HF100 pulldown solution: solved?

[themagichoof]

This isn't a forum for the VIXIA/HF100 camcorders but the 24p applies I think. There's a myriad of topics here so sorry for a new thread but I want to get this answered specifically.

Has a simple solution been found to extract the true 24p footage from HF100 mts files? I use Adobe Premiere and After Effects, and so far my search has led me to believe that both AE and PPro have the pulldown removal tools, but that they do NOT function as they are supposed to. So is the conclusion to just buy Cineform NeoScene, or has another workaround been found for this?

Also, a bonus question: on the HF100, the 24p footage is inside of a 60i container, or something like that. Does that mean I'll have to deinterlace the footage, or is that only for 30 or 60 footage or something?

This is all new stuff to me. I've been using my HF100 for 3 years and was unaware that all of this was happening the entire time, so maybe THAT'S why it never gave me the film-like look I always wanted when using 24p mode.

[ejolson]

Pretty much any technique that works for the HV20 will also work for HF100 and other AVCHD camcorders. The easiest to use may be Khaver's pulldown removal utility.

http://www.hv20.com/showthread.php?3...lldown-Remover

[Bif]

This is all new stuff to me. I've been using my HF100 for 3 years and was unaware that all of this was happening the entire time, so maybe THAT'S why it never gave me the film-like look I always wanted when using 24p mode.

24fps and 24p by itself will not give a "film-like" look, what that frame rate does is allow the same kind of "motion blur" effect for each frame that that frame rate used to record with film. For that part of it you can essentially get pretty much that same "motion blur" with a shutter speed of 1/50th and even close enough with a shutter speed of 1/60th.

I've been using 30p mode with my HF100s (I have a pair of them) because unless you are going to do a "filmout" of your project (very expensive!) or are working for a client that requires 24p, that frame rate is an "archaic" holdover from the days when that frame rate was the best compromise between economy of film consumption and the slowest speed at which persistence of vision worked for most people.

Modern theatre equipment projects each frame twice to reduce the flicker effect that gives some folks headaches so what we really see is 48fps.

Blu-ray disk does use 24p but whether you do or not modern TVs and DVD players "sort it out" and display properly. With the HF100 if you use 30p there is no pulldown to mess with, you set the timeline in your NLE for 30p (if your NLE gives you a choice) and it makes things much easier all around. You will notice with both 24p and 30p on that camera there is a "lag" with the video displayed on the LCD and the audio if you are monitoring with headphones (take the headphones off while speaking if you are trying to narrate while filming otherwise the "echo" effect will drive you batty).

The other component of settings you can use to get more of the "film like" look is cinemode. Muted contrast, color, brightness, and reduced sharpness give the appearance of a much extended dynamic range. Unmodified it looks quite "flat" to my taste and I found that by boosting Contrast, Brightness, and Sharpness (I leave Color depth alone) to the "+" setting in Custom Settings gives it enough "life" and "snap" without getting back to the "video" look.

The film look depends on other things, too. Like lighting, composition, and where you can do it right - camera movement.

The settings I've described above let me merge HF100 footage at 30p with Canon DSLR (7D, 60D, and T3i) footage where I've set a "user defined" picture style based on NEUTRAL with reduced contrast, and reduced (color) saturation.

If you try to really notice what is done in films with lighting, composition, and mood it can begin to spoil your attention to the story the film tells. I find I have to watch a film I like several times now to "digest" both the story and the apparent visual technique employed.

So there is no "magic" frame rate, no magic settings of any kind in achieving a "filmlike" look. It's largely an application of visual sense blended with a few technical things to get away from too much brightness and limited dynamic range. The HF100 will do it nicely if you will.

Bruce Foreman

[Steve_Karl]

I've discovered a method that works in Vegas Pro 9 and it's very simple and I'm not seeing any problems,
or any need for 3rd party utilities or intermediate files.
See attached pictorial in 4 screen shots.

Start a new project with a template and don't bother matching source media.
Then open explorer and project media list and drag your .mts from the explorer to the media list,
then drag them to the timeline.

In other words, you're controlling the whole thing with your progressive template and progressive render
and not allowing the media to dictate frame rate or the need for fields.

I didn't find it necessary to change the settings on the media, but note the important arrow in red
on the rendering template about "allow source to adjust frame rate".
I'd recommend making sure it is unchecked.

"Source" means the MTS file. It appears the HF100 wraps 24p in a 29.97 wrapper and calls it pf24 !?!? (whatever )
If you "allow source to adjust frame rate" the render will be 1/2 the frame rate of 23.976.
It will play ok ( or so it seems ) but there may be other consequences that I've not yet run into
so it's probably best to end up with a render that is 23.976.

[zagnut]

Bif, I love the way you word things. I always look forward to reading your replies. You have a way of explaining things to people in a simple way without things getting confusing for them. You're posts were a great help to me when I first joined here.

While I do agree with you on almost everything you said above, there are a couple things I'd like to interject with in regards to 24p.

First, while I love the simplicity of dealing with the 30p files our cameras provide us, there are times when I need to use 24p. A good example is a graduation ceremony I recorded last weekend. While it was held in an auditorium and light was fairly ample, I had no control of lighting at all. I found it to be just a tad too dark and needed to record in PF24 in order to keep gain at a minimum. Especially for some shots where I had to zoom in and the aperture automatically closed down. Sometimes the difference in the amount of light required by the camera between 30p and PF24 will make or break the shot. This was something that obviously couldn't be reshot and I couldn't take a gamble.

Second, there have been a couple, only once or twice, where I had problems with DVD players playing back 30p footage. One of these DVD players was one I owned not too long back. I tried rendering and authoring the 30p footage to both 60i and straight 30p. For whatever reason, the DVD player just didn't like it. Now there should be a fairly low occurrence of running into this problem, but it can happen as it did with me.

On a side note, you mentioned

"24fps and 24p by itself will not give a "film-like" look, what that frame rate does is allow the same kind of "motion blur" effect for each frame that that frame rate used to record with film. For that part of it you can essentially get pretty much that same "motion blur" with a shutter speed of 1/50th and even close enough with a shutter speed of 1/60th."

Why not use a Tv of 1/48? I was under the impression that general rule of thumb is to use a shutter speed 180 degrees out of phase. Does the HF100 not have a 1/48 Tv? Or am I missing something or misunderstanding something in your post?



Steve, I'm curious about this method of yours. You mentioned -

"If you "allow source to adjust frame rate" the render will be 1/2 the frame rate of 23.976.
It will play ok ( or so it seems ) but there may be other consequences that I've not yet run into
so it's probably best to end up with a render that is 23.976. "

You've confused me a little in that last part. So it will render out at about 12fps? Also, some of us don't like the way MainConcept renders out of Vegas. I being one of them, so I render out to an intermediate and do a final render using 1 of 3 different programs, depending on the final destination of the video. Nonetheless, I'm still curious about this method of yours. A couple years back I played around extensively looking for an alternative to NeoScene and Khavers pull-down removal. I remember I hit on something that appeared to do the job, but never really went any further with it since I started using NeoScene (was much less hassle). I'll have to see if I can dig up the post I made about it on Vimeo and maybe do some further testing.

[Steve_Karl]

zagnut:

It will only do the 12 FPS if you don't uncheck the box that says "allow source to adjust frame rate".

And of course you could use any codec you like in Vegas with this method.
I just happen I use that codec for youtube. The codec choice is irrelevant to the method.
Any codec should get the same results ... i.e. a progressive 23.976 render that doesn't have any interlacing artifacts.

I also tried both of Khavers tools, had no usable results and got no help from anyone towards solving the glaring problems.

I tried neoscene and it appeared to be an overpriced piece of software based on how primitive the gui was and of course,
it created good quality large intermediates, but compared to just using the small MTS files, which is how it should be... i.e. easy and simple
and right from the source, it made no sense to me to even bother with neoscene.
Vegas 9 does it and very easily with perfect results, but I can't verify that any newer version of Vegas will do it.***

P.S. I believe Eugenia Loli-Queru defined the above method in a similar way in one of Eugenia's "rants" tutorials,
but went on to say something like "it no longer worked" ... probably referring to newer versions.***

I just thought I'd make it a bit more easy to understand with 4 pictures.

[zagnut]

Eugenia's method I remember seeing involved changing the render quality down, I think to low. I don't remember, but it didn't seem like a really good way to do it. It was really more of what seemed like a bug exploit.

As for NeoScene, first let me say that in I no way condone the following, but there are methods of obtaining it for the low price of zero dollars. And it does work.

I did side by side comparisons of screen captures using various codecs for intermediate files. Cineform high quality, Lagarith, Huffyuv, Canopus lossless, and Sony YUV. In my comparison, Cineform gave the best color and least macroblocking. I believe it gave the least banding as well. Given this performance, as well as the simplicity of what appears to be a primitive GUI, I personally think it's great. Especially for someone that isn't very tech savvy or computer literate. I think it's about $30 more than it should be, but the 24p extraction algorithm has never let me down. As for Khavers, although I'm quite computer savvy, I found it to be kinda tedious to set up. This was a while back though and it may have changed since then.

It's been a while since I've uploaded something to Youtube, but if memory serves, I didn't like Vegas' MainConcept AVC renders compared to another I was using. If I recall, I found the Vegas renders to come out overly dark for some reason. So I started rendering out of Vegas to an intermediate and then rendering out an mp4 from Handbrake or Xvid4psp. This is my experience and opinion though.

I'm still intrigued by your method. When I get a chance I'll give it a try. I've got some footage to try it on this coming week. What about audio? Did you have any sync or pitch problems?

[Steve_Karl]

I didn't really get a chance to test audio but I doubt there'd be any problems.
Even so, I'll remember to make a point of testing for that next chance I get.

[zagnut]

Thanks Steve. If I beat ya to it, I'll make sure I post back any strange problems, if I run into any. There's a good chance I will, since I'm running both Vegas 10 and 11. I had to install Vegas 10 again due to some codecs not being compatible with 64-bit Vegas 11. So I don't even know if I'll be able to recreate the success you've had so far. I'm automatically going to assume it won't work with Vegas 11, but have hopes it will with Vegas 10.