Thanks Kelly for the help. At least I know where to start reading and reseaching. Where is that darn Euginia when you need her, she it the queen of all that sort of weird and hard to understand stuff!! ;) Cin

If you look in your manual it is probably 24psf recorded at 29.97. Basically a fake 24fps. I don't see any reason whatsoever to use it. The Cinema look is more in lighting than in framerate.

Dave T2

Have to agree with that. Why anyone would want 24 when 29.97 is available is beyond me. I think slower frame rates look awful.

Compare a still frame from video with a still frame from a movie and the difference is all about lighting, contrast, saturation, and detail. Frame rate is the one thing where video is better than film.

This format is called PF24, and in order to get the real, clean 24p out of it, you need Cineform NeoSCENE ($130). Sony Vegas doesn't support "pulldown removal" from this type of footage. The only NLEs that are able to remove pulldown from PF24 properly are After Effects and the old version of FCP. For everyone else with these cameras (and there are quite a few PF24 consumer cameras around), they'd need Cineform NeoSCENE (the free version of Cineform won't remove pulldown either).

The things you mentioned are important in the quality of a movie, but frame rate is important too. The masses are used to the 24p "feel" (there's a certain feel about the stutter of a 24p movie), so filmmakers continue using it. If we were to be free from this "I'm used to" thing, and able to move on, then I'd go for 120 fps, not 30 fps.

What I know about this subject can be written on the back of a postage stamp so kindly forgive what may seem like a very basic question to the experts.
If the final video is destined for PAL DVD which is 25fps I believe give or take a decimal point or two LOL, then doesn't getting as close as possible to that from the get-go have a role to play?

Is the OP shooting for NTSC or PAL?

BoyAtlantis, wouldn't you just use a PAL camera at 25fps?

Dave T2

Eugenia,

I agree, I would rather have as many frames per second as possible.

Our company keeps running into the problem of people shooting 23.98p and then needing it for broadcast so we have to convert it to 29.97 (or 60i). And it is just silly. You end up with a stuttery video that looks like something is wrong with it.

Dave T2

First, it's great to hear from you Eugenia, as it's been awhile. Hope all is well. :) By all the correct and helpful answers, it seems everyone seems to have this stuff pretty well nailed down (except me..)! Dave, I'm shooting NTSC and you seem to be right about a 'fake' 24P as in the technical sheet it says "HDV(PF24) will be recorded on the tape as 60i" That is going to really confuse me as to what template I should use to render. A 60i or a 24P??? Kelly, I agree with you and Eugenia (sorry I spelled your name wrong earlier) that I've always thought for the best quality video, the more frames the better. I would love to see 120 as was suggested! That is why I have never used this setting before, but this person is doing a YouTube commercial and wanted it to look more like TV than a home movie, so I thought I would give it a try. Boy Atlantis, I've had the same thought about what is the difference between the 24P and PAL. Who wants to argue over one more or less frame ;) Thanks for letting me know that the free Cineform doesn't have the 3:2 pulldown. I do have After Effects CS4, so I may check into that if I choose to pursue this further. I just hope I didn't get in over my head, as the video has been shot, and just needs to be editted.....If I don't remove the 3:2, will it still give me the look and feel they want, and should I treat and render the footage as 60i or 24P? Thanks as always for the great help and support. :) Cin

Glad to be back. :-)

If you don't remove pulldown, you will get ghosting when rendering. The only way to not get ghosting would be to export at 60i, but 60i is only playable on TVs properly (most TVs/DVD players can remove pulldown on the fly), but not online. So for online exports you must either not shoot in PF24, or remove pulldown in AE. You can then export using the free version of the Cineform's codec, and load it up on Vegas to edit the final work.

Alternatively, you can sell the camera, and go for the high-end Canon consumer AVCHD camera for $1500 which is one of the very few consumer camcorders shooting real 24p. Or if you prefer HDV, you can go for the HV40 which also does true 24p (that was the only change over the HV30 model you own). Every other consumer one usually does PF24. Or, go for a Canon dSLR/digicam, which are also true 24p (SONY, and most of Panasonic models -- but not all -- still only do PF24 in these price ranges).

Personally, I have given up my HV20 completely (does it even turn ON anymore, I don't know...) exactly because of that PF24 thing. In the HV community (we used to have a huge community around these cameras), the pulldown removal was a thorn, the No1 issue. I own Cineform, and I even wrote a very popular online tutorial for pulldown removal using free tools, but eventually, time is money. Instead of waiting to transcode huge amounts of data (especially with the free tools, which are way slower than Cineform), the advice now is to just get a camera that shoots real 24p. These days, I only use my 5D MkII dSLR, or my SX230 HS digicam which has enough controls to shoot something good in 1080/24p (exposure compensation+lock, color controls, manual focus + lock, high bitrate, it cost me just $200).

I though MSHD11 could take care of the pull down, here's what's in the help files:

Converting Video to 24p


If you want to create a 24 fps, progressive-scan project using existing interlaced video, you're in luck: Vegas Movie Studio makes easy work of converting your existing footage.

If you are shooting interlaced video that you plan to convert to 24p, your camera's shutter speed will determine the quality of frame rate conversion in Vegas Movie Studio:

If you're shooting NTSC or HDV 60i video, set your shutter speed to 1/60 second.

If you're shooting PAL or HDV 50i video, set your shutter speed to 1/50 second.

These settings will provide the smoothest-looking motion possible after conversion. Faster frame rates can produce visibly choppy motion.


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Start a new project.

Set your project properties:

a. From the Project menu, choose Properties. The Project Properties dialog is displayed.

b. From the Template drop-down list, choose NTSC DV 24p

c. Click OK to close the Project Properties dialog and apply your changes.

Add the video to the timeline.

From the Project menu, choose Render As and render the file using the NTSC DV 24p (inserting 2-3-3-2 pulldown) AVI template. This template allows for more efficient pulldown removal.