P2 720 to 1080

I'm on a new project where the lion's share of footage was shot on HVX200 P2 720p. The delivery is to 1080i and the editor wants to setup sequences for 1080. There is no upres in log and transfer.
Asking for suggested workflows? Should I upres the 720 qt's, leave it as 720 qt's in 1080 seq's? Not sure what is best or what to suggest.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

This is not exactly the answer you are looking for but if I were doing the edit I would cut the project as 720p and upconvert only the final edit for delivery. 1080i is usually a broadcast format. For other deliverables progressive formats are a better choice. So if you have any designs on web or screen delivery I would avoid cutting in 1080i.

Vic is EXACTLY right. Cut 720, and output 1080i. A Kona 3 will upconvert (actually, it's called "cross convert" in real time...and it's a hardware upconvert that's solid. I've cut and delivered a dozen TV shows that way.


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Quote
sgscott
shot on HVX200 P2 720p

What 720p? In NTSC-land, that camera shoots 24p, 30p, and 60p. There, 1080i means 60i. So you have a fine conversion if the 720p is 60p, a decent conversion if the 720p is 30p, and a sad time if the 720p is 24p.

Dennis Couzin
Berlin, Germany

No...720p24 converts EASILY to 1080i60. AJA Kona...and Decklink, and Matrox...add pulldown properly, just like when 24fps film is scanned to 29.97 tape. It looks great. Again, I've edited a dozen shows this way. Shot 720p24...output 1080i60. Looked great.


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J U D D E R

What judder? Frames are spread out across fields.

Watch a movie on HBO? Heck...a DVD? Those are 29.97...interlaced. But were shot on film, 24fps. Seriously, this is the BASICS of film to video. 3:2 pulldown. Done all the time.


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The Kona and other hardware add proper 3:2 pulldown on output. FCP does not, thus why you see judder if you do this on the timeline. And trying to use 60i footage in a 23.98 timeline will also judder.


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In 60Hz countries we have seen so much 2:3 judder that we think it is normal. Heck we are weaned on it. Now those of you in the 50hz world, well not so much.

One reality to consider in the post video tape file based world is getting from 24p to 1080i without the baseband/hardware step. For that you need to be sure to do a proper pass in a software encoder like Compressor, Episode or Sorenson.

Quote
Shane Ross
The Kona and other hardware add proper 3:2 pulldown on output. FCP does not, thus why you see judder if you do this on the timeline.

I don't know or care what FCP does in this case. "Proper 3:2 pulldown" is illustrated here. (The picture actually shows 2:3 pulldown, which makes no difference.) Notice how frame A is split into two fields; frame B is split into 3 fields; frame C is split into 2 fields, etc. How this 59.94i looks depends on the display device. Some devices double deinterlace it to 59.94p. Then approximations to frame A display for 0.033 sec; approximations to frame B display for 0.050 sec; approximations to frame C display for 0.033 sec; etc. That's juddery. Simpler devices can do even worse. Even the smartest display device that detects that your 59.94i thing is a reverse telecined 24p thing can't display it on a 59.94 Hz display as uniform 24p. It can only do that on a 72 Hz, 96 Hz, 120 Hz, etc. display.

Younger eyes can detect judder and other time flow abnormalities better than older eyes can. Younger viewers however have seen mostly tortured time flow in moving images and have learned not to care about this. Thus uniform time flow may cease being an aesthetic feature of moving pictures in the future.

Dennis Couzin
Berlin, Germany

Thank you everyone, for your contributions. Very helpful.

The footage is 720 24p

Another consideration we have is that graphics are provided at 1080 30p (a lot of this throughout 13 episodes), and green screen shots at 1080i 60i (best resolution we can get from the Panasonic P2) for keying. The gs shots are mainly host narrations interspersed throughout.

Wait...you shot TWO DIFFERENT FRAME RATES?!? And the graphics won't be coming in as 23.98? That's bad. Seriously, that's a bad bad bad idea. FCP doesn't mix frame rates well at all...and converting 30p to 24p is worse than 24p to 60i. TONS worse.

If you keyed the host and GFX artists are compositing these...tell them to provide 1080p 23.98 files. After Effects can make 30p into 24p better than FCP...even then, it's difficult.

Oy.


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So it seems that you will be editing in 1080i as that is the format that both 720p 24 and 1080p 30 will convert to easily. Other combinations are difficult at best. I don't know what software you have available but you should probably run your 720p material as a batch to scale and rate convert to 1080i. Compressor will do this, as will other programs.

As Shane points out, just dropping the 720 files on a 1080i Final Cut timeline will seem to work BUT the pull down is not 2:3. It is some odd but computationally easy cadence. That will judder. Best pre-process the stuff.

We can direct the gfx artists to produce whatever. That's not a problem. Also, we haven't yet shot most of the gs's.

I am currently in the process of capturing the P2 footage using L & T and was capturing it using the native DVCHD 720p60. I wasn't sure whether to use that or Pro Res 422 (HQ), or whether I should be trying to upres during capture using something else?

We are using FCP 7, FCS 3
GFX AE, 4D, etc.
I also have a Kona LHi
Also Episode and Compressor 4.1

If you have not yet shot the majority of green screens, perhaps we are back to the idea of editing 720p 24?

You might want to key one of your shots, and then scale, rate convert and de-interlace the composite to 720p 24. Edit that back against your other footage. Finally rescale to 1080i. Look and see if you can live with the result.

Or perhaps only edit the show segments that contain 1080i GS as 1080i. Do the rest as 720, cross convert and do final assembly in 1080i.

Really it is kind of hard to advise, as the amount of material at different rates for each segment of each show is kind of important.

In any case use Compressor to do your scaling and rate conversions.

The reason for the gs shots being shot at that res is because I have tried keying 720; but the keys are never as good as at the higher res shots. GFX has the same issue.

I use a Keylight plugin for fcp.

Fair enough. What are you keying over? Perhaps you could key using 1080 p24 as your size and rate, then rescale the composites to 720 to match your edit?

On the HVX200 P2 there is a 1080i 24p setting. Is that what you mean? I could try. Sure.

I don't know the camera, but as I understand it Panasonic records 24p in that mode by adding the 2:3 pull down we are discussing. I believe it is possible to reverse telecine this to produce true 1080p 24 frames. Others here can chime in, but I believe you do this with Cinema tools.

This would give you 1080 frames that match your footage frame rate. If you composite at that size and export current settings movies, you could then use them as is in Final Cut as source in a 720p timeline. FCP would scale them for you.

Am I correct here folks?

It shoots 1080p 24pA...that's 24p Advanced Pulldown...and yes, in a 29.97 stream. This pulldown is removed during the LOG AND TRANSFER process...just check off "REMOVE ADVANCED PULLDOWN" in the L&T preferences...


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I'm just barely hangin' on here folks. I got confused, Shane, when you mentioned "24pA" and "29.97 stream". There is a setting for 1080i 24p, and a setting for 1080i 24pa on the HVX200 P2.


Also, when capturing the P2 footage, does anyone have a preference as to Pro Res 422 (HQ), or DVCPRO HD which is the native footage?


Also, the consensus at this point seems to be:

Capture = 720p 24p

Edit = 720p 24p

GFX = 1080p 24p

GS = 1080i 24p (will have to try this), would rather have 1080p and the highest fr possible; but 1080i seems to be it as far as settings.

Output = 1080i 29.97 for broadcast (priority use); 720p 29.97 for YouTube/Vimeo/downloads.

???

"There is a setting for 1080i 24p, and a setting for 1080i 24pa on the HVX200 P2. "

1080i 24p will record the 24p "look" at 29.97. It'll look like 23.98, but run at 29.97. This is great if you want all the looks of 23.98, but need to deliver 29.97...which is your exact situation. Next time...use this option.

1080i 24pA is the one I mentioned. That settings puts flags on the footage for Advanced Pulldown to be removed, so you can convert it to 23.98.


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So it sounds like neither one of these really records in 23.98 and would have to be converted if we edit at 24p?

The only 23.98 native recording format that camera offers is 720p 24PN. But 1080i 24pA, as I said, will remove the pulldown when you import...so when imported, it'll be 1080p 23.98 DVCPRO HD.

And stick to using DVCPRO HD. No benefit in converting to ProRes 422. Perhaps do the final render in ProRes, or the color grade render out to ProREs. But you'll gain no quality beforehand.


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Got it. Thanks.

I guess I was wondering about whether there would be any editing benefit?

Let's try to make some sense of this confusing discussion of 2:3 pulldown and judder.

Quote
Wikipedia article entitled "Telecine"
[Advanced Pulldown] has a slight bit more judder than [2:3].

So 2:3 pulldown is juddery.

Quote
Wikipedia article entitled "24p"
...the aesthetic of 24p motion is retained [with 2:3 pulldown]

So 2:3 pulldown is not juddery.

Quote
VPiccin (January 15)
In 60Hz countries we have seen so much 2:3 judder that we think it is normal.

So 2:3 pulldown is juddery.

Quote
"VPiccin (January 16)"
...just dropping the 720 files on a 1080i Final Cut timeline will seem to work BUT the pull down is not 2:3. It is some odd but computationally easy cadence. That will judder.

So 2:3 pulldown is not juddery.

Why these contradictions? It's a messy subject, and the term "judder" is itself ambiguous. A thoughtful webpage [www.isovideo.com] distinguishes "input frame rate judder" from "presentation judder". All 24 fps moving pictures have "input frame rate judder". At 24 fps, faster movements strobe; they are staccato or jumpy. That is not what I mean by "judder". I mean "presentation judder". Judder is the visual unsmoothness resulting from unequal display times of frames. Judder includes a quality of irregularity which true 24 fps display doesn't have.

Another part of the mess comes from not knowing how the 60i video will be displayed. It can be on a CRT for true 60i. It can be converted to 60p by the modern display device in various ways. Today the most common display of 2:3 telecined 24p -> 60i displays frames A, C, E, etc. each for about 33 ms, frames B, D, F etc. each for about 50 ms. These unequal display times make judder if it's visible. If it's invisible, it's cool. But if it's visible, regardless of whether you like it or think it is the normal 24p "look", it's judder.

If you have absolutely reliable 24 fps and 60 fps playback, you can play an ABCD... film at 24 fps and compare this with an AABBBCCDDD... film at 60 fps. Do they look identical? Is the second one somewhat juddery?

I, like most of us, have only 60 fps playback so must work with 60p clips to be sure how they're displayed. I shot an action and made four 60p test clips, simulating four framerates, from this shot. The original frames are A,B,C,... and the clips were made as follows:
.....prok_60 consists of frames A, C, E, G, ...
.....prok_30 consists of frames A, A, E, E, I, I, M, M, ...
.....prok_24 consists of frames A, A, F, F, F, K, K, P, P, P, ... Note the 2:3 pulldown.
.....prok_20 consists of frames A, A, A, G, G, G, M, M, M, S, S, S, ...

When played, these 60p clips show the same action at the same speed but with different "motion". (A defect in the experiment is that motion blur corresponds to 180° shutter for prok_60, but proportionally smaller shutters for the other clips.) The clips may be downloaded here.

The "input frame rate judder" will of course be least with prok_60 and greatest with prok_20. If there were only "input frame rate judder", prok_24 would look about midway between prok_20 and prok_30. It doesn't. "Presentation judder" is only possible with the 2:3 telecine prok_24. Unless your eyes are well trained the two kinds of judder tend to add perceptually into a single disturbance. We'd have proof that 2:3 telecine makes presentation judder if prok_24 had more total disturbance than prok_20. Viewers find the two to have approximately equal total disturbance. When they look closely they identify a qualitative difference: prok_24 has an jarring irregularity that prok_20 lacks. Young eyes see this better than old eyes. 2:3 pulldown is juddery.

Dennis Couzin
Berlin, Germany

As always Dennis your method is superb. My question tho, is 24p tp 60i presentation necessarily bad? To several generations of people on 60Hz countries film on television has always had this judder. It is part of what defines filmed drama from sport or live news.

VPiccin: Yes and no. People who watched movies mostly on 60i television correctly distinguished a "film look" in the 2:3 telecine material versus a "TV look" in the true 60i material. There was no 24p display available for comparison. Now there is, and digital home theater connoisseurs recognize that 2:3 telecine looks less like film than honest 24p does. Still, 2:3 telecine has some resemblance to honest 24p, and it has more of a "film look" than 60i has.

The judder in 2:3 telecine is a nasty addition to honest 24p. It adds an awkward nervousness to a simple jumpiness. We should use our eyes and recognize this. There is some age dependence in this, but not so much to make it aesthetically irrelevant.

But is nasty time flow necessarily bad? I don't think so. The time flow is the substrate for the moving picture. Just as painters may choose coarse canvas for their finely detailed oil paintings, motion picture makers may choose an awkward nervous time flow as their substrate even for non-awkward non-nervous subjects. Of course 24 fps cinematography didn't choose the 2:3 telecine time flow, but now we have more choices.

I just watched a digital "restoration" of Murnau's "Faust" in the Berlin Film Festival. Silent films should be projected at about 16 fps. This "restoration" inserted some frame blending into the time flow. The slimy thing I saw was not Murnau's "Faust". Mephisto was marvellous, but other characters might have appeared more sympathetically in the real work. Time flow matters.

Dennis Couzin
Berlin, Germany