Up rez from DVX100A

[Leon Rodriguez]

Met with a young director who wants to shoot a tiny feature on a DVX100A in 24P with aspirations of possibly blowing it up to 35mm. I'm skeptical about whether or not this is possible. The up-rez is basically line doubling, isn't it? If not how is it done? Seems like that would blur the edges like an aliasing effect. Even so, will the image hold up to a scan to film? Any wisdom on who does it? Or better yet, who does it best?

[David Mullen ASC]

I shot a test with the original DVX100 that DV.Film in Texas transferred to 35mm negative (Fuji F-64D) using a CRT recorder. Looked OK, like soft 16mm photography shot on fine-grained film. I also saw Dave Klien's test of the DVX100 vs. SDX900 transferred at Laser Pacific using an Arrilaser. Again, the DVX100 looked soft, like a soft 16mm blow-up with some digital artifacts. It was OK for a small theater screen or for digital projection on a small theater screen.

 

Since you're in Texas, why don't you go over to DV.Film and see if they can screen some examples for you?

[Jack Barker]

There's an outfit called SwissEffects that gets a lot of positive buzz and I don't think their prices are out of order, although I've never done business with them.

 

http://www.swisseffects.ch/

 

One thing they have on their web site is a downloadable pdf file specifically for DVX100A settings to be used if you're going to go through the transfer.

 

It says,

 

? NTSC, 24p Standard: Material shot in this mode will be similar in motion reproduction like a telecine of a film (24p) onto NTSC in standard definition and then recording back onto film. Feasible but not really good.

? NTSC, 24p Advanced: USE THIS MODE FOR BEST RESULTS for transfer to film. For the shootout on film of material shot in the 24p advanced mode a special pulldown is required. Your editing program needs to offer this feature (Final Cut Pro 4 does). YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO edit in 24p! Else all the advantage of this mode is futile!

 

Or download the pdf yourself at:

 

http://www.swisseffects.ch/english/e_tape/pages/e_tape.htm

[Mitch Gross]

Leon--

 

I'd ask this again in the DVX100A forum down at the bottom of the main page. Jan Crittenden, the camera's product manager from Panasonic USA can give you plenty of info. She and Abel Cine Tech have shown me examples of uprezzing and film outs that were frankly a lot better looking then I ever thought they would be. Worth checking out.

[Bill Totolo]

I recently shot a short using the Panasonic DVX-100 in 24P mode. I captured it into Avid Express Pro at 24P and exported it to a Sony DSR-11 deck. I thought the motion looked horrible. A very "fake" looking frame rate. Everything was very staccato looking. I shot with the shutter off. So I re-captured at 30i, output to the same DSR-11 and everything looked hunky-dory (fine).

 

My concern is two-fold, primarily that this project is being projected onto a huge screen and I don't want any motion artifacts distracting the audience and, secondly, I'm prepping a feature and the director wants to use the Panasonic to shoot in 24P. Will a film out look similar to the motion I saw on my Sony monitor? If so I want to recomend shooting- but not capturing in 24P.

 

Anyone ever do a 30i vs. 24P filmout comparison? I've done filmouts at 30i with the Arri laser and was very satisfied. As David stated, a bit soft but that's to be expected, in certain situations, beneficial.

 

 

 

Thanks,

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

I'd have to see it, but the whole 24p pulldown issue with the DVX100 and FCP is very complex and fraught with opportunity for error. It's possible that something in the chain from camera to NLE to deck wasn't set up right - I presume you'd be able to recognise somethig as simple as field inversion although it would look very odd as part of a 3:2 stream.

 

Have you considered shooting with a PAL DVX-100? Easier frame rate issues and more resolution.

 

Phil

[David Mullen ASC]

The motion artifacts of 24P transferred to film and projected at 24 fps will be similar to shooting film at 24 fps if you use a similar shutter speed. Much better than shooting in 30P or 60i. There's no advantage in going from 24P to 60i for a film-out either. But definitely shoot at 24P or 25P PAL instead of 30P or 60i for a film-out.

 

In terms of watching 24P on video, remember that film projection uses a twin-bladed shutter to reduce flicker and 60i uses a 3:2 pulldown. If you simply watched an image flashed 24 times a second, it would look very flickery.

[Bill Totolo]

In terms of watching 24P on video, remember that film projection uses a twin-bladed shutter to reduce flicker and 60i uses a 3:2 pulldown.  If you simply watched an image flashed 24 times a second, it would look very flickery.

Good point.

 

Follow up question. What if this project doesn't get transferred to film but is projected digitally?

Am I better off capturing at 30fps? Seems to me the motion would look smoother.

 

And just to be clear on this post and my last. I intend on shooting 24P in camera. I'm just curious if we're not better off capturing at 30fps and exporting at 30fps in the NLE.

 

I know the best advice is to test but I appreciate the forum's opinions.

 

Thanks again.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

If you're going to shoot 24p, post it as 24p. You're only capturing and storing a whole load of duplicate fields otherwise. Watching it as true 24p on a computer monitor, projection, or as a projected film print could look somewhat different to the (frankly very odd-looking) 3:2 pulldown when you watch it off the camera tape on your TV, but that's something you'll have to evaluate personally.

 

Phil

[David Mullen ASC]

30P would always look smoother than 24P but it creates all sorts of cross-compatibility issues -- i.e. it looks lousy in PAL.

 

24P for digital projection is not really a problem (you see it all the time in the DLP-Cinema released movies like "Collateral" right now in some theaters.) Like a computer monitor, it uses a high refresh rate so you aren't getting 24 flashes a second.

[Jack Barker]

Regarding flicker, maybe this will help:

 

DETAIL FREQUENCY (available only in the progressive mode):

The DVX100 has the options THICK or THIN, the DVX100A has an additional intermediate option. The THIN setting is only recommended if you are explicitly shooting for transfer to film. It will introduce a line flickering when the tape is viewed on a standard interlaced monitor. The flickering will not be there if you convert your images into files for transfer to film. The resolution is slightly better with the THIN setting, but you will not be able to do a CRT transfer (only ARRI Laser) and the flickering will always be there on a tape version of your film.

Only use this option if you are absolutely sure of what you are dealing with!

[Bill Totolo]

[Watching it as true 24p on a computer monitor, projection, or as a projected film print could look somewhat different to the (frankly very odd-looking) 3:2 pulldown when you watch it off the camera tape on your TV, but that's something you'll have to evaluate personally.

 

Phil]

It sounds like you're saying shooting and posting at 24P may look fine when projected or viewed on a computer monitor but won't it still look stroby on consumer TV's?

 

What would you recomend for DVD/VHS distribution (even if only 100 copies are made)?

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

Hang on, first things first - does it look different after it's been through FCP than it looks if you watch it straight off the camera tape? If so, something is wrong.

 

Phil

[Bill Totolo]

Hi,

 

Hang on, first things first  - does it look different after it's been through FCP than it looks if you watch it straight off the camera tape? If so, something is wrong.

 

Phil

I firewired it into AXP 4.3 with a Sony DSR-11 which doesn't have a playback monitor. I did not have a client monitor set up at capture. I brought it into work at export and viewed it on a Sony PVM-20M4U monitor.

 

After cutting a 24P version and a 30i version the 30i is what looks normal to me. My point of contention in 24P is in panning, handheld and Steadicam shots (obviously).

 

I followed the instruction manual for capturing footage shot with the Panasonic DVX-100 at 24P, which included Audio offset of 1 frame. Only mentioning this because everything was in synch and went smoothly at capture/digital cut stages.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

> After cutting a 24P version and a 30i version

 

How exactly do your NLE settings differ between these two versions? What numbers are you changing, what checkboxes are you selecting? Do you set 24p at capture and have it throw away the extra fields then, or is it something you choose to do to already-captured material?

 

The reason I ask is that most NLEs don't understand these issues that well. If you cut a 24fps timeline then just play it back at 30, you may find that it just doubles frames every so often (every five or so) to get back to 30, which naturally looks horrible. Making it do a proper 3:2 pulldown may require you to hit a special button somewhere. Needless to say if you do a 30i timeline you will probably just be cutting material with 3:2 already in it, obviating the whole issue, but your pulldown cadence will then be all over the shop and there is no frame accurate way to recover it.

 

I don't really know how Avid and other packages handle this as needless to say 3:2 pulldown isn't something that really affects me. Which is good!

 

Phil

[Bill Totolo]

Nope there's no button for it, Phil. I had to re-dig. and recut in entirety.

 

One version exists as a digital cut that was digitized at 24P and a completely seperate digital cut exists that was digitized at 30fps.

 

24P looks choppy, 30 looks 'normal'.

 

When I burned DVD's of both the 24P looked choppy, 30 looked 'normal'.

 

Some people think the 24P footage looked' filmic'. To me it looked like I shot with an XL-1 in "movie mode". Yuck.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

Can you make some (brief) objectionable scenes available online a a Quicktime or AVI movie, in both versions?

 

Phil

[Bill Totolo]

I know that QuickTime will drop frames. Not sure about avi.

I don't have a website to post to anyway.

 

Maybe I'll mail you both versions when I get the audio files back.

 

Are you coming to the screening? : )

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

> I know that QuickTime will drop frames

 

Why would it? It's going to be a reasonably lengthy download but I'd get it all.

 

Phil

[Bill Totolo]

I read it will drop a file down to 15fps, but that may have been under a certain compression at medium quality. You're right, it will probably be fine if I find the correct resolution.

 

Where can I post it?

 

Side note: Q/T always seems to raise the pedastal +7.5 IRE no matter what the camera was set fot (0 or 7.5 IRE). I shot at 7.5, thus the result is a ped of +15 IRE.

There are no solutions for this on the forums I've visited. Any ideas?

 

Also, I do not have access to DSL, so...

[Jon Allen]

I read it will drop a file down to 15fps, but that may have been under a certain compression at medium quality. You're right, it will probably be fine if I find the correct resolution.

 

Where can I post it?

 

Side note: Q/T always seems to raise the pedastal +7.5 IRE no matter what the camera was set fot (0 or 7.5 IRE). I shot at 7.5, thus the result is a ped of +15 IRE.

There are no solutions for this on the forums I've visited. Any ideas?

 

Also, I do not have access to DSL, so...

QT conversion in FCP can be anything you want it to be, there's a pulldown menu and it can be almost any framerate. In my experience mpg4 format is usually an interlaced image, no matter what the framerate is. On the other hand, if you're using compressor as your mpg2 format-izer, I have no idea what the framerate would end up being (my computer is currently busy with a project right now, no way to tell. Anyone sure?

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

Well, if you drop the rate and compress it, I probably won't be able to see what's going on. Post the full thing - I only need to see a couple of seconds, which should be under 10Mb as DV.

 

Phil

[Jan Crittenden]

In reading these posts about the 24P looking jumpy and not smooth but the 30 i cut looking fine, my bet would be that the 24P was shot at standrd 24P and the problem arose when digitized into Express Pro. The Avid only knows how to extract 24PA. So if the video was shot at 24P the pull down goes AA BB BC CD DD. in 24PA the video goes AA BB BC CC DD. So if you use Express Pro you need to shoot in the 24PA or the 24P extraction will net you real garbage as it will be trying to extract from the 24P cadence with the 24PA cadence. This would net a very strange looking piece. The fact that the footage looked fine before digitizing, and the fact that it looked fine posting it in 30i, are my clues that this was the problem.

 

24P or 24PA both work very well and if I were shooting in either and looking to do a film out, I would extract before editing. The 24PA is just easier to extract and on the firewire systems is the more common cadence to use. The downside of it is in the shooting as it doesn't look as smooth as standard 2:3. However after shooting it you get used to it to the point that you really believe that you cannot see the difference between 2:3 and 2:3:3:2. Don't worry about it looking odd on the monitor as the edit systems put a 3:2 backinto the monitor stream.

 

Now to comment on the blow up to 35mm. I have seen it done well and I have seen it done poorly. Be very careful about adding too much detail on the DV footage, you can sharpen in High Def Post. The best blow up I have seen was the film November. They did an upconvert to HD and then did a Laser Print of that.

 

Hope that helps,

 

Jan

[Craig Tarry]

I just tried to post and I don't think it worked, so I'll try this......

 

Hello, I'm a photographer who's getting into DV with the intent of shooting a 15min. short. I'm considering buying the DVX100A - in fact I'm considering buying two - I'd like your opinions of this camera as opposed to other prosumer models, especially in regards to tranferring video to film of theatre viewing.

 

Thanks for any help. I know this is a new frontier and perhaps there are no easy answers - Craig

[Jack Barker]

Craig,

It's a great camera and will do most anything you ask of it, except shoot in really, really low light. And it will do it beautifully. The lens is superb. Just be careful who you buy it from - beware the "grey market". Right Jan? ;)

 

You might also want to visit another great board, DVXuser.com, especially if you have specific technical questions.

 

http://www.dvxuser.com/cgi-bin/DVX2/YaBB.pl