[Drew Smith]

Ok, I finally got my hands on some of the original captured footage as well as the final Apple ProRes file that was given to us by the post house.

Both have a cadence of three normal frames followed by to frames that seem to have combined fields (combing) Is this pulldown?

The strange thing is that I also have a QT version of the film that we used for a test screening and it has the previously mentioned 2:2:2:4 pulldown. Not sure how that happened.

Thoughts?

[Drew Smith]

Ok, so I just checked the final version of the video that we got from the post house. It has the three normal frames and two (mixed?) frames (two frames where you can see some combing on a computer monitor) pattern.

Will have to check other versions of the files…I’ll keep you posted.

Thanks again for your help!!

[Drew Smith]

Hmm, I’ll see if I can dig up the original captures.

The issue with fixing things is that our final version is through post color/grade which we spent a lot of money on. If we go back to original footage files and reconform, I suspect we’d have to do the grade again?

It does appear that somehow footage may have been shot in one framerate and edited in another.

[Drew Smith]

Ok, at least I feel like I’m getting somewhere from an understanding standpoint. It’s not fixing our issues but at least I can learn from mistakes or oversights.

Revisiting some of your earlier comments:

You can step through your 1080i29.97 footage one frame at a time, looking for a pulldown cadence. If you see three clear frames followed by two mixed frames, the video was shot in 24p. If you see four unique frames followed by two identical frames, the video was shot in 24p.

In either case, talk to your post house and find out what happened. It’s possible that they did the edit in 24p and gave you a 1080i29.97 master with pulldown. It’s also possible that they converted all the footage from 24p to 29.97i on ingest. The first situation would be good news, but the second situation would be bad news. Of course, the third and most likely possibility is that you shot at least partially in 29.97i so they preserved that frame rate through the edit.

I think a bit of confusion is stemming from the fact that we had a person doing the edit in FCP and then took the film to a post house to have the final grade/sound done so there have been a number of cooks in the kitchen.

I did step through the final version of the video from FCP before it went to the post house(the version before it went for final grade)and it did have a pattern of three unique frames followed by two identical frames (I assume that these are the mixed frames?)

The info in FCP for the video file:
Frame: 29.97
Compressor: DVCPro HD 1080i60

I’m not sure what this means though. Is there any way of finding out what the first edit was done in, before it went to the post house? (24p or 29.97i?)(Our editor is away right now)

Still trying to figure out where exactly things got mixed up.

[Drew Smith]

Thanks for your help Walter! I appreciate you attempting to walk me through this.

In reading back through the thread, I just want to make sure that you’re clear about what the issue is. We have our final cut in 1080i that looks and plays perfectly (I understand that this would eliminate the concern that the pulldown wasn’t removed?). The issue is that I was told (and expecting) that the footage would be 1080p as we’re outputting to Blu-ray. When the grand plan was originally explained to me it was indicated that we had shot progressively. Soooooooo….

In talking with our cinematographer and director, I think we’ve discovered where the miscommunication and ultimately unexpected interlaced final movie has stemmed from. They shot the film in 1080 at a progressive framerate in order to give it a film look, however the used an interlaced image. (Still not sure I understand how the camera specs indicate that it can only capture in 1080i or 720p but lists progressive frame rates for 1080??) Anyway, they indicated that they had always planned on 1080i but shot with a progressive framerate for the look. Not sure this makes sense to me but maybe make sense to you?

Anyway, it is what it is and we’ll deal with it.

If things were more clear at the start, would it have been possible to finish with a 1080p version of the film that was shot on the HDX900? I suppose this would have had to be clear to the editor from the start?

If the plan from the start is to output to DVD/Blu-ray would shooting in progressive or interlaced make more sense?

Thanks again for your help!

[Drew Smith]

Hmm, thanks for the info. Getting hard to wrap my head around all this!! I’ll check into that further.

To confirm, Panasonic lists on their site that the Panasonic HDX900 shoots in the following 1080 resolutions:

Multi-format recording system that supports 1080 at 59.94i, 50i, 29.97p, 25p, 23.98p, 23.98pA

So if my understanding is correct, 1080 at 23.98p fps =1080p but they also state that the camera shoots 1080i or 720p.

Thus my 1080i 23.98p resolution that’s missing. Is my logic correct here?

[Drew Smith]

Walter, thanks for your reply!

I guess the best place to start (and maybe I’ll post ove rin the Panasonic forum too) is with how the Panasonic HDX 900 shoots. It’s my understanding that it doesn’t shoot in “True 1080p” rather it is a modified interlaced stream with a progressive framerate.

Just came across this on another post, it’s from a while back but sounds similar to my issue:

“[Neal Broffman] “…I was asked by a client to shoot some material on a Panasonic HDX900 set to 1080 24p 1/48th… the client has now come back and said the material was shot in 1080 59.94 not 24p and that they had to spend significant time dubbing to “correct” the problem…”

If it was 1080 footage, it was INTERLACED. Only the most expensive cameras on the planet can shoot true 1080p, and aPanasonic HDX900 doesn’t qualify as such. Thus, your camera recorded 29.97 interlaced-frame video, and to get to an actual 23.976 frame rate, you have to remove the 3:2 pulldown.

Either the client screwed up by not knowing this little factoid… or you did.”

The way I understand how the Panasonic camera shoots is that it has a progressive sensor and records the frame rate progressively but but the final recording is effectively interlaced as there’s not single frames, rather two identical fields that are “interlaced” Not sure if that is a correct understanding, someone please correct me if I’m off on this…