Unfortunately, Canon did not include the extended attributes for their cine-24 fps mode in the HV20 and so there is not a single affordable HDV NLE that can recognize that the 1080i stream is actually at 24 fps. You need to do a manual 3:2 pulldown, but except Adobe After Effects at $1000, there’s no other NLE app that includes such a feature out of the box. The unfortunate thing is that Premiere Elements has a pulldown importing option, but because Canon didn’t use the extended HDV attributes to indicate that the stream must be processed in 24fps, the option is grayed out.

There is a lot of outcry for this problem in the forums, and they all suggest we call Canon to ask for a firmware upgrade… There are some third party utilities that can do the pulldown (you need to grab, save, import with the utility, export with that utility, re-import to the NLE app), but the cheapest one costs $300 in the PC world. For the Mac, there is the free JES Deinterlacer utilty that might or might not work and CinemaTools that is part of a $1300 package.

You all know that I am a 60fps fan girl, but 24fps can also be interesting if you want to create a “movie-looking” movie. Check out this video (youtube, HD 720p), this kid has amazing talent. He shot this amazingly-looking short with his HV20. I’ve seen some of his other stuff, the kid has potential.