[Frank]

I am getting pretty tired of interlaced video.

I would like to see some examples of HD video shot at 24 or 30 frames per second progressive so I can judge for myself whether I like it better then 1080i.

Can anyone point to some examples?


Frank

 

[HiDefGuy]

The springsteen concert?

 

[Glimmie]

Something on ABC that was origionated in 720p/60. Or a transfer that was converted from 1080/24 to 720/60. I do know that "Spin City" is a 24p film transfer to 720p. Pure progressive all the way through.


The other way to see true 24p is 1080/24p into a DLP projector. The commercial units do not update static pixles. Meaning only the pixels that change are updated. Of course they are still being modulated to produce gray. This look svery much like film. To see this you would need to be in a digital cinema or timing theater.


In the production enviornment 24p is actually display nativly as 48fS. This is so that 24p is compatable with interlaced equipment. The image is captured in a progressive scan manner but every line is on a different field. Delays are used to make the two fields line up when put back into progressive. You can view this 48fS signal and it flickers much like 625/50. It is important to realize that 48fS is not the same as interlace since the image was captured in a progressive manner.

 

[Dean Roddey]

Assuming that HD sat content that originated from film is transmitted with 3/2 pulldown, you can just buy a Faroudja DVP-5000 to see what it would look like Admittedly thats an expensive experiment, but perhaps you can find someone who has such a setup with a nice 9" CRT system and go over and check it out. It will suffer from the extra D/A/D/A cycle as always with an external scaler with analog interconnect, but I would bet it still looks pretty tasty with good source material.

 

[Frank]

I would like to see some HDTV video material that was shot at 24 progressive frames per second and output as 1080i.

I would like to be able to compare this to HDTV video that is shot at 60i.

The 60i 2:3 cadence from 24P won't be as smooth as native 60i but the vertical resolution should be better and the artifacts should be fewer.

It should compress better also.

Why not shoot HDTV video at 24P?


Frank

 

[Glimmie]

Quote:

I would like to see some HDTV video material that was shot at 24 progressive frames per second and output as 1080i.

Well, that's just about any episodic television you see on CBS. Now if you mean shot as VIDEO and not film, look at "Max Bickford", 1080/24P video to 1080/60i. OR "According to Jim", 1080/24p video to 720/60p. "Judging Amy" is 24 frame film to 1080/24p with a final conversion to 1080/60i.
Quote:

I would like to be able to compare this to HDTV video that is shot at 60i.

Most stuff on HDNET is 1080/60i. Just about any sports event.
Quote:

Why not shoot HDTV video at 24P?

They do. More and more episodoc shows are going to 24p video shoots. It works and doesn't depending on your sets and lighting.

 

[Glimmie]

The primary reason for 24p video shooting or film shooting versus 60i video cameras is duplication. A 24p master can easily be converted to ANY of the ATSC formats without any temporal conversion. 1080/25 European is simply run 4% faster as is film in 625. To get to 60i, 3/2 is added.


No standards convertor at any price can do smooth temporal conversions or de-interlacing from interlaced captured material. Even the holy Teranex does quite poorly in this application.


ABC for example will not accept 720p material converted from 1080/60i.

 

[Frank]

I was definitely talking about VIDEO instead of film transfers.

I would really like to see some sports shot in HDTV VIDEO at 24P rather then 1080i.


Frank

 

[Todd H]

It seems to me that any sports in 24p would look a lot like that HBO NFL Sunday thing (is that still on). Sports on film don't "look" right to me. Like Any Given Sunday, for instance. Doesn't have that "Live" look like 60 field/frame video does.

My friend and I shot a music video at 480/30p on mini-DV for some friends. It looks just like film, less the grain. I think the frame rate and the progressive scanning give the image its main "look." (I can't stop using that word!)

I'd like to see some 720p/60 and 1080p/60. THAT would be interesting.


Of course, I'll need something to correctly display it.

 

[kyungkim]

im sure i'll get corrected in like 10 seconds but here goes.


I believe at the faroudja "exhibit" last year at the ht expo, there was a showing of the meteor snippet of Disney's Dinosaur in what was related to me as "native 1080p". This was meant to showcase the "future" of Home Theater.


Whatever the hell it was, it was freakin amazing. Zero artifacts, amazing detail. Later I saw a 1080p upcovert from a 1080i source projected by a vidikron 9incher. (i forget what video scaler they used, but it costs 50k and it wasnt a faroudja) That was also amazing, thought not quite as impressive. Dunno if it was because Dinosaur was really native 1080p or whether it was due to the cg nature of the video, but the upconvert of Shanghai Noon on the vidikron was not as breathtaking as the Dinosaur "exhibit". (pun intended)


Sorry for all the "quotes".


K

 

[Dean Roddey]

Quote:

I would really like to see some sports shot in HDTV VIDEO at 24P rather then 1080i.

So you'd need to find something that was shot on HD-Video 24P, then transmitted on sat with 3/2 pulldown, and then use a high end doubler to get back the progressive content. Right?


That's the only proactical way I can think of that you'd get any content that you'd be familiar with in order to compare. So what feature films have been shot lately in HD 24/p Video that might make it to satellite? Star Wars was, but what's the chance of that ever being seen on even DVD? Or maybe some such content might make it to the new D-VHS which you could do pull down on to get back the progressive content perhaps.


But there's just not a lot of feature stuff being shot on 24p HD Video these days, right? So you might have to find some sample material that you might be able to play back via a software player or something.


Or, I might be completely wrong

 

[Frank]

When I watch movie transfers in 1080i, I don't see interlace artifacts.

When watching 1080i from HDTV video cameras I often see lots of interlace artifacts.

I am curious to see what 1080i from HDTV video looks like when the camera captured it at 24fps.

In other words I would like to see if it makes it look more film like and if the reduced frame rate is bothersome with sports.


Frank

 

[Dean Roddey]

Given that 24fps isn't even good enough for movies, I'm sure it would be bad for sports I definitely see interlace artifacts in 60i stuff like basketball, where there are very thin, very straight, very high contrast lines in the content. You can see stairstepping very easily. Progressive won't get rid of that totally either, only more and more pixels will do that I guess, but it'd certainly do a lot better.


I don't notice them so much in movies, but they are there if you look hard. I just am a lot less likely to be looking hard if I'm watching a movie because I'm really watching the movie. I don't care much for sports, and just watch them for the HD video experience, so I'm tending to be looking just as PQ and not at the content (unless its Anna K playing tennis or something

 

[MrWigggles]

Quote:

Originally posted by Glimmie Something on ABC that was origionated in 720p/60. Or a transfer that was converted from 1080/24 to 720/60. I do know that "Spin City" is a 24p film transfer to 720p. Pure progressive all the way through. The other way to see true 24p is 1080/24p into a DLP projector. The commercial units do not update static pixles. Meaning only the pixels that change are updated. Of course they are still being modulated to produce gray. This look svery much like film. To see this you would need to be in a digital cinema or timing theater. In the production enviornment 24p is actually display nativly as 48fS. This is so that 24p is compatable with interlaced equipment. The image is captured in a progressive scan manner but every line is on a different field. Delays are used to make the two fields line up when put back into progressive. You can view this 48fS signal and it flickers much like 625/50. It is important to realize that 48fS is not the same as interlace since the image was captured in a progressive manner.

And 48sf flickers like an SOB on a Sony broadcast monitor . At a SMPTE meeting last fall, Sony did a 24p demo of their newest camera, but they didn't have any display that did 24p well so it turned into a 60i demo very quickly. 48sf was givng the crowd bad headaches.


I really wish they could shoot more stuff at 60sf this would provide slightly better motion, allow backwards compatibility with 60i TV sets. And yet present a signal that future progressive display could weave for 30p playback. In short a, good compromise.


But as Glimmie states, they are "shooting" for a world market and 24p is the easiest way to fulfill that market.


Todd H,


I agree completely. I don't think that motion looks very good at 24p either. Motion is naturally blurry unless the exposure time is set low which gives you the jumpy Saving Private Ryan effect. Altough I have only seen brief glimpses of ABC's 720p Monday Night Football many moons ago, it was spectacular in regards to motion (and 720p is still more resolution than 95+% of the HD displays can show)


Interestingly the Sony rep said car chases look similar at 24p and 60i when encoded at full bit rate ATSC. With the 24p you get blurring due to the long exposure time while 60i you get blurring due to the limitations of the MPEG encoding.


To satisfy a world audience it would be nice if program material could be shot at a variant of 120 frames per second with the exposure time being derived digitally. For the 60p crowd, average two frames together. For the 24p crowd average 5 frames together. Somthing like that. Of coarse the data rate would be massive and beyond today's hardware. But it is still fun to dream.


-Mr. Wigggles

 

[mmost]

Quote:

Originally posted by Frank When I watch movie transfers in 1080i, I don't see interlace artifacts. When watching 1080i from HDTV video cameras I often see lots of interlace artifacts. I am curious to see what 1080i from HDTV video looks like when the camera captured it at 24fps. In other words I would like to see if it makes it look more film like and if the reduced frame rate is bothersome with sports.

You can watch Max Bickford, Titus, Bernie Mac, Greg The Bunny, The Hughleys, One On One, According To Jim, 100 Centre St., Earth Final Conflict, Mutant X, and Lexx. All of these programs are shot in 1080/24p HD video. Of these, only Max Bickford and According To Jim are broadcast in HD. Max Bickford is delivered and broadcast in 1080i/60, created by adding 3:2 pulldown (basically what you're asking to see). According To Jim is delivered and broadcast in 720p/60 (created by downconverting to 720 and interleaving full frames in a 3:2 pattern). All the others are downconverted to standard definition and broadcast that way, with Titus, Bernie Mac, and Greg The Bunny shown in 16:9.

 

[stovetop]

With anything that is originally filmed at 24fps (or even 30) and transmitted at 60fps 1080i.. if your tv or stb has 3:2 (or/and 2:2) pulldown, what is preventing it from become a 1080p signal? For example, let's say a Movie is on HBO-HD in 1080i, it was only filmed at 24 fps, so at least every 2 interlaced frames could be joined to create a 1080p picture.. isn't this correct? Much like DVD players turn their 480i signal to 480p.


So.. with film based material, don't we already have 1080p?

 

[mmost]

Oops, sorry, I forgot about American Family on PBS, also shot in 1080/24p HD and delivered and aired in 1080/60i.

 

[Jim Ferguson]

FWIW, I watched Max Bickford live this week, and thought the quality was quite a bit better than in earlier in the season. I still think the shot-on-film stuff looks better, but this was pretty good.


I guess you could have used this program as an example of a "sports" program, if you include the scene with Richard Dreyfus and Peter O'Toole cruising around on their Segways

 

[aviators99]

Frank,


I think there are some DLP theaters in Texas showing Star Wars starting on Thursday. I'm going to Orlando Thursday morning to see it...

 

[Frank]

It appears that all the shows that are shot on HD video at 24fps are all shows that I have never seen with the exception of 'American Family'.

I like the way 'American Family' looks.


Frank