed, undesirable) when footage will be viewed on the web or on DVD. The only cases in which removing 3:2 pulldown is not desirable are (A) if you plan to edit in a 29.97 sequence and output for broadcast, or (B) if you have to mix 24p (with 3:2 pulldown) and 29.97i footage in the same project. In most other cases, removing pulldown prior to editing and then editing/finishing in native 24p is desirable for many reasons. Also keep in mind that if needed, it’s trivially easy to add 3:2 pulldown to 24p source footage either via software (Compressor, After Effects, etc.) or via hardware (such as an AJA Kona or Blackmagic Decklink video capture card), so even if a project is bound for broadcast, a 24p workflow can be used up until the final output phase. Using a native 24p workflow by default is often the most flexible way to proceed, as it allows the greatest range of options for final delivery.

In the case of web delivery, leaving 3:2 pulldown intact is the worst possible choice. Footage with 3:2 pulldown is a hybrid, neither progressive nor interlaced. Deinterlacing footage with 3:2 pulldown will damage the resolution and clarity of the progressive frames, while not deinterlacing it will leave obvious interlacing artifacts, since progressive displays show both fields of an interlaced frame simultaneously instead of alternately. Any project shot in 24p that’s bound for web delivery should use a 24p native workflow for best results.

In the case of DVD delivery, there are several reasons that a native 24p workflow is superior. MPEG-2 encoders produce better results with progressive source footage, and at the same bit rate a 24p video will receive greater encoding bandwidth per frame than a 29.97 interlaced video. Alternately, you may be able to encode 24p footage at a slightly lower bit rate with successful results compared to 29.97 footage, allowing you to fit more content on a DVD. All set top DVD players have circuitry that adds 3:2 pulldown in realtime to the video output signal when the player is connected to an NTSC monitor. When playing back a native 24p disc, DVD players with progressive component outputs bypass the 3:2 pulldown circuitry and instead deliver a native 24p signal to the monitor. All DVDs of Hollywood theatrical release films are native 24p discs. Native 24p DVDs deliver the best image quality on all devices.

On computers, DVD playback software varies greatly in quality. Some software DVD playback applications use realtime deinterlacing algorithms that produce acceptable results on progressive computer monitors when viewing interlaced or mixed footage. Other DVD playback software isn’t so great. It’s much easier to ensure great looking playback if DVDs are authored as a native 24p discs.

If your destination format suggests that a native 24p workflow is beneficial to you, it is critically important to remove 3:2 pulldown from footage prior to editing. I’ll repeat that for emphasis:

If your destination format suggests that a native 24p workflow is beneficial to you, IT IS CRITICALLY IMPORTANT TO REMOVE 3:2 PULLDOWN PRIOR TO EDITING.

The resulting native 24p footage must then be edited in a native 24p sequence, and all subsequent workflow (output, compression, etc.) will treat the footage as native 24p.

While most editing applications can automatically remove Advanced pulldown on capture, they can’t remove non-Advanced pulldown automatically. Software like Cinema Tools or After Effects can remove non-Advanced 3:2 pulldown from footage by having the user manually guide the process. The user must specify the pulldown cadence of the source footage in order for the pulldown to be removed. For example, if a progressive frame is indicated as “P” and a split interlaced frame is indicated as “S,” a clip may have a cadence of PPPSSPPPSS. Another clip may be SSPPPSSPPP, etc. The pulldown cadence must remain constant and unbroken within a clip for the pulldown removal to be successful. This is why it’s important to remove pulldown prior to editing. If footage with 3:2 pulldown is edited in a 29.97i sequence, the cadence of the 3:2 pulldown will most likely change on every cut point in the edit. This changing cadence will make it impossible to remove the pulldown from the edited video without the use of a very expensive hardware processor like a Teranex.

In summary:

When shooting 24p video with 3:2 pulldown, adopt the default workflow of first removing the pulldown and then editing in a native 24p sequence unless you have a specific need to do otherwise, such as editing in 29.97i for broadcast output or mixing 24p footage (with 3:2 pulldown) with 29.97i footage in the same sequence.

[Alan Okey]

[Jeremy Garchow] “You should make sure that they want a DVD compliant stream and not a program or transport stream with muxed audio.”

And if they do want a transport stream, get the exact specs. If it has to be 4:2:2 MPEG-2 (which Compressor cannot produce), you’ll need to use something like Telestream Episode. Others have run into this issue when trying to encode content to DG Fastchannel’s specs.

[Alan Okey]

[David Roth Weiss] “Is that accomplished with Apple Disk Utility???”

Exactly. You end up with a .dmg file of each of the installation DVDs. When you install the suite, you simply mount all of the .dmg files simultaneously, and the installer grabs whatever it needs from the available disc images. No disc swapping required!

[Alan Okey]

[David Roth Weiss] “Deployment via hard drive is much, much faster than loading from the original DVD discs.”

Amen to that. The first thing I do every time I get a new Final Cut Studio update (or any other monster multi-disk app suite) is to image all of the installation discs to my RAID. Then I mount all of the disk images simultaneously, run the installer and sit back and watch the magic. Sure, it takes a little extra time up front, but if you ever need to uninstall and reinstall anything, it will take just minutes instead of hours.

[Alan Okey]

I’ve seen a template package for After
effects that’s exactly what you described.