HDV telecine... frame accurate?

Chris Keth · February 15, 2006

No, it isn't "just scanning." Scanning - frame by frame - is scanning. Telecine is a real time video process, which means that it outputs video. That, in turn, means that the only formats directly available from a telecine process are valid video formats, such as standard def video (aka, 480/60i) and HD video (aka, 720p/60, 1080i/60, and 1080p/23.98). Anything else you might want, such as 720p/24, needs to be created via conversion from one of these valid video formats.

Yes, in essence, telecine IS just scanning. Just because it outputs to a video format doesn't necessarily mean some sort of pulldown will be applied. That only happens if it needs to happen or so I've been told by one of Kodak's colorists.

Edited February 15, 2006 by Christopher D. Keth

Phil Rhodes · February 15, 2006

Hi,

I think we're splitting hairs here, especially when some equipment - such as a Spirit 2K - will do both.

Telecine is however the term customarily used to refer to transfer to a video tape format, although that's being challenged by people simply hooking up capture cards to the output of telecines.

At the end of the day, call it what you like.

Phil

Michael Most · February 16, 2006

Yes, in essence, telecine IS just scanning. Just because it outputs to a video format doesn't necessarily mean some sort of pulldown will be applied. That only happens if it needs to happen or so I've been told by one of Kodak's colorists.

The only frame rates supported by standard definition video are 25 (actually 50, since it's field based) and 29.97 (actually 59.94, since it's field based as well). The only frame rates supported by high definition video are 23.98. 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 59.94, and 60 - and those are only available in 1080 formats. For 720p, 30 and 60 are the only supported frame rates (and I've never heard of anyone actually using anything other than 60). Any other frame rate requires a pulldown pattern of some sort. So if you're going to standard definition video, and your film was shot at anything other than 25 or 30, it requires pulldown. It also means that 720/24p only exists in the world of computers, it is not an actual video format. That, I believe, is was was being discussed here.

Since I have been a colorist since long before they were called colorists (we were "telecine operators" when I started, around 1979 or so) I don't really subscribe to the current tendency to use terminology to refer to things other than those actually intended. Telecine is a real time process that yields a video signal. Scanning is a non-real OR real time process that yields data files. One requires the device to operate in certain standards and at real time frame rates, the other does not. These are two different things, no matter how many people here seem to think they're not. A film camera and a video camera do the same thing (capture moving images) very, very differently, but that doesn't make them the same device.