50 fps and PAL SD TV playback

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Level 5

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50 fps and PAL SD TV playback

Tried this on a different post with no success so now I've boiled the question down to the basics.

Is there any advantage to shooting XDCAM 720p 50 fps for action video +(as opposed to 1080i 25)+ if the footage will be viewed on SD TV?

Please explain.

Quad 8GB. 250+500 HDs. G-Raid 1TB. FCP 6.0.4. QT 7.5. Sony PMW-EX1, Mac OS X (10.5.4), "I've taught you all I know, and still you know nothing".

Posted on Jul 21, 2008 1:34 PM

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Answer 1

andynick Author

Level 5

4,961 points

Jul 22, 2008 6:53 AM in response to andynick

Is this so difficult to answer?
I only want to know whether shooting at 50 fps is a waste of time if the footage will be viewed on SD TV.
Hopefully someone can tell me.

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Answer 2

Jul 22, 2008 8:24 AM in response to andynick

only advantage is for better slo-mo if at all. Assuming you can conform back to 25fps as on your other post. As far as i know fcp would treat your 50 frames in a 720p timeline as 25p anyway. Im not so hot on XDCAM workflow but i know on the hvx200 with dvcproHD 720p i would only shoot 720p25pN at 50fps for slo-mo and use cinema tools - in fact now i dont even need to use cinema tools anymore as its correctly flagged in fcp. But the hvx does gives you 720p50 and 720p25 and 720p25pN. Both 720p50 and 720p25 seem to be treated the same in fcp and CT wont conform 720p50 to anything. 720p25pN is treated differently and gives me twice the recording capaity at 25p then both 720p50 and 720p25.
I guess XDCAM is handled in a similar fashion...

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Answer 3

andynick Author

Level 5

4,961 points

Jul 24, 2008 4:53 AM in response to Mark Brindle

Thanks again, Mark.

I discovered that the EX1 does SloMo in similar fashion to the HVX200 in 720p 25N mode. Very economical on card space but not what I want really.

I want to shoot at 50 fps and decide in post whether the footage will be slow or at normal speed.
Reading Patrick Sheffield's post here:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=1063963
reveals the following solution:
+After you create the 50fps clip, load it into QuickTime player. Select Export..., choose Image Sequence, I selected TGA with color depth set to Millions (save to an empty directory - not your desktop). Then select Open Image Sequence..., point it at the first file in your image sequence directory, then it'll ask you what the frame rate is - tell it 25. Violá! you have twice as many frames as before, now running at 25 FPS. Save or export your sequence and bring that into FCP...+

This works a treat, but it would be simpler if Cinema Tools would conform the clip in the first place.

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