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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

120FPS 1K, Broadcast Standards, Framerate Conversion and PAL

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Pete Barden

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Hi guys,

Like many here I'm eagerly awaiting both my Scarlet and the 120fps 1k mode to be enabled. As a television editor, I think that the 120fps 1k actually could have potential for some broadcast work. Working in wildlife filmmaking for the BBC and Discovery, I've used a good amount of old SD 4:3 archive over the years, which requires aspect ratio conversion and once ARC has been applied looks pretty horrible. For some productions the budget hasn't been there to go back and telecine the original filmstock, so we've had to use material probably taken from Beta SP. HD productions for Discovery/BBC are allowed a percentage of SD material and frankly I'd rather be working with 120fps 1k digital RAW originated material any day than ropey old SP material or film stock with lots of sparkle that's 20 years old. So there's a case for a small amount of 1k material and I'm looking forward to playing with it when it gets enabled. I second the request for 1.5k 96fps I've heard around the forum.

A question I have which I've been asking for a long time in the industry and have never really got a definitive answer to, is what framerates can I shoot at for delivering a 25fps PAL project? Current wisdom leads me to think I can only shoot at framerates divisible of 25 e.g. 25fps or 50fps. I know these are the framerates we've always shot at on the HDX900. But what about with the 1k 120fps option? Does this mean I can only use 100fps for PAL projects? Seems a shame as I'm missing out on 20fps. If someone could explain I'd be most grateful. I've always been slightly confused why we have to hardware framerate convert NTSC material and yet I've started to see 50fps material put into cinematools and simply conformed to 25fps. As I say, when I've asked technical bods in post houses I get conflicting answers.

Many thanks,

Pete
 
Pete Barden said:
Hi guys,

Like many here I'm eagerly awaiting both my Scarlet and the 120fps 1k mode to be enabled. As a television editor, I think that the 120fps 1k actually could have potential for some broadcast work. Working in wildlife filmmaking for the BBC and Discovery, I've used a good amount of old SD 4:3 archive over the years, which requires aspect ratio conversion and once ARC has been applied looks pretty horrible. For some productions the budget hasn't been there to go back and telecine the original filmstock, so we've had to use material probably taken from Beta SP. HD productions for Discovery/BBC are allowed a percentage of SD material and frankly I'd rather be working with 120fps 1k digital RAW originated material any day than ropey old SP material or film stock with lots of sparkle that's 20 years old. So there's a case for a small amount of 1k material and I'm looking forward to playing with it when it gets enabled. I second the request for 1.5k 96fps I've heard around the forum.

A question I have which I've been asking for a long time in the industry and have never really got a definitive answer to, is what framerates can I shoot at for delivering a 25fps PAL project? Current wisdom leads me to think I can only shoot at framerates divisible of 25 e.g. 25fps or 50fps. I know these are the framerates we've always shot at on the HDX900. But what about with the 1k 120fps option? Does this mean I can only use 100fps for PAL projects? Seems a shame as I'm missing out on 20fps. If someone could explain I'd be most grateful. I've always been slightly confused why we have to hardware framerate convert NTSC material and yet I've started to see 50fps material put into cinematools and simply conformed to 25fps. As I say, when I've asked technical bods in post houses I get conflicting answers.

Many thanks,

Pete
Click to expand...

maybe you are confusing shooting at variable shutter speeds for 25 fps?
any frame rate will conform fine to 25. like Jay, tried it many times before including 120fps on the RED one

size is the nasty part about 1K... its smaller than SD at 16:9
I think it would be most useful in portrait mode in green screen shoots, will give a frame that can fit nicely in 1080 or 2K, but limited... and specific

or keep our fingers crossed that some firmware update gives us 120fps at 2K

hector
 
Again I advocate 1.5K @96 FPS. It fits in REDs dynamic of what the Scarlet can do, and for the web it is more useful than 1K.
 
+1 on the framerate at 2K!!!
Hector Berrebi said:
maybe you are confusing shooting at variable shutter speeds for 25 fps?
any frame rate will conform fine to 25. like Jay, tried it many times before including 120fps on the RED one

size is the nasty part about 1K... its smaller than SD at 16:9
I think it would be most useful in portrait mode in green screen shoots, will give a frame that can fit nicely in 1080 or 2K, but limited... and specific

or keep our fingers crossed that some firmware update gives us 120fps at 2K

hector
Click to expand...
 
Frankly I'd be over the moon with 720p at 120fps. 96 at 1080p would be awesome.
 
Pete Barden said:
Hi guys,

Working in wildlife filmmaking for the BBC and Discovery, I've used a good amount of old SD 4:3 archive over the years, which requires aspect ratio conversion and once ARC has been applied looks pretty horrible.
Click to expand...

Hey Pete, I work in TV too, over here stateside in NY. We cut a lot of promos for AETN: History, Lifetime, etc.

We are CONSTANTLY using blown up SD footage, so know exactly what you talking about. The fact that we only deliver 720p actually gives me hope that 1K COULD actually look ok in a 720 project. A little "soft", but still perfectly acceptable. As I'm sure you know, in the world of HD zoom in's and rescales have become pretty common place, and no one blinks an eye at zooming in on a shoot 30%. For whatever reason, HD handles that very well. A part of me feels that 1K will probably scale into a 720 project in a similarly acceptable way. I know all the gear heads will scream foul and insist it won't be sharp, etc...but the truth is I can tell you firsthand that most HD on tv looks like crap anyway. Its compressed to death, and you'll be amazed at what makes it on air (all our blown up SD footage is case in point).

Allthough, that being said, if I really need 120fps, I would probably just shoot it 60fps and then use Twixtor, if "sharpness" was important.

- Nick
 
Hector Berrebi said:
size is the nasty part about 1K... its smaller than SD at 16:9
Click to expand...

Well I wouldn't go that far. It's more like just smaller than 720p. NTSC Widescreen is only 854x480 at best when unsqueezed.
 
Jarek Zabczynski said:
Well I wouldn't go that far. It's more like just smaller than 720p. NTSC Widescreen is only 854x480 at best when unsqueezed.
Click to expand...

you are right... in NTSC world it is. in pal side of the world 16:9 SD is 1024X576 (size not pixels).
and BTW, as 720P is 1280X720 its a little more than "just" smaller... more like plain smaller :)
worked in NY for many years... one thing i remember vividly is how much i hated NTSC.

hector
 
Brian Iannone said:
+1




120 fps at 2K is not going to happen... (Or at least, it's extraordinarily unlikely to happen...)
Click to expand...

come on... lets keep a good spirit on this :) at a higher compression rate... as a super special firmware update... when at some point DSMC's will start pushing old RED MX out of the picture... why not?

`i'd say it's more likely to happen than any other camera manufacturer at these prices would come up with a 120 fps alternative that's that good
 
Pete Barden said:
Hi guys,

Like many here I'm eagerly awaiting both my Scarlet and the 120fps 1k mode to be enabled. As a television editor, I think that the 120fps 1k actually could have potential for some broadcast work. Working in wildlife filmmaking for the BBC and Discovery, I've used a good amount of old SD 4:3 archive over the years, which requires aspect ratio conversion and once ARC has been applied looks pretty horrible. For some productions the budget hasn't been there to go back and telecine the original filmstock, so we've had to use material probably taken from Beta SP. HD productions for Discovery/BBC are allowed a percentage of SD material and frankly I'd rather be working with 120fps 1k digital RAW originated material any day than ropey old SP material or film stock with lots of sparkle that's 20 years old. So there's a case for a small amount of 1k material and I'm looking forward to playing with it when it gets enabled. I second the request for 1.5k 96fps I've heard around the forum.

A question I have which I've been asking for a long time in the industry and have never really got a definitive answer to, is what framerates can I shoot at for delivering a 25fps PAL project? Current wisdom leads me to think I can only shoot at framerates divisible of 25 e.g. 25fps or 50fps. I know these are the framerates we've always shot at on the HDX900. But what about with the 1k 120fps option? Does this mean I can only use 100fps for PAL projects? Seems a shame as I'm missing out on 20fps. If someone could explain I'd be most grateful. I've always been slightly confused why we have to hardware framerate convert NTSC material and yet I've started to see 50fps material put into cinematools and simply conformed to 25fps. As I say, when I've asked technical bods in post houses I get conflicting answers.

Many thanks,

Pete
Click to expand...


Pete I think you are mixing up two different types of conversion. I live in PAL land too so have been faced the old NTSC frame rate conversion many times. If you require the vision to remain the same length and retain audio that sounds normal then the software needs to analyse and create new frames (or something like that) to end up with 25 frames instead of 30. This generally looks crap and that is why people use hardware to do the conversion (don't know how that works but it is way better). Multiples of 25 are easier to convert because you can just get rid of frames. You will notice a difference in the motion of the vision but it doesn't look crappy like 30 to 25.

But I assume you would want to shoot at 120 FPS for slow motion purposes? If that is the case, then all you are asking your software to do is to play back those 120 frames per second at a different speed (like 25fps). The software doesn't need to create new frames and so it won't look crap. That means that if you want a slow motion effect you can shoot at any frame rate higher than 25. Obviously the higher the frame rate the slower the end product will be which is why people like the BBC use those awesome 10 000 FPS cameras (wish i had one!)
 
Nick Morrison said:
Hey Pete, I work in TV too, over here stateside in NY. We cut a lot of promos for AETN: History, Lifetime, etc.

We are CONSTANTLY using blown up SD footage, so know exactly what you talking about. The fact that we only deliver 720p actually gives me hope that 1K COULD actually look ok in a 720 project. A little "soft", but still perfectly acceptable. As I'm sure you know, in the world of HD zoom in's and rescales have become pretty common place, and no one blinks an eye at zooming in on a shoot 30%. For whatever reason, HD handles that very well. A part of me feels that 1K will probably scale into a 720 project in a similarly acceptable way. I know all the gear heads will scream foul and insist it won't be sharp, etc...but the truth is I can tell you firsthand that most HD on tv looks like crap anyway. Its compressed to death, and you'll be amazed at what makes it on air (all our blown up SD footage is case in point).

Allthough, that being said, if I really need 120fps, I would probably just shoot it 60fps and then use Twixtor, if "sharpness" was important.

- Nick
Click to expand...

Yep, this all sounds very familiar. Broadcast specs and engineers work in an ideal world scenario. The rest of us making the programmes work in a real world scenario. I've been told to use footage before with aliasing, that's over exposed because the content is good. I know the onliners certainly don't like it and I don't either, but that's what happens. I'd definitely second the crap quality of what actually appears in a lot of people's living rooms. What's the point in scrutinizing quality in post when it's compressed to crap?

I gave twixtor a try with birds shot at 50fps. Because the bird was beating its wings so fast, when slowed down there wasn't enough information and it's wings ended up morphing. I suppose twixtor is good for things that aren't moving too fast in the first place so for birds in flight the 120fps Scarlet option is probably better.
 
Josh C said:
Pete I think you are mixing up two different types of conversion. I live in PAL land too so have been faced the old NTSC frame rate conversion many times. If you require the vision to remain the same length and retain audio that sounds normal then the software needs to analyse and create new frames (or something like that) to end up with 25 frames instead of 30. This generally looks crap and that is why people use hardware to do the conversion (don't know how that works but it is way better). Multiples of 25 are easier to convert because you can just get rid of frames. You will notice a difference in the motion of the vision but it doesn't look crappy like 30 to 25.

But I assume you would want to shoot at 120 FPS for slow motion purposes? If that is the case, then all you are asking your software to do is to play back those 120 frames per second at a different speed (like 25fps). The software doesn't need to create new frames and so it won't look crap. That means that if you want a slow motion effect you can shoot at any frame rate higher than 25. Obviously the higher the frame rate the slower the end product will be which is why people like the BBC use those awesome 10 000 FPS cameras (wish i had one!)
Click to expand...

Thanks. You're quite right. I've got the two mixed up. Thanks for clearing that up. I think the thing that was confusing me is that with the HDX900 our cameramen always shoot either 25P or 50P. As I understand the 900 can shoot at 60fps, but they never use that feature. Presumably the reason is because it's shooting at 59.94 rather than 60 so can't conform nicely to 25P? If it could be used easily I'd certainly rather we did it so that I had slower offpseed footage to work with.

Thanks,

Pete
 
What cameras can currently handle 120fps ? (other than Phantom/high speed cameras and regardless of resolution)
 
enrique blein said:
What cameras can currently handle 120fps ? (other than Phantom/high speed cameras and regardless of resolution)
Click to expand...

I know the new Nikon stills cameras V1 and possibly J1 can do 400fps at 640x240 and 1200fps at 320x120. Interestingly, the Magic Lantern hack for Canon cameras like the 600D has just enabled variable framerates. Not sure what it can cope with, but it sounds interesting. I suspect over the next year or so we will start to hear more about higher framerate hacks and releases. With all these new faster processors coming out for stills cameras, if the manufacturers don't enable higher framerates then someone with hacking capabilities will.
 
Pete Barden said:
I know the new Nikon stills cameras V1 and possibly J1 can do 400fps at 640x240 and 1200fps at 320x120. Interestingly, the Magic Lantern hack for Canon cameras like the 600D has just enabled variable framerates. Not sure what it can cope with, but it sounds interesting. I suspect over the next year or so we will start to hear more about higher framerate hacks and releases. With all these new faster processors coming out for stills cameras, if the manufacturers don't enable higher framerates then someone with hacking capabilities will.
Click to expand...

Did you know that Magic Lantern today is releasing HDR? Looking forward to it
 
Yes, quite amazing. Knowing my luck, the day I take delivery of my Scarlet they'll release a Magic Lantern 4k video hack!
 
enrique blein said:
What cameras can currently handle 120fps ? (other than Phantom/high speed cameras and regardless of resolution)
Click to expand...

For cheap you have the casio Exilim line, runs up to 1000 fps on a rather small frame.
I shot some nice 300 fps close ups of insects with one of these cameras.
LG had a cell phone that did 120 fps :)
Also...check Megaspeed and Fastec imaging for various relatively non-expencive solutions that are more professional

And then there are the expensive ones...

hector
 
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