24p to dvd made easy!

[iCEbLuEORbitZ]

ok, for all those of you who have spent endless hours like me trying to figure out how to get 24p footage from your camera to dvd, or other file formats without the stupid pulldown artifacting, here is my step by step tutorial, that is easy to understand. this is for those who have premire pro 1.5 (not earlier), after effects (i know it works on 6.0 and higher, maybe older versions too), and adobe encore dvd (again i used v1.0, might work on older versions). okay, to begin, make sure your camera is in 24p mode, and in the menu on the camera, turn the 24p mode to 24pA or 2:3:3:2. shoot your film all in this mode, either 4:3 or 16:9, it doesnt matter. next, plug up your camera and in premiere pro, make a new project with these custom settings:

editing mode:dv playback
timebase:23.976
aspect ratio: (use whatever you shot your footage as)
fields: none (progressive)
display format:24 fps timecode

the rest of the settings depend on the audio format you captured, and what other settings you wish to have. now, edit all your footage that you can in adobe (unless you need to add effects in after effects).
go to:
file>export>export movie

click settings. make sure in the general tab it says:
filetype:microsoft dv avi

in the video tab:
compressor:dv (24p advannce)
framrate:23.976

keyframe and rendering tab:
fields:none (progressive) ***do not check deinterlace!***

go to after effects, make a new composition with framerate of 23.976, at resolution of 720x480. import your footage and right click it and go intereperet>main
click the button "guess 24pA pulldown"
click ok.
put your footage on the timeline and do your effects stuff if you need to, then go to file>export>avi
click save, then when the settings dialogue box appears click video settings. now, up at the top dropdown menu, click and make sure dv/dvcpro-ntsc is selectied, then at the bottom click the down arrow next to the framerate and select 23.98. then select best as your quailty. click ok, then setup the audio depending on what your audio is (i don't know how to do this part here if you have 5.1 audio. maybe you will have to export audio as a seperate file in premiere, and once in encore, put them together?). save the file. *almost done*

now, go to encore dvd, click File>new project. select ntsc. go to timeline>new timeline, then, before importing, go to file>transcode>edit transcode presets. make a custom preset. in video have these settings:
progressive
vbr
two passes
*the rest of the options are up to how much space on your dvd there is, or how big you want the file.*

now, close the dialogue box and import your footage you made in after effects. transcode it to the preset you just made. now, go to file>build dvd>(select destination type) now just select destination folders, or your burning drive, and viola! true 24p dvds, with no artifacting. p.s. although throughout all the editing stages your footage may appear vertically strecthed, once built as a dvd file, it is fixed, so when you play it back, it is perfect! i hope this help many people. i have searched long and hard trynig to figure this out, and came accross TONS of forums with lost people in them. hope you likE!

[rep22]

Wow, thanks! I'll have to give this a try! I've never really messed with 24p footage much, mainly because I wasn't sure how much of a diference it made. Anywho, thanks for the input!

[iCEbLuEORbitZ]

yea, when i shot 24p, i think it looks so much better. 60i looks horribly videoy no matter what you do to it. 30p is the best bet if you want a filmy look, but still 24p is 4/5 the number of frames of 30p, so there is no comparison. 24p has the jitter of film and looks almost just like it if you put the right filters on it. if you have ant further questions about the process feel free to ask.

[Epsilon]

Getting the correct algorithm to seamlessly morph it from 24-30 is the real test.

[iCEbLuEORbitZ]

? why would you want to convert it back to 30? if you are making a dvd, its best jsut to leave it at 24 from what i have experienced.

[Epsilon]

Unless you happen to have a television that can play 24fps, you'll have to change it. And I've never seen a television able to do that. The average television runs NTSC (30fps) or PAL (25fps).

[iCEbLuEORbitZ]

yea, in encore dvd, when you import the dvd , you have to transcode it to 29.97, but how it does it, i don't know, because, when viewed on the computer, it is a non-interlaced picture, and if you click frame by frame in windvd, there is still only 24 frames per second. but it still works on the tv, and i have a fairly old tv, so it should work on anything.. now my only problem is making it correctly remove pulldown.

[reflexive_cinematics]

? why would you want to convert it back to 30? if you are making a dvd, its best jsut to leave it at 24 from what i have experienced.

What do you mean ' it's best just to leave it at 24 from what you have experienced ' ?? It doesn't matter what the frame rate of the footage is.

Unless you happen to have a television that can play 24fps, you'll have to change it. And I've never seen a television able to do that. The average television runs NTSC (30fps) or PAL (25fps).

What? lol Televisions don't 'run' at any frame rate. The speed of VIDEO is 30 frames per second, the speed film runs at is 24 fps, ( although now a lot of the video cams are coming with a 24fps option ) PAL is just a different format for there sh*t over there. Since their broacast standards are a little different than here, but that has to do with resolution, not fps.

TV's will play any frame rate from 1 to one billion. The speed that you record something is just personal preference. The only reason to encode a DVD with true 24p footage is for space saving purposes. If you really don't need the extra frames and are trying to fit a lot on there then it would make sense, otherwise 24 and 30 frame footage is identical. You will not tell the difference.

[reflexive_cinematics]

yea, in encore dvd, when you import the dvd , you have to transcode it to 29.97, but how it does it, i don't know, because, when viewed on the computer, it is a non-interlaced picture, and if you click frame by frame in windvd, there is still only 24 frames per second. but it still works on the tv, and i have a fairly old tv, so it should work on anything.. now my only problem is making it correctly remove pulldown.

The problem here, and i'm not an expert here so I may be a little off, is that if you aren't exporting from a 24p timeline, the program will insert a pulldown. Otherwise you'd have to then import it in to AE or something and remove it. Then can do as you wish... but maybe your exporting from a 24fps timeline??

[reflexive_cinematics]

yea, when i shot 24p, i think it looks so much better. 60i looks horribly videoy no matter what you do to it. 30p is the best bet if you want a filmy look, but still 24p is 4/5 the number of frames of 30p, so there is no comparison. 24p has the jitter of film and looks almost just like it if you put the right filters on it. if you have ant further questions about the process feel free to ask.

I always seem to get into battles over this LOL but I'm going to chime in again... 24p makes no difference as far as getting the film look. The 'look' of film and the 'look' of video are different because they are totally different processes. Film is a chemical process and video, and electronic process. Frame rate and jitter and all that sh*t doesn't make it more film like. Do you see any major motion pictures that looks jittery and studdered? The reason that the 24p cameras look more 'filmic' is because of the 'P' in 24p. Progressive mode. It takes full frames instead of shooting two half fields. The little difference in frames will not make your video look like film. Another reason for the 'filmic' look is the gamma and light settings on the cameras. Most of the 24p camera have advances gamma curve settings and ways to control the light entering the camera, much the way a more expensive film camera would. So that helps a lot.

Another thing that helps too is that on bigger films, they use super nice lenses. AND they switch them up for different shots. i.e. wide angles ( that need little focusing if any at all ) zoom lenses, etc... But most of the time the lenses have a MUCH shorter depth of field than our smaller prosumer/professional camcorders. PLUS ever watch behind the scenes on DVD's? and sometimes they put the deleted scenes on there ( some of the ones where they didn't do any post work on them ) and they look like sh*t. They do a lot of work in post to color correct and adjust to get it to look good.

I mean, jitter and all that is ok if you're going for that look for artistic purposes or you are trying to make a movie from the 1930's... other than that you can have it. I'm not trying to come down on you or anyone for liking 24p but I just dont believe that it's ' gods gift ' to people that can't shoot on film for whatever reason. In the future , maybe advances can be made to make video totally emulate the look of film but for right now, it's just not quite there.

[Ornsack]

24p makes no difference as far as getting the film look.

Film something (anything, but preferably a hand held shot with lots of stuff going on) for about 5 seconds. Plonk it twice in to an editing program and make one 24p (leaving one 30i). Stick it on a loop and watch it on TV.

If you think the 24p doesn't look any more like film, well you're blind.

I agree that grading, colour curves, levels, etc are all essential for getting a film look, the very first step would be to make it 24p.

At the end of the day, film is shot at 24p, so anything else wouldn't look like film.

Plus in this day and age, colouring on decent video formats can rival film so there's no need to add any filters (especially in PAL, not Never Twice the Same Colour)

Going back to the first question, I've found that Sony Vegas can do an amazing automatic job with all pull downs.

On a side note, most of the above is irrelivant for me because I use 25fps PAL, and all film is shot at or sped up to 25fps

[iCEbLuEORbitZ]

im sorry reflexive, but i agree with ornsack. a few things i want to say on this topic again. first of all. 24p DOES look more filmic. it DOES NOT look EXACTLY like film, becaues like you said, it is a different process. this is true... but, i have been studying this for a couple years, and this is what i will say.

film cameras shoot pictures almost exactly like a still camera (only it uses rotating shutter) so, you get individual, full frame (progressive) shots. the frame rate of the regular film camera is 24fps. unless they do slow motion, which they have 1000fps cameras and i think i've seen 15,000fps cameras for recording bullets or the like.

so... to say 24p does not look like film any more than 30p or 60i is very untrue. and YES if you actually watch a movie and pay attention, IT IS VERY STUTTERY! you can't usually tell because in movies almost everything is dollied or steadicamed, and the number of pans you see is very small. however, if you watch a pan, or a camera following a person, watch the background carefully, and you will deffinately see a signifigant jitter compared to 30p or 60i footage. so, this does add to the filmic look.

yes lighting and coloring have a lot to do with it. also, DOF plays a big factor, because it is shot with film lenses and 35mm film, not 1/3 inch ccds. PLUS film has MUCH higher quality and detail than the average xl-2 or similar cameras.

so that being said, 24p will deffinately give you a much more filmic look with the right framing, camera movements, lighting, DOF, makeup, sound, etc.

as far as making a 24p dvd. VERY USEFUL! IT DOES MATTER WAT THE FOOTAGE FRAMRATE IS! if you shot 24p, exporting with pulldown will have artifacting through 2/5 of the video, which is very very noticeable. so if you shoot 24p, burn 23.976 dvd, to keep the original framerate, and to save disc space. and yes epsilon, 23.976 dvds do exist, it is also an ntsc standard. (open a dvd in windvd and count how many frames you go through by stepping frame by frame in one second. you will find it is 24.

but back to the main topic! i found a way to do this without introducing a pulldown i think. i made the settings in the video project (viedo for windows) then i selected 23.976 framerate with 24fps timeline.. that way when you export it, premiere never introdueces the pulldown. it exports 24fps footage, which bypasses the pulldown removal in after effects, because sometimes some clips will not be aligned right by removing pulldown, and you will have a few clips with bad artifacting.

[iCEbLuEORbitZ]

smart europeans hahah. less fricken hassle with formats!

[Ornsack]

I've done lots of experimenting with converting PAL 50i to 24p NTSC, and then back to PAL. I'd never use it for a whole film but the conversion makes stuff look like a big budget American drama that's been converted to PAL The downside being loss of resolution. It hides the deinterlacing well though.

[reflexive_cinematics]

Film something (anything, but preferably a hand held shot with lots of stuff going on) for about 5 seconds. Plonk it twice in to an editing program and make one 24p (leaving one 30i). Stick it on a loop and watch it on TV.

I have done before that and do see a little bit of difference. But not a film like difference. The reason that film looks the way it does is because of WHAT it is and the way it deals with light. It is rediculous to think that 24 frames per second is the reason that film looks the way it does. If it did matter then when they shot the uber slow motion stuff ( i.e. the Matrix fights ) it would change the look totally. Since they were shooting at like 160 fps.


The reason film is at 24 fps is because of the cost and use of the material. 24 frames per second is the smallest amount of frames that can go buy for the eye not to notice the jitteryness too much. A long time ago they started to use this so they weren't wasting more film than they needed to.

I'm telling you shooting non interlaced is what the main difference is and not the frames.

[reflexive_cinematics]

(open a dvd in windvd and count how many frames you go through by stepping frame by frame in one second. you will find it is 24.

Right because most DVD's are shot on film which is 24fps. Or even if they are shot on DV, if they get distributed for theatre play, they get transferred to 35mm with is , right you guessed it, 24fps.

When you author a DVD it doesn't automatically transfer the footage to 24 fps.

[iCEbLuEORbitZ]

yes, i know authoring a dvd will not make it 24p. you have to shoot the footage as 24p which is what i was saying before. however. 24fps has a huge roll in the film look. there are key points to getting cinematic looks.

-lighting. they use thousands of watts of lights to film their scenes and they know how to place them and light up the area so that it looks how they want it to.
-smooth motion. dolly tracks, steadicams. even in "handheld" shots, it is not "jittery" like a minidv camera would be, becasue film cameras are much heavier, therefor it is harder to jerk it around.
-coloration
-24fps
-DOF. this one is huge. without a mini35 adapter, getting a real filmic look is very hard.

now, with these points, getting a filmic look isn't impossible with dv. i've seen it done before and i would not have been able to tell the difference. and btw reflexive, 24fps plays a huge role. and you are wrong to say that filming the matrix at 160fps would look different than the rest of the film, because it takes those 160 frames and plays them back at 24fps, so the jitteryness is the same. and 24fps is VERY noticable with the naked eye. if you were to watch a 1000fps, it wolud look so much different than 24fps. this DOES play a big role in getting a filmic look. remember it is 4/5 the fps of dv, which is quite a difference.

[iCEbLuEORbitZ]

What? lol Televisions don't 'run' at any frame rate. The speed of VIDEO is 30 frames per second, the speed film runs at is 24 fps TV's will play any frame rate from 1 to one billion. The speed that you record something is just personal preference. The only reason to encode a DVD with true 24p footage is for space saving purposes.

some reason i have a feeling you are not 100% sure you know what you are talking about. if you want to get into technicalities, yes tvs DO "run" at 29.97 fps. they do not play from 1 to 1 billion. *i belive for playing 24fps they add pulldown, which you can figure out wat that is on your own, but i am not positive. all i know is that ntsc standards are both 29.97 and 23.98 what that means is that every second, 30 frames (in the case of 29.97) show, no matter what. you cannot make a tv play 1000000 frames in one second. a tv is simply a laser that uses electrmagnets to ponit it back and forth across the screen. it does this regardless the fps of the footage. now for 24fps i believe it is actually the dvd player that inserts the pulldown and sends that info to the tv. the reason for film being 24 could very well have originally been for space saving purposes, but it has been that way for almost a century, and it is in our heads, that that "looks good", most likely because it is less lifelike. where as video was made at 30fps because it is so much easier not having to worry about format issues. however, it looks cleaner, and more life-like.