24p HD master

[moc]

Greetings David,
I have a question about the 24p format that you may be able to help with.
Our recent project was shot with the Cine Alta 900. The frame rate was set at 24p(23.98) with a 1/48 shutter setting.
The Standard Defintion version of the program has done well and now we are working on a HD master. We're a little confused about frame rate/format settings for the HD master. I've been told that if we create a true 24p master then we can geneate a 60I version for US television and a pal version for European distribution. This project will probably not be transfered to film.
Thanks
Mike

 

[David Mullen ASC]

You would create a 23.98P HD edited master, probably on HD-D5 or HDCAM depending on what you online to from your camera tapes.

From that master, you can create other HD masters or SD downconversions (NTSC or PAL.)

There's no reason to change 23.98P to 24P when making the HD master. Most common method of making downconversions to PAL (25 fps / 50i) is to just run 23.98P or 24P at 25 fps (speed it up slightly, pretending it's 25P), then convert into fields for 50i.

For the NTSC version, you'd add a 3:2 pulldown to convert 23.98P to 59.94i (NTSC, which is not 30 fps / 60i -- it's 29.97 fps / 59.94i).

You could also make a 59.94i/1080 version from the 23.98P/1080 master if you needed that as a deliverable (for example, Sundance requires all tapes delivered for digital projection be 60i/1080 HDCAM, but that means 59.94i/1080 as well.)

Your HD post house should be aware of all of these issues so ask them.