In Camera Frame Rates

I have a canon vixia hf r11 and in the menus of the camera there are frame rate settings of 24p 30p and the default (for the camera) 60i. So I've messed around changing the frame rates and I noticed regardless it seems to actually save the files as 60i, when I media info the video files on the computer they are 29.97 and interlaced.

I was wondering what exactly changing these frame rates actually does for this camera? And if there are differences which one would be the best to record in? Currently I've been using 24p or 30p and like I said they end up being 29.97 1080i regardless of what I choose in camera. Is it because this is a lower end camera that it can only really record to one format?
 
The camera can shoot properly at these various frame rates - the file that it creates will always be 60i though. Here's how it works:

If you shoot at 60i it will take 60 pictures a second, throw out half of each frame (alternating even and odd lines) and save each frame as a single field in the final 60i signal.

If you shoot at 30p it will take 30 pictures per second, split each in half (even and odd lines) and save each half image as a field in the final 60i signal.

If you shoot at 24p it will take 24 pictures per second, split each in half (even and odd lines), then save the half frames as fields in an alternating pattern of 3 and 2 fields to produce the final 60i signal.

This last technique is called a 3/2 pulldown, and is the traditional way of converting footage shot on film at 24 frames per second to display it at the standard television rate of 60 fields per second. Most films that you've watched on television were probably encoded this way. It still will have a distinctly different and more "cinematic" look than stuff shot at 60i or 30p, so if that's your goal you definitely want to shoot at 24p.

For editing you have a couple of choices. The simplest is just to set your editor to treat the footage as 60i and edit away. This works, but can cause quality problems later if you output for the web - displaying interlaced footage on line doesn't work well (the problem you mentioned with visible jaggies) so you'll need to deinterlace the final output and that will drop the picture quality, as well as potentially creating odd movement in the footage because of the 3/2 sequencing of frames.

The second option is to do a 'reverse 3/2 pulldown' to extract the clean 24 frames from the 60i signal. You'll have to do this to all of your footage before you start editing - once you've edited each cut will change the timing on the 3/2 sequence so it can't be extracted cleanly at that point. Depending on the amount of footage you have this can take a lot of time to process and will take up more disc space because you need to make a copy of the footage once it's converted to 24p. You'll also need software designed to do this. After Effects does it well, but is expensive; JES Deinterlacer is a free option that works well but is mac-only - there is probably a windows-based equivalent but I don't know what it is. You don't want to just change the frame rate to 24 - that will throw out frames without regard for the 3/2 pattern and you'll get jerky motion in the final video.
 
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Ignore this question, I didn't realise there was a second page of comments and I don't know how to delete

In your Control Panel, you can adjust the amount of posts that show up on a given page. It really helps to set it to maximum, if you'd rather just keep scrolling down instead of waiting for new pages to load.

This is still page 1, fwiw :cool:

Also... you used to be able to delete your own post, as long as noone had posted a reply to it yet. Oops.
 
This last technique is called a 3/2 pulldown, and is the traditional way of converting footage shot on film at 24 frames per second to display it at the standard television rate of 60 fields per second.

This is where in my experience you can run into problems. The standard television rate (US NTSC) is NOT 60 fields (30 frames) per second. In the traditional telecine process the 30 frames per second are slowed down slightly, resulting in the actual NTSC frame rate of 29.97fps. The problem here is that the production sound was recorded in sync with a faster picture and therefore after the telecine process is no longer in sync and will drift. This means that either you have to deal with all the problems associated with sync drift and/or somewhere in the process the production sound has to be time compressed, which almost without exception introduces audio artefacts.

G
 
Sooo what does that mean for me.. I mean do you think it's going to be more of a pain in the ass then it's worth to do the pulldown? Is it going to cause more audio problems than it's worth?

Impossible to say, it depends on the software and how the frame rate conversion is accomplished. It maybe that your audio would need to be recorded at a pull-up rate during filming or it's possible you may not encounter any problems. At least if you know there is a potential problem in this area, you can keep your eye open and run some tests. That could save you a big headache compared to not noticing you have a problem until you've already completed filming.

G
 
Well I've been watching a few clips I did this with the handbrake program and everything seems fine. Quality didn't get diminished, its 24fps, and the audio seems to be fine. So I think it is all worked out.
 
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