it's time for 1080p50 and 1080p60

>Instead of reciting the norms of their guild, the pros here should peek at what youngsters are doing with
>video on line and what "consumers" are doing with camcorders at home to better judge the public's wishes.

We do. Don't you know about the HUGE push for 24p when people were shooting VIDEO? That people bought PAL DV cameras so that they could have 25p that they would then convert to 24p? That Panasonic's DVX-100 that shot 24 was a HUGE hit...a camera that people CLAMMORED for? That there were THOUSANDS and MILLIONS of new filmmakers...kids...who strive for the film look. Do everything they CAN for the film look. Graeme Nattress even made a set of plugins that were in HUGE demand (just ask him)...called FILM EFFECTS. Where you applied this filter to 60i video to get it to look like film.

Read the forums and see how many people still TODAY clammor for 23.98. How they are a big miffed that they thought they shot 23.98 on tape, but it is actually 29.97...why is that? They wanted 23.98! How when the Canon 5D first came out people DEMANDED 24p!

Have you not been on these and other forums enough to see that many MANY young and new filmmakers want their projects to look like the Hollywood films they watch all the time (that are 24fps)?

Where are all of these people that want 60p? Thus far I think I have only seen 2 or three people on the forums...and I am on a LOT of forums (ask around)...that want 60p. And these people are the ones that bought that new Panasonic consumer camera that shoots 60p. That's it. Search the forums yourself and see if you can find people who want 60p. Simple...a majority of people don't want 60p. If there were, you'd hear more about it....hear more people clammoring for it. But no...instead we see, day after day, people asking how to get 24p out of their 60i...29.97...footage.

Prove me wrong.


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Its got to be said I only ever like 50/60p for Live Sports, FPS Computer Games (where it really matters) and for doing slo-mo @ 24/25p.

There is a comforting feeling about the 24/25p frame-rates. It could well be a mass-hysteria and so ingrained in the collective mind of society to do 24p but I'd like to think it is because it just looks better.



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Shane, read the recommendations of the EBU and the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation. They recommend broadcasting 1080p50/60. If 1080p24 were so jolly terrific they could broadcast 1080p24 and save a lot of electricity.

Ask yourself why Panasonic introduced their 1080p50/60 cameras. It was Panasonic that originally introduced 24p in prosumer camcorders. Did they have their ear to the ground then, but not now?

Incidentally I wonder if 24p video generally resembles 24 fps cinema as we've been assuming. First consider the shooting. 24 fps film cameras made exposures of around 1/48 sec. 24p video cameras can make 1/24 second exposure, while the user can elect shorter exposure. How many 24p videographers do? 1/24 sec 24p video has double the motion blur of 24 fps cinema, making it look quite different.

Second consider the difference in display. Typical 24 fps cine projectors present each frame twice, about 1/96 sec each time, with black interruptions of about 1/96 sec. Obviously no LCD display is going to go black for half the time to mimic these. I think that for all but "flicker films", 24 Hz progressive display with no black interruptions is a close visual match to cine projection. 48 Hz, 72 Hz, etc. progressive displays are all fine. But much 24p material is displayed on 60 Hz displays, and this material has been treated to a 2-3 cadence. Is this bastardized 24 fps cinema what folks love?

You can't really keep it going, so let the old medium die.

Dennis Couzin
Berlin, Germany

If the demand for 60p was that large, we'd see PROFESSIONAL cameras offering 1080p60. Thus far we are not. We aren't even seeing PROSUMER cameras offering this. Only a couple CONSUMER cameras. So if there is a call for this professionally, no one is answering.

720p60 was a valid broadcast format...but it was dropped by many. A few places take it, but a majority want 1080i 29.97, or 1080psf 23.98.


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>Ask yourself why Panasonic introduced their 1080p50/60 cameras (and why Sanyo has followed suit).

That is a very weak argument in itself. Panasonic and Sanyo introducing p50/60 in a couple of consumer cameras does not indicate the future of film and television. Consumer cameras have been touting "full HD" as a selling point for a very long time. And all that without addressing the more pressing issue of slow shutter readout, low S/N ratio, heavy in camera compresion, bad low light performance etc.. So they add a few not well supported "blings" to try to differentiate themselves from the rest of the market, that does not really speak a lot.

p50/60 is preferable to interlaced, and you get better spatial resolution. But the bottom line is that 1080p50/60 is not well supported currently, if supported at all (i'm not talking about having the ability to set a 50 fps frame rate in Final Cut), because currently it takes much larger bandwidth to work with the format and to distribute the format.



www.strypesinpost.com

Precisely, pros ignoring CONSUMER (popular, natural) tastes at their peril.

Dennis Couzin
Berlin, Germany

Some consumer tastes are the result of consumer ignorance (they don't know any better). Editing in H.264 codec, for example, or DVDs as "high quality media". We've all seen that.

Consumers follow trends. They don't make future technology; they choose from current ones. It's not a simple "manufacturer follows consumer" or "consumer follows manufacturer" equation. Pros (eg. directors of photography, producers, editors, software programmers) play a big part as well, because unless a technology survives scrutiny from professional parties, the technology won't even make it into the hands of consumers.


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>Precisely, pros ignoring CONSUMER (popular, natural) tastes at their peril.

Avchd, high sensor noise, rolling shutter issues, and possible line skipping artifacts? 50/60p offers better spatial resolution, rather than temporal, when you compare it with existing technology.



www.strypesinpost.com

.

strypes: is Panasonic's 1080p50/60 just a clever marketing gimmick to sell their $100 cameras? Many of the camera's other gimmicks don't work in 1080p50/60 mode. And it's quite a bother for the users to even view their 1080p50/60 material. But the 1080p50/60 material looks much better than the same camera's 1080i50/60 material, since Panasonic rigged the comparison by making them 28Mb/s and 17Mb/s respectively.

But what if someone compares the Panasonic's 28Mb/s 1080p50/60 against some other camera's 28Mb/s 1080i50/60? As you note, interlaced has the fundamental visual disadvantage.

But what if someone compares the Panasonic's 28Mb/s 1080p50/60 against some other camera's 28Mb/s 1080p24?

We all know that the $1000 Panasonic cameras produce a compromised 1080p50/60 in order to record on Class 4 SD cards and to make small files. I'm using the camera to get my feet wet with 1080p50, expecting good 100Mb/s prosumer cameras soon, and distribution means eventually. I posed the question beginning this strand because a little video was unexpectedly completed during the learning phase. 720p50 distribution will be OK.

Dennis Couzin
Berlin, Germany

strypes Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> 50/60p offers better spatial resolution, rather than temporal, when you compare it with existing technology.

Compared to what? 50/60p offers better spatial resolution than 50/60i. 50/60p offers better temporal resolution than 24p. Temporal resolution in the sense of very brief events, e.g., if you shoot video of a camera flashlamp firing, or better a 24 Hz strobelight. I don't think temporal resolution per se is so desirable as realistic movement is, where 50/60p is also advantageous.

I am concerned that to get 1080p50/60 into 28 Mb/s Panasonic has made the H.264 so skimpy interframe that the 50/60p advantage is compromised.

Dennis Couzin
Berlin, Germany

I'm not sure why you're so amped about this, dcouzin. It's clear you think it's great and should be supported more, but it's also clear that it's not considered wonderful by lots of other people and the reality is that it's not well supported. Telling people that they need to "stop reciting the norms of their guild" is not going to win friends and supporters. Mostly we're just telling you about the everyday reality we work with. There's hundreds of millions invested in the current system and, as we all know, broadcast is a very slow beast to turn midstream.

Jude: sorry it looks that way -- you slightly misquoted me. Actually I began the strand looking for technical workarounds for the lack of 1080p50/60 support and found that it was even less than I imagined -- no Blu-ray distribution either.

Dennis Couzin
Berlin, Germany

I was referring to 50p vs 50i. There simply is no viable means of distribution. A semi 3d projection could be your solution.



www.strypesinpost.com

I was in Montreal 2 months ago shooting 3 different projects. For several of the days, I was on all 3 projects on the same day. I had an HVX200 with me. I shot 60i for one project, 30P for another and 24pN for the third. Different final objectives dictated different rates. I love the look of 24p, but unlike Shane I find that I do covet hyper-realism as well. Different tools is all.

strypes Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I was referring to 50p vs 50i. There simply is no
> viable means of distribution. A semi 3d projection
> could be your solution.

strypes, are you suggesting splitting the original 50p into two 50i's (with different dominance) and then coding these as the two eyes' images in a 3D Blu-ray? Well, this gets the 50p into a Blu-ray, but since the Blu-ray coding is compressed, the compressions on the separate 50i's will be inefficient. I.e., a better looking compression can be had directly from the 50p than from the separate 50i's (with the same total filesize in each case). Then there is the problem of playback. Won't a 3D Blu-ray player will treat both eyes' images as having the same dominance and won't it deinterlace each them. How to trick the 50p player into correctly recombining the two 50i's? (I'm writing this in ignorance of the method of 3D display.)

Dennis Couzin
Berlin, Germany

Great thread, varied opinions.

Craig writes-
[Your brain likes 60p. It makes sense to you along with whatever else goes into YOUR AESTHETIC. ]

I agree with part two. Part one? I guess it depends on passive or active brain. The magic of 24 fps is how it works within your brain. In traditional film, half the time you're sitting in the dark, and your brain is making the movie. (So yes, you should only be paying half the ticket price, take it up at the box office, and good luck to you!) The so-called "film look" is really nothing more than "the film feel" which comes from participating with the projection to make the movie, as opposed to more frames, like 50 or 60, which bombard you, and really don't give you any chance for perceptual transaction. You take it or leave it, so to speak.

Shane goes "yuch" and I agree, I watched STAR TREK with Samsung smoothing and it was almost embarrassing to watch grown men and woman in futuristic clothing emoting in a live TV studio.

Turned it off and I was back on the bridge of the Enterprise...

Smoothing NOT.

It's why film has always been likened to dreams.

- Loren

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The "look" of 24/30p provides a frame within which to tell stories that happen in places or a time-frame the viewer is not currently in.
The look provides a kind of proscenium to tell a story behind which makes it easy for your brain to "suspend disbelief" and go along for the ride.

As soon as you introduce the live look, your brain is fighting the desire to "suspend disbelief" with the obvious real-time look of it.
Instead of accepting the actors as the stories' characters, you see actors reading lines, in costumes, on a set with crew and equipment
just out of the shot.

To Loren Miller and Sproketz. When there is no motion in the frame, 24p video and 60p video look the same, although 24 fps cinema and 60 fps cinema don't look the same (because of the black interruptions at 2 or 3 times the fps in projected cinema, etc.) For very slight motion in the frame, 24p video and 60p video still look the same. For some degree of motion they look different. Experiments are needed to determine this degree. The problem with your movie-metaphysics-for-video is that one can watch several seconds or minutes of the video (shot and displayed) at 24p or the video (shot and displayed) at 60p without perceptual difference.

I gave some details about 24 fps cinema in a post about 55 hours ago. Another important detail is cinema grain which is visible and "alive" at 24 fps (but not at 60 fps). I doubt that 24p video provides much of the 24 fps film look. It was my mistake at the beginning of the strand to mention cinema. We should concentrate on the 24p video vs. 60p video differences.

Dennis Couzin
Berlin, Germany