Why shoot 24p if TV only shows 29.97?

Ok, I really need to know this before I go and plunk down thousands of dollars (which I don't have, but that's not the issue here when I don't need the 24p for blow up to 35mm?

So my question is not about shooting 24p for going to film. (And please assume that I don't care about the look of 24fps.)

I only need to know if I need 24p at all ... because I've read everywhere that TV monitors always show movies at 29.97fps regardless of at what frame rate they were shot. (I may not be right about this also.)

Thanks for any clarification you may give me here.

Well, say you shot on 35mm film at 24fps and wanted to put that on TV? You'd take the standard route of adding 3:2 pulldown to the 24fps frames and with a slight speed adjustment, you'll get it onto 29.97fps interlaced video tape.

So, if you want your shot on video film to look similar to a film on TV, you need to follow the same route!

Not least 24p makes for great web movies (less fps = better compression, no interlace = better compression) and DVD.

Do you want your film to look like a soap opera shot on video? All smooth and "video-y?" Or do you want your film to look like...film? Have the film cadence and be what people expect to see when they watch a feature film, or TV show shot on film? You do realize that pretty much every dramatic series you see on TV was shot on film at 24fps, right? Or shot on HD with the same frame rate...24fps. And many shows that were shot on video, have the film look applied later in post.


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When you shoot at 24 frames a second, your shutter is open for 1/48th of a second. That's a much longer time than the 1/120th of a second the shutter is open when you shoot at 60. So when you shoot 24, you get more motion blur, which gives a very distinctive quality to the footage. Some people go so far as to describe it as "dreamier" or "less real," but whatever one's personal impression, it's distinctly different from the quality of 60 fields a second. To me, the difference is as distinct as color versus black-and-white, or mono versus stereo sound. It's false to say one is objectively better than the other, but they're different. So it boils down to an artistic choice.

When you shoot 60i, the shutter is usually 1/60th, as in fully open. With film at 24fps, the shutter is usually 1/48th, or half open. Motion blur is more on video than it is film.

Graeme

Less blur but more motion judder, most notable of pans and tracks.

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And please assume that I don't care about the look of 24fps.

Ok. Assuming that, then you may not need 24p. If you're only shooting SD. But if you're shooting HD, then there are lots of TVs that display progressively as well as interlaced.

But is getting the option to shoot 24p really gonna drive up the price on the cameras you're looking at? Wouldn't it be a better idea to buy a camera that can shoot as many different ways as possible so that you don't want to just chuck it once you decide that you really DO like the look of 24p?

Andy

Wow! Lots of considerations! Ok ... thanks; I really appreciate it.
I've been a cameraman for many years and like most cameramen I like cameras and I'm always drooling over the new cameras coming out. With film, it's easy -- a 35mm Arriflex does the job for me; but with digital, every 6 months it's a new model and new features ... can't buy them all -- unless I were a rental house, and I prefer owning my own camera.

I was given a Sony Z1U as a gift and it works well for me; I have nothing to complain. I'm able to shoot just about any subject and edit it in FCP 5.04. The only issue I have is export...

And this is why I posted this thread. I know there are ways to convert the 60i to 24p. I'd love to have the software that can take my 1080i 60i footage and convert it to 24p -- for DVD and web movie release (as I've learned from this thread that there is an improvement over 30fps.)

I also appreciate the brief discussion of the look of 24fps vs 60i and the blur/jidder factors when using various shutter speeds with the wrong subject matter. It's something that's easy to forget.

You will admit videography is a lot more complicated than 35mm shooting. And what we're used to in terms of look does play a factor in how our movies are received; but I must also admit that it would be nice to have a camera that shoots single frames, 15fps, 23.98fps, 24fps, 25fps, 29.97fps, 30fps, 48fps, 59.94fps, 60fps, and higher speeds for effects.

And such a camera need not be very expensive, but they usually are. Then there is the size of the chip and the quality of the chip that produces the best images. And also the glass...

And therefore too many cameras. I read the magazines and see all these cameras -- the names, numbers and letters used describing them is a blur.

As a cameraman shooting my own movies (although I don't mind being hired by a director to DP a movie because I do have 39 years of experience shooting movies -- mostly 35mm), but I'm realistic, the young movie makers reading this are thinking, "Oh, the guy is over the hill, old fashioned." But then if you look in magazines or if you tour Hollywood sound stages, you'll find DPs with white hair on the set

Well, I need a new camera and I need the Nattress 60i to 24p converter software. Is there an academic rate?

I'm having a hard time finding your actual question in all that. Can you boil it down for me?

Nattress plug-ins are the most reasonable in the biz @ $100. If you want an "Academic Rate" on a $100 set of plug-ins, ask Graeme. Are in school currently?

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Sure, here's "academic pricing" CPN0274329138 - 20% off for the next 20 customers! And it's not even xmas.

Graeme

[www.nattress.com] - Plugins for FCP-X

There are two versions on the website: Film Effects and Standards Conversion.
Which one is it that converts 1080i 60i to 24p?

I think one of his original questions was:

"because I've read everywhere that TV monitors always show movies at 29.97fps regardless of at what frame rate they were shot."

So I guess he's asking if he feeds the TV a 24P movie or something, will it convert to 29.97 automatically?

If you want to convert to 24p and edit in a 24p timeline, use Standards Converter.

Film Effects does 60i to 24p with 3:2 pulldown into a 29.97fps timeline.

As always, try the demo, see that you like it first before purchase!

Graeme

Russ, I've heard this about wanting to edit in 23.98. It seems that some people like to edit their 24p shot movies in 23.98 in FCP so they get the same feel for the way it looked to them when they made the movie or something.

But I understand that what you see on the standard monitors is even then 29.97, so what's the point of converting 60i to 23.98fps just to edit in FCP at 23.98?

Sorry for not being able to ask the question any better or perhaps technically correct.

I want to convert two feature films I've shot with my Sony Z1U at 1080i 60i to 24p for the sake of outputting better quality DVDs and for the better compression for the web (as Graeme explained.)

Graeme, I understand the first part:

Quote
Graeme
Film Effects does 60i to 24p with 3:2 pulldown into a 29.97fps timeline.

So the timeline should be NTSC 48k anamorphic? So I should apply the filter to the HDV movie clips in the HDV sequence and project and then copy and paste the resulting movie clips to a standard NTSC timeline for the 24p look to be visible?

I downloaded a trial version but it won't open in my computer when I double click it. It needs to be unstuffed and my unstuffer doesn't work. I downloaded the one suggested but it doesn't work either.

Why 23.98fps timeline - because when movies have 3:2 pulldown added, it gets added once at the end. That means that the cadence, or pattern of 3:2 doesn't change over time. It's constant. That's often a broadcast requirement too. It also means you have access to a 24p without interlace version that's suitable for web delivery, or to make a 24p dvd which has a better picture due to lower fps and no interlace to handle.

My plugin can work on a finished movie, but it has no cut scene detection, so you may get a blend on some cuts. What it's really designed for is converting clips that are 60i to go into a 24p project.

For HDV source footage, set field order to upper.

Sorry about the demo, here is the link you need: [www.nattress.com]

We're still trying to get the website update done, but although Megan is now in school (hard to believe eh?) Colette is still under 2 and demands a lot of attention.

Graeme

thanks! the zip file opened up right away. ok, there are 6 demos in the Standard Conversions folder. I don't know which one is designed to convert a 60i clip into 24p.

do I drag the demos into the applications folder as indicated in your instructions? And then they will appear in the filters folder of my FCP? Then I can drop them on the 60i clip, right?

thanks for the help.

Install instructions here: [www.nattress.com]
Usage movies here: [www.nattress.com]

They don't work like "normal" filters - hence the little movies to show you how.

Graeme

I downloaded the Standards Converter and saved the 6 plugins where you indicated in the tutorials.

When I put the plugin over the shot it leaves a "demo" title on the left hand side of the image. I know this is only a trial version and not meant to be used for output.

I dropped the 3:2 pulldown remover on both a 60i HDV clip and a 29.97 SD clip. I stepped through the frames one at a time and I can see blurriness in both clips.

I was hoping the plugin would turn the 60i clip to 23.98. I created the 23.98 NTSC sequence and dropped the treated 60i clip into it and rendered (there was a red line over the shot).

I did the same with the 29.97 clip (which came from my 35mm telecined movie). So I was hoping the 3:2 pulldown remover would reduce the 29.97 fps clip to 23.98 fps, but the blurred frames in the panning shot told me that I didn't end up with a 24 fps look.

Is it my Sylvania monitor? I believe it's a CRT.

Maybe it's the Film Effects plugin that I should be working with?

The Standards Conversion may be for PAL to NTSC and vice-versa?

Okay, first the HDV thing.

You can only remove 3:2 from HDV material if that HDV material was shot at 24 frames per second and recorded with 3:2 in it in the first place. You said earlier you're using an HVR-Z1U. This camera is not capable of recording 24-frame footage with 3:2 pulldown. It has a mode called "cineframe" that rearranges the normal fields recorded in 60i mode to create something that vaguely resembles 3:2, but it's not 3:2, so doing a pulldown removal on that material won't give you good results.

As for your other example, unless you did a film finish, with cut negative and all that, it's most likely you encountered a broken pulldown cadence. If you telecine a bunch of footage to 60i with 3:2 in it, then edit the resulting video, you're going to have cadence breaks all over the place. A straight 3:2 removal won't work properly on material with broken pulldown.

The bottom line here is that you cannot convert 60i material to 24p without interpolating frames. It's just not mathematically possible, unfortunately. If you have material that originated as 24, was converted to 60i by inserting 3:2 pulldown and the pulldown cadence isn't broken, then you can use one of several tools for removing that pulldown and getting the original 24 frames per second back. There are some workarounds for dealing with cadence breaks ? I think Compressor's "reverse telecine" option deals with cadence breaks very well, at the cost of taking hours and hours to process ? but again, that depends on having material that started out as 24 and had 3:2 inserted.

If your material was subsequently compressed after having the 3:2 inserted, that can also cause pulldown removal to yield poor results.

Thanks, Jeff.

Ok, so going from my Sony Z1U 1080i 60i recorded clips to 24p is going to be difficult. I do believe reading on www.nattress.com that Film Effects has a plugin to convert 60i to 24p ...

after which it says I can bring in the converted footage into a 24p project. I think I may have misread it and ended up using a 23.98 NTSC 48k sequence. There was a box for 24p in the pull-down, which I didn't use. I used 23.98.

Ok, so I will have to download the Film Effects plugin from Nattress and not the Standards Converter.

The other thing I plugin that I tried was the Standard's Converter 3:2 pull-down remover. This I applied to a NTSC 48k project that I had. I had a movie, BUTTERFLIES IN THE WIND, telecined from 35mm onto DVCAM. I had captured the footage in FCP 5.04 and so the footage is 29.97fps.

So the telecine process had added the 3:2 pull-down to make the 24fps original film footage to end up as 29.97fps video.

Now, by applying the 3:2 pull-down to one of the clips, I was hoping to remove the extra frames added. After I applied the 3:2 pull-down remover from the Nattress plugin, I dragged the clip to a 23.98 project and then stepped through it. There were blurred frames. So I don't think I ended up with 24p.