Combustion and 24p

#1

Hey i have a question about using 24p footage from a dvx100a camera in combustion. No matter what i do the footage still looks very interlaced. I have the framerate set at 24 fps. Should it be set at 29.9? Now the camera uses a 3-2-2-3 pulldown to create the 24p. Does combustion not support this? I would think combustion would have something for this, because the camera is so popular.

#2

Make sure the footage is being set properly. If the camera is doing 3:2 pulldown make sure that combustion is deinterlacing or applying a 3:2 pulldown at the footage level.

-Eric

#3

Thanks. I’ll try using the 3:2 pulldown instead of 3:2:2:3 on the camera. Maybe that is the problem.

#4

Sorry my response should have read “make sure that Combustion isn’t deinterlacing or doing 3:2 pulldown…” If Combustion thinks the footage is DV it will do its default settings of deinterlacing, I believe.

-Eric

#5

oh ok. Well I’m just not sure if Combustion can do a 3:2:2:3 pulldown. You would think it could but it isnt mentioned in the help file. It just talks about deinterlacing and 3:2 pulldowns. Also, if im doing a 3:2 pulldown or a 3:2:2:3 pulldown with 24p footage, should I set the framerate to 24 or 29.97?

#6

I guess the first appropriate question I should ask is:

How are you capturing your footage from your camera?

Are you using editing software like Premiere Pro or Vegas? If you are, you need to make sure that your settings are setup correctly for 24p. If you are capturing using combustion’s quick-capture feature, that is probably where you are messing up. I don’t think combustion supports 24p capture. The only settings that I saw were for NTSC (29.97fps) and PAL (25fps). If you are not using combustion, then just make sure that the software you are doing the capture is setup and supports 24p capture.

Once you have that figured out, all you have to do is open the captured footage in combustion and make sure it is interpolating the footage properly on the footage level. Footage should be 24fps and NO fields and NO 3:2 pulldown. If your target is for DVD or broadcast, then make sure your composite level settings are setup for 29.97fps and lower field first (NTSC). Combustion should perform the 2:3 pull-up and render the proper frame rate and field order.

I hope this helps,

JB…

#7

I haven’t captured videos using combustion but I’ll try to gve you an idea how to get a 24p material.

AFAIK, dvx100 is capable of 24p recording but since there is really no 24p format for DV, the camera has to add 3:2 pulldown at playback to NTSC (29.97…fps). If you see an ntsc setting in combustion then use that setting and grab your material.

Your recorded material is 29.97 fps wth 2:3 pulldown. To get the 24p video, you have to remove the pulldown using a plugin. I’m not sure if combustion has that or even AE. Premier doesn’t have that abilty to remove pulldown and I have no idea with FCP. I use shake to do this by the way but my usual approach is to get 24p processed materials from FFI/smoke and export them to combustion.

There are commercial plugins that remove 3:2 pulldown in videos. I’m not that sure if the current version of combustion has that native feature.

By the way what 3:2 pulldown means is that your 24p material is added with 6 additional frames to compensate for the difference between 24p and 29.97 (or 30 fps) to achieve a normal playback at NTSC format. It is interlaced in a manner whein you have 3 solid frames and two interlaced frames in sequence. To record back your 24p material to camera you have to reverse the process and re-introduce the pulldown again.

#8

I have a DVX-100 and do all my shooting in 24p.

Basically, I capture the footage using Vegas. This captures the direct DV stream, so it is capturing at 29.97 fps (60i), then when Vegas opens the video it inserts a 3:2 or 2:3:3:2 pulldown depending on whether I used the 24p or the 24pa setting in the camera.

I typically shoot in the 24pa setting (2:3:3:2), capture into Vegas, and then render out an avi or quicktime at true 23.997 progressive fps. This way, when I open the video in Combustion or Fusion I don’t have to worry about adding the pulldown, and the slower framerate speeds up the processing of effects.

If you’re not going to capture - render - open in Combustion, then you’ll have to shoot in the 24p 3:2 setting, then open the capture in Combustion and set it for “insert 3:2 pulldown” under the footage loader. Combustion doesn’t perform 2:3:3:2 pulldown.

If you want more info on the whole 24p thing, check out www.adamwilt.com, he has some great articles in there on how the frames are divided to produce true 24p from 60i dv footage.

#9

Alright I figured that combustion didnt do a 3:2:2:3 pulldown. I’ll know in the future if im going to combustion to do just regular 24p instead of 24pa. Thanks for all the help guys.

#10

If you want to work in 24p you should shoot 24pa and find a program that can remove the advanced 2:3:3:2 pulldown before you import the footage into combustion. FCP for instance can remove it very easily. If you shoot 24p (as mentioned before) you’ll end up with interlaced frames.

#11

Does shooting with DVX100 in 24p and color correction in Combustion produce an believable film look? I’m thinking about buying that configuration of hardware/software.

Mikail

#12

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