Thoroughly Confused

Question

Here's the deal. I'm going on the trip of a lifetime to Italy next month and I want to get the best video quality possible from my Canon HF100 and either iMovie 08 or FCE 4.0.1. I've read through these forums as well as forums dealing with my model camcorder and now of course I am utterly confused. The number of frame rate options on my camcorder as well as importing and exporting options on my Mac are overwhelming, and I consider myself to be fairly knowledgeable about AV stuff on the Mac and PC.
I'm looking for direction in two areas I guess. One is what modes/frame rates work best with iMovie 08 and FCE, and once my footage is on my mac what app/export option will yield the best results, and stay as close as possible to the quality of the source material?
The Canon HF100 has options for 24p which they recommend using in tandem with Cinema Mode, but it doesn't say what Cinema Mode does. It also has 60i and 30p. I've heard all kinds of conflicting info about how these frame rates work in my two apps, so many that I'm not even going to start to get into them all. Does iMovie 08 or FCE read all these frame rates? Does it recognize them and then convert them to something else? Which ones work best in the two apps?
As far as exporting goes, do I even know where to start? This is one area where I believe even Apple could not truly simplify things. I eventually want to watch what I shoot on my HDTV of course either streaming it over the network to my XBOX 360 using Connect 360 or burn it on a DVD which I really don't want to because of it's a physical media and It's going to be downgraded to MPEG2. In the past I've used the Apple TV preset in iMovie 08 to stream standard def stuff to my 360 without any issues. That will lower the resolution on the HD video I shoot so thats not the most appealing option. Anyone have any idea of what might be a good export option to accomplish this?
Also depending on what frame rate I shoot in do I need to pay attention to what export option I use as they also have options for frame rates and resolutions?
Can anyone help bring a little clarity to my situation?
Thank You
Joshua

Answer 1

Joshua,
From Canon USA's website pages about the HF100: http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&fcategoryid=177&mo delid=16187#ModelFeaturesAct
"..24p Cinema Mode enables all aspiring moviemakers to achieve a professional "film-look." You can change the camcorder's frame capture rate to 24p (recorded at 60i), which provides the appearance of the same frame rate as movie film.." (..My italics..)
I'm not going to respond to Steve, but I'll try to explain this, and to answer your question.
The camera can record single, complete frames of video. These frames are normally - or until recently have been generally - composed of two separate "fields" of information, each comprising half the total number of lines down a video, or TV, screen. One field has odd-numbered lines, the other consists of even-numbered lines. When these two fields are shown rapidly one after the other as 60 "interlaced" fields per second, the fields blend into each other, and the effect is of 30 complete frames of video per second.
The HF100 appears to record not separate half-a-full-frame-of-information fields, but complete, whole frames of info (..known as 'progressive' frames; progressing all the way down the screen, as lines 1,2,3,4,5,6 etc, instead of 1,3,5,7,9 followed by 2,4,6,8,10, etc..)
But note that Canon's own description says that you can "..change the camcorder's frame capture rate to 24p (recorded at 60i).." which means that the 24 genuine full frames of info are then separated, split or duplicated so that 60 separate fields are produced from those full frames, to allow the video to be recorded - and replayed - in the normal 60-interlaced-fields-per second manner.
Now, 24 doesn't divide exactly into 60. There are 60 fields to provide every second (..they could be identical fields; they don't necessarily need to be different from each other..) but to divide up 24 frames into 60 pieces means that each of those 60 fields may contain 0.4 of a original frame. Just using simple mathematics: 24/60=0.4.
The frames may be assigned differently, as it's unlikely that any field will be assigned 0.4 (two fifths) of a frame. Let's say that every two of the 60 fields-each-second are the same. That gives us 30 full and complete frames to be manufactured out of the original 24. That would mean that each of the 30 frames per second is composed of 1.25 of the original 24fps frames. Now, one-and-a-quarter of the original 24 squeezed into each of the recorded-to-chip 30 frames would still not really be feasible. So there must be a method to -d-i-s-t-r-i-b-u-t-e- those 24 frames more-or-less equally between the final 30 per second frames (..or 60 interleaved fields per second..) which the camcorder records onto a chip.
The way that it's usually done is - as Adam Wilt described - chopping things up so that half-frames, i.e; "fields" of video, get distributed between the resultant 30 frames ..or 60 fields.. per second - some of which may be identical to each other, and others not.
Here's how he describes it, starting at 24p Standard about a fifth of the way down the page: it's "..the same 2:3 or 3:2 pulldown cadence long used to transfer 24fps film to NTSC video. The first 24p frame is written to two fields of 60i video, the next is written to three, the next to two, and the next to three again, as shown in the graphic."
So the various chopped-up portions of the original 24-distinct-and-complete-frames-captured-each-second are "farmed out" between the resultant recorded-to-chip 30 frames per second ..which Canon acknowledges are actually recorded onto the chip as being "..recorded at 60i.."
"24p Cinema Mode" (sic), as Canon describes it, above, is a mixture of shooting at 24 frames-per-second (though it appears to be then chopped-up and redistributed as 60 interlaced fields per second, like normal video, but jerkier) to look like the 'jerky' motion of film, with optional adjustments as well to the comparative brightness of regions of the picture, to make the video look more like the 'linear' (constant) brightness changes which film records. (Video is usually made brighter in 'mid-white' or mid brightness regions of the picture, because cathode ray tube picture screens traditionally didn't cope with brightness the same way in mid-tones as in dark or very bright regions.) ..That's the "gamma" which Steve referred to.
On the "Auto/Manual Controls" page http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Canon-Vixia-HF100-Camcorder-Review-35094/Au to--Manual-Controls.htm of that Camcorderinfo review which I mentioned, their description of "Cine Mode" explains that: "..Cine Mode is an alternate gamma mode for how the camcorder processes colors, meant to make the HF100 match something closer to Canon's professional line rather than the oversaturated colors standard on most consumer camcorders. When active, the highlights and shadows are compressed and the midtones are expanded. Cine mode presumes, to some extent, that you've properly lit your scene. This is not the best run-and-gun setting, as you'll lose more details in the shadows and highlights. However, if the lighting is good, the image tends to have great looking colors.."
So, I repeat what I explained earlier, in answer to your previous question; ".."..it doesn't say what Cinema Mode does.." It takes half of one frame, adds it to another frame, and tries to produce the effect of genuine cinema film. It just produces jerky video. Don't bother with it. Don't waste this "trip of a lifetime" by shooting unsatisfactory, jerky "pretend film".
Now if you want your video to be "Fellini-esque" - as you're going to Italy - and want it to look like films made in Italy (..instead of looking like normal video..) you could use "24p Cinema Mode" - as Canon describes it - and switch to shooting at 24p, and adjust your "gamma" (the relative brightness of mid-tones) so that your "trip of a lifetime" looks like "Juliet of the Spirits" (..though that's rather super-bright!..) or Ginger and Fred ..but if you DO want to make your video look more like film, then - as I suggested - "..practise with the camera before you go, so that you know everything about how to use it before you even get there.."
I don't recommend Canon's "24p Cinema Mode", though, as things will look rather jerkier than normal. (..Shooting at 24p frame rate is often - mistakenly, in my view - thought to make a video look like a film, but the rate at which films are shown on cinema screens is actually two brief views of each of those 24 frames each second ..so you actually see 48 images per second, each image being shown twice ..and so the effect is rather different from simply seeing 24 images per second, which would flicker terribly. The 60i, or 30fps, manner in which those 24 frames per second are shown on a video screen differs markedly different from the 48 images-per-second which you see in a cinema or theatre. The so-called "film look" which video shooters strive for involves a different "depth of field" (amount of the shot that's in focus) when shot with a video camera, than the depth of field which a larger-frame film camera provides, too. So it's really very simplistic to think that shooting in "24p Cinema Mode" will provide a movie which really does look genuinely like a film!..)
Anyway, as I don't want to get into a discussion with Steve, I won't post any more comments or advice in this thread, because I think that his and my temperaments don't match, and I just don't enjoy the harangue.
Enjoy your trip to Italy, and I hope that you get lots of great footage!