DVCPro HD 72060p showing as 29.97?

[TMothy]

I'm Editing footage from a Panasonic HVX200 in FCP7 for the first time. The footage was shot in 720 60p and when I log and transfer it says DVCPro HD 72060p but under Vid Rate its showing 29.97 fps and not 60fps. I have footage from a Panasonic TM700 that I converted to Apple ProRes 422 (QH) and that shows up as 60fps.

So what am I doing wrong?

And also can I use Apple ProRes (HQ) and DVCPro HD 720 on the same timeline?

Last question... DVCPro HD 720 shows up as 960x720 and the Apple ProRes (HQ) shows up as 1240x720 how does that work when it comes to exporting? does DVCPro get stretched? How does that effect Quality?

 

[TMothy]

Well after a little playing around I unchecked "remove advanced pulldown and Duplicate frames" and now its showing up as 59.94 fps.

 

[LethalWolfe]

And also can I use Apple ProRes (HQ) and DVCPro HD 720 on the same timeline?

Yes you can, although I would recommend regular ProRes (or even LT if you have FCP 7) as HQ is overkill, IMO. Many people only recommend using HQ if you are working w/images large than HD and/or you source is very high quality and you are going to be doing a lot of manipulation in post.

Last question... DVCPro HD 720 shows up as 960x720 and the Apple ProRes (HQ) shows up as 1240x720 how does that work when it comes to exporting? does DVCPro get stretched? How does that effect Quality?

I'd work in an ProRes timeline and export out as ProRes to keep the quality at it's best, but depending on the quality of the source footage and the quality of the delivery format it may not make much of a difference. Like many older HD codecs DVCPro HD is recorded anamorphic to help keep the file sizes down. Also, I'm assuming you meant 1280x720 because if it was 1240x720 you'd have another problem on your hands.


Lethal

 

[TMothy]

Yeah I ment 1280x720.

When you say manipulation what do you mean? like heavy CC or slow motion?

Would the HQ just be larger file sizes?

 

[LethalWolfe]

Yeah I ment 1280x720.

When you say manipulation what do you mean? like heavy CC or slow motion?

Would the HQ just be larger file sizes?

Heavy CC, lots of visual effects, difficult green screening, etc.,. Using HQ w/footage from a camera like the TM700 is akin to pouring a 12oz Coke into a two-liter sized bottle. It doesn't get you anything other than having to carry around a bigger container. Even using prosumer and most professional cameras one would be hard pressed to get visibly better results by transcoding from the camera native codec into HQ instead of regular ProRes. Both are 10-bit, 4:2:2 variable bit rate codecs, HQ just has a higher bit rate. By comparison, almost all camera codecs are 8-bit 4:2:2 and many prosumer and most consumer cameras are 8-bit 4:2:0.

ProRes LT, which is a good deal smaller than regular ProRes, offers up nearly identical quality it just can't take as much image manipulation before it starts to show artifacts. My company is actually going to start working a lot more w/ProRes LT because for most our needs it holds up just fine. For the more taxing things though we'll still use regular ProRes.


Lethal

 

[arjen92]

Heavy CC, lots of visual effects, difficult green screening, etc.,. Using HQ w/footage from a camera like the TM700 is akin to pouring a 12oz Coke into a two-liter sized bottle. It doesn't get you anything other than having to carry around a bigger container. Even using prosumer and most professional cameras one would be hard pressed to get visibly better results by transcoding from the camera native codec into HQ instead of regular ProRes. Both are 10-bit, 4:2:2 variable bit rate codecs, HQ just has a higher bit rate. By comparison, almost all camera codecs are 8-bit 4:2:2 and many prosumer and most consumer cameras are 8-bit 4:2:0.

ProRes LT, which is a good deal smaller than regular ProRes, offers up nearly identical quality it just can't take as much image manipulation before it starts to show artifacts. My company is actually going to start working a lot more w/ProRes LT because for most our needs it holds up just fine. For the more taxing things though we'll still use regular ProRes.


Lethal

Thanks! Good to know. I noticed the size of ProRes 422 (or something like that). 1.5 hour of ProRes took more space than 6 hour of HDV.

BTW I was wondering, does editing in HDV show that much of a difference? I had no problem in terms of speed. And the only thing I did was editing (I color corrected the other project, so therefore I recorded that project as ProRes).

 

[LethalWolfe]

BTW I was wondering, does editing in HDV show that much of a difference? I had no problem in terms of speed. And the only thing I did was editing (I color corrected the other project, so therefore I recorded that project as ProRes).

You can't 'undo the damage' caused by the initial compression during recording but you can limit how much additional damage you do. For example, when you add in GFX they will look better if you are working in ProRes than if you are working in HDV. One nice thing about FCP is that if you are working in an HDV or XDCAM timeline you can change the rendering settings from "native" to "ProRes". This will basically let you work w/the smaller HDV files but whenever you need to render something it will render in the higher quality ProRes codec. It's about as close as you can get to having your cake and eating it too.


Lethal