Converting 30P to PAL

[EdgarPitts]

Greetings to all. I am posting here to gain some much needed input.

We shoot our first feature film on multiple Canon XL H1 cameras. With being told that these cameras do not shoot true 24P and combined with our straight to DVD model, we went 30P. We are almost finished with our edit and footage looks amazing downconverted to DVD.

I understand that 24P is much easier to convert to 25P PAL. I also understand that 30P can be converted to 60i.

What is the best process to convert from 30P to PAL DVD format? We currently editing in the Cineform codec.

I thank everyone for your time!!!

Edgar Pitts
Jetrefilm Entertainment

[Alex_ander]

option 1: 30p to 50p with MVTools (unless you don't get artifacts specific to your particular video). Then interlace to get true interlaced PAL.

option 2: in AviSynth change FPS to 50 (this adds extra frames that will be use as field source at further interlacing). After interlacing there will be 3 interlaced + 3 progressive frames.

In both cases you use these usual lines for interlacing from 50p:

AssumeTFF().SeparateFields()
SelectEvery(4,0,3).Weave()

[EdgarPitts]

Are these high quality (resolution) solutions? Thanks.

Edgar

[Alex_ander]

Yes, these are preferable solutions for fair motion reproduction (no full frame dropping, no blending etc.). Of course, you keep original resolution (option 1 does not always work perfectly, test interpolated frames for each episode). The main problem with interlaced material is that you can't capture perfect stills from it, so do it before conversion if you want them .

[EdgarPitts]

So the process would be:

Convert 30P to 50P at full resolution (uncompressed AVI) with AviSynth - 1920*1080.

Convert 50P to 50i at full resolution (uncompressed AVI) with AviSynth - 1920*1080.

Downsample and resize to PAL specs in NLE.

[Alex_ander]

A bit different order (resize while it's progressive):

1.Resize + any editing
2.30P to 50P
3.50P to 25i (you drop excessive fields, then weave)

Do you really have 1920*1080 progressive? It's usually interlaced (at least at broadcasting). If interlaced 29.97, then convert it to 59.94p (using LeakKernelDeint filter for AviSynth), change fps to 50, resize and interlace to 25i. Resizing is only necessary for going to standard DVD resolution (HD resolution numbers are the same for PAL).