24 or 25fps on GH2?

[pietz]

im still deciding if i wanna shoot in 24 or 25 frames per second. i often see hollywood movies that have been converted from 24 to 25fps, so that they play on european dvd players. this has been done with speedup, which makes them a couple of minutes shorter in total. its a difference that i dont notice and just cannot see. i find it hard to imagine people looking at it and saying: "thats not a hollywood look anymore".

now im not quite sure if this is also true for the GH2. does the 24fps mode somehow look "better" than 25fps? are there other things that play into account except for the physical change of the framerate? i know the reason why 24fps looks more cinematic but 25fps is so much closer than 30fps for example, that im just not sure if you can really see the difference.

the reason im trying to defend 25fps is because im from europe and dvd compatability for example only comes with 25fps.

any thoughts on this?

oh and does somebody have a good program on windows for framerate modification? i used cinema tools on the mac, which simply let me edit the fps without reencode. i havent been able to find something similar on windows. i dont like to do this through premiere because converting 24 to 25fps is a very odd number in percentage and i dont trust premiere doing it exact enough.

Edit: uhm...can the gh2 actually record 25fps? :D

[jgharding]

I can't tell the difference between 25 and 25. I think you'd have to be superhuman! If you're going to be projecting in cinema or exposing back to film 24 is best (actual 24, not 23.976), other 25 will do fine.

[Axel]

[quote name='pietz' timestamp='1350297504' post='19775']oh and does somebody have a good program on windows for framerate modification? i used cinema tools on the mac, which simply let me edit the fps without reencode. i havent been able to find something similar on windows. i dont like to do this through premiere because converting 24 to 25fps is a very odd number in percentage and i dont trust premiere doing it exact enough.[/quote]

The only advantage of cinema tools was that you didn't need to export the video with the new framerate. It was just flagged (provided that you had it in an intraframe codec like ProRes). But with Premiere, the thing actually is as exact as in CT and causes no recompression either. If there is an easier workflow, let me know. I would proceed like this:
1. Export your film with the native 24p.
2. Re-import the film as footage. Right-click and choose [i]interpret footage > change framerate >25p[/i].
3. Throw the whole clip into a 25p sequence.
4. Export the new version.

Nobody can [i]see[/i] the difference (often proved with cutters, who'd spent weeks with the material and were unable to notice the change), but people with absolute pitch can hear it, because the sound is a halftone key higher. Afaik you can adjust the pitch with audition, but you'd have to google for the procedure.

[quote name='pietz' timestamp='1350297504' post='19775']Edit: uhm...can the gh2 actually record 25fps? :D[/quote]

Yes, with FW 1.1 and 'HBR' it is flagged as 50i, because then most newer bluray-players will accept it (25p is currently not supported), but upper and lower field have no different phases. In a 25p timeline (forced, no automatically created desktop project), it will behave like 25p, with no interlace artifacts. Don't apply a deinterlace-filter, because then you lose resolution.

[pietz]

thanks so much axel, i didnt know about the "interpret footage" option. i always used Speed/Duration which worked fine for 50 to 25fps since its just 50%, but for 24 to 25fps its a hassle to calculate and premiere probably wouldnt do it exact this way.