DVCPRO HD 1080i60 vs DVCPRO HD 1080p30

What's the difference between these two?

I just noticed that in 6.0.3, FCP imports 108024pA P2 footage as 1080p30 instead of 1080i60 like it did before. Which seems like no big deal but now i cant multi-clip between the footage i just brought in because its "not the same codec".

Its an easy workaround but i was just wondering the difference, if there was any really...

1080i60 is interlaced, 1080p30 is progressive.


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1080i60 is interlaced, 1080p30 is progressive.

And if you shot 1080p 24pA...then the footage is flagged as 23.98 for reverse telecine...meaning that it should play at 23.98. And no, you cannot multiclip media with different frame rates.


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so the codec itself is progressive or interlaced then? so say if i shot 30p at 1080i60, it is interlacing the same image across the two fields? and if its 30p at 1080p30 is one progressive frame?

It's all the same footage, shot at 108024pA. The only difference is now that we upgraded to 6.0.3 and Log&Transfer brings 108024pA footage using 1080p30 as its compressor instead of 1080i60 like i did before. No big deal, I've just reimported the footage so i can multiclip properly, but i was just curious of the difference between the two and perhaps why apple made the switch

60i is a cousin to broadcast television. Great motion and good sharpness, but you can have field problems during production and post distribution. Grabbing good stills from video frames is a nightmare.

30P is grand if you think you're going you're going to need to grab stills from your show for production ads, etc, but theatrical motion is choppy. Canon NTSC XL1 cameras used 30P when you selected "movie mode" because it flickered "just like" 24 frame film.

It made good ad copy, but I don't know anybody who actually shot that way more than once.

Koz

Oh, I see where we're going with this.

24 frame material only "pulls down" to 60i for good, smooth 3:2 theatrical presentation. Goodness knows what happens at 30p. I would think that would look pretty awful because the graceful pulldown tricks aren't available.

It's possible that reversing 30p back to 24 might be easier.

Koz

hmmm, thanks Koz for some of the background...im still a bit confused as to whats going on here tho.

Let me be a bit clearer, since i noticed i didnt bring this up earlier. We're shooting P2 on the 500 and HVX's. We record at 108024pA and Log & Transfer all footage using the Remove Advanced Pulldown/Duplicate Frames.

Footage i brought in last week on 6.0.2 listed 1080i60 as compressor and now this week on 6.0.3, footage comes in as 1080p30, all at 23.98.

Most of this is destined for web delivery, tho it would be nice to have this remain flexible for other broadcast deliveries. Is 30p as a compressor going to give me any problems if we did want to lay this back as broadcast interlaced footage on tape?? I'm hoping Apple had a good reason to do this update, just trying to figure out what it is...

Goodness knows what happens at 30p. I would think that would look pretty awful because the graceful pulldown tricks aren't available.

Actually 30p looks nice on TV. Much nicer than interlace in my opinion. The only show I can think of that was shot that way was "Laguna Beach- The Real Orange County" which was shot with a Pana SDX900. The show was not my cup of tea but it looked great.

<<<Actually 30p looks nice on TV. Much nicer than interlace in my opinion.>>>

What kind of TV? LCD screens tend to flow over flicker problems because of latency, but 30P on a glass monitor should look terrible, whether or not they got it from 24.

Film cameras have that 180 degree shutter thing and give you smooth motion blur, but video cameras tend to not do that. True 30 is seriously choppy. 24P looks terrible, too, which is why it has to be frame doubled for presentation.

Koz

What kind of TV?

Well, I watched it on my 32" Phillips CRT at home. I tuned in to see what the 30p would look like because I was considering shooting a TV doc that way. It looked damn good, much better than typical shows originating in interlace (like a TV news, reality shows, sports) so I DID shoot my doc that way and I've since seen it screened in a movie house with a Barco projector and it looked surprisingly good.

So that's on CRT and projected looking good.