Frame VS Field for video

[aiki88]

I shot some footage using a Canon GL2 in FRAME mode- my question is, do I render this footage in Frame mode of Lower Field first? When I tried to render some FRAME shot footage with some other DV footage, MSpro kept changing the Frame back to field on the FRAME rendered footage. Do I need to render only an entire project that was shot in FRAME? Help appreciated.

[thecoalman]

I shot some footage using a Canon GL2 in FRAME mode- my question is, do I render this footage in Frame mode of Lower Field first? When I tried to render some FRAME shot footage with some other DV footage, MSpro kept changing the Frame back to field on the FRAME rendered footage. Do I need to render only an entire project that was shot in FRAME? Help appreciated.

Use Frame for frame mode and lower field first for the normal setting.

You can't mix them without first converting one to the other, the biggest obstacle is the framerate conversion. Frame mode uses 24 FPS your nomal footage is going to be 29.976 FPS.

You best bet is to just leave them as is. If your authoring them to disc you can use DVD Workshop which supports multiple VTS to put them on the same disc.

Here's some better info on what your dealing with: http://www.projectorpeople.com/tutorials/pulldown.asp

[rwernyei]

aiki88,
Just keep in mind that not all cameras that have a "frame mode" are actually shooting "progressive scan". Some cameras (such as the GL2 & XL2) approximate a progressive image while operating the physical CCD (light sensor) in interlaced mode.

It's still better than de-interlacing, but not quite as clear as true progressive.

Also note that, since the video is captured as DV, MSP may indicate that the video is field based, even though the actual IMAGE is frame based.

Hope this helps.

the coalman wrote:
Frame mode uses 24 FPS your nomal footage is going to be 29.976 FPS.

Wrong. Progressive frame mode can be shot in a number of different frames per second not just 24P. Sony TRV900 shoots 15P, Panasonic AG DVX100A shoots 24P, 30P. Just to name a few. After editing, for NTSC land it will be rendered as 29.976 FPS.

[thecoalman]

Wrong. Progressive frame mode can be shot in a number of different frames per second not just 24P. Sony TRV900 shoots 15P, Panasonic AG DVX100A shoots 24P, 30P and 60P. Just to name a few. After editing, for NTSC land it will be rendered as 29.976 FPS.

No right, the Canon GL2 shoots at 24FPS ......and only 24FPS in frame mode. Is there a reason I should have gone off about other cams that he's not using?

[rwernyei]

No, WRONG!

Read this, it's located under Frame Movie Mode:
http://www.dvinfo.net/canongl2/reports/gl2-rl2.php

[thecoalman]

No, WRONG!

Read this, it's located under Frame Movie Mode:
http://www.dvinfo.net/canongl2/reports/gl2-rl2.php

You are correct, my apologies. My info came from a cursory glance for the frame option in the manual when I first got the cam a few months ago "since this framerate is close to that of a movie" which lead me to believe it was 24fps. I never investigated further and I haven't gotten around to experimenting with the frame mode so it never dawned on me that my assumption was wrong. Thanks for pointing that out.

[aiki88]

Thanks for the help- so do I understand all of this: I should render DV footage shot in the Frame Mode in the Canon GL2 then render it in Frame mode? And only if the entire project is shot in this mode?

[thecoalman]

Yes, like I said you can import them into authoring app like DVDWS that supports multiple VTS so you can author them as is avoiding havinf to cnvert one to the other. When working with video you want to process it as little as possible.

[rwernyei]

aiki88,
MSP usually recognizes the field or frame order of the clip upon insertion. Check media source options. If you are using only progressive material as source, you can always use the Auto-Deinterlace feature that came with the new 7.2 update pack.

[praebo1557]

thecoalman I totally agree with you.

[NickJushchyshyn]

Some additional notes....
Even though the camera writes the information in a "frame mode", the DV spec for the data is still interlaced. When you capture the Frame Mode video, it's still "DV" data and will be perceived as field based by the capture software. When you look at media options for the source clip, it will say Lower Field (since that's the "data" format), even though the images on each frame are not interlaced.

Knowing that, the next choice to make is how you want your FINAL video to look. You can't really "re-interlace" frame mode video, so it's typically easier to maintain a consistent image by creating frame based output when mixing interlaced and frame mode video sources.

To do this simply set your project settings to be Frame Based. The important thing that this does for MSP is configure animations, transition, filter adjustments, etc. to be applied to entire frames at once, rather than in an interlaced fashion.
(For an interlaced project, if a filter setting is transitioning from say 50 in one frame, to 100 in the next, MSP is smart enough to render the first frame such that the lower field lines are at 50 and then the upper field rows at 75. Great for interlaced TV video, not too pretty for frame based though.)

Since your camera recorded the video in frame mode, there's no need to deinterlace the frame mode images even though the DV data spec "says" it's interlaced. Any video sources that are in fact interlaced frames, should be configured to be deinterlaced if your project is creating frame based output.

Final notes....
Correct, the GL2 (I've had one for about two years now) does not change frame RATE when switching between interlaced or frame mode. The PAL model is always about 25 fps and the NTSC is always about 30FPS.

A new note to add is that the NTSC 24fps capable Panasonic DV cameras SAVE video in INTERLACED DV. If you capture this directly as DV, you will see interlaced frames. I think there's a new feature in MSP SP3 to capture/convert the interlaced frames in their restored 24fps progressive format.

Hope this helps.
Have fun.

[thecoalman]

http://phpbb.ulead.com.tw/EN/search.php ... praebo1557

thecoalman I totally agree with you.