i’ve got a PAL HG10 and am using vegas 8 to edit on my PC. i’ve tried the tutorial to pulldown but had no luck. am i right in thinking that i would have to change the “Project Properties” template to HDV 1080/50i instead of /60i? and would i also have to change anything in the mencoder command code or anything else for that matter in the whole tutorial?

thanks for your time

regards
Jason

As for full HD, go for the new Panasonic.

First, for Leopard, I must say that I am a UNIX Administrator and that I used Linux for at least 15 years. I understand that iMovie 08 doesn’t need Leopard and I also have read into another tread that Leopard is hungry on memory BUT,… One thing present in Leopard that wasn’t present in Tiger but that I used to use a lot on Linux is the multiple desktops. Now that I get it back from Leopard, I need it And my MacBook is fill up with 2G of RAM. Right now I consume 822Mb of active memory and I have Mail, Safari, Text Edit, iTunes, iMovie 08 and iMovie 06 running all at the same time!!!

I don’t know if you ever work with multiple desktops, but since I used them with multiple servers to administrate, I cannot understand peoples that don’t use that feature, except for those who use Windows !

May be it is because I have a to much structured mind… (lol)

Picture a matrix of 16 desktops, 4 rows by 4 columns, you configure your preferred applications to always start on their respective desktop, that you choose yourself, and with a squeeze on your mighty mouse all your desktops zoom out onto your screen, then you move you pointer to the one you want and click! It come back in front plan… It is so nice….

Second, when I read your comments regarding iMovie 08 versus iMovie 06, I was a little bit frustrated. But the good thing is that I found that the installation of iMovie 08 actually keep your iMovie 06 into a new folder called “iMovie (previous version)” under the Applications folder, good! Now my frustration is gone

Still I would appreciate to heard your opinions regarding the pros and cons of each version respectively…

As for the camera, my first choice was the JVC Everio GZ-HD7U simply because it was the one with the higher price. I thought that this had the chance to be the better one. Then I compared all the HD available at Future Shop (Montreal). My first criteria was of course the MacBook compatibility and I kept all the models compatible with iMovie 08 (before I realized I had iMovie 06). Finally I kept the models with hard drive. I finished with three models. Here are their respective specifications resumed (I hope the tabulations will be respected here):

Model Canon HG10 SONY HDRSR7 JVC GZHD7U
========= ============ ============ ==========
Price 1099.99 1299.99 1499.99
24p Yes No No
60i Yes Yes Yes
Video AVCHD AVCHD Mpeg2
Resolution 1920 x 1080 1440 x 1080 1920 x 1080i
Audio 12 bits Yes No No
Audio 16 bits Yes Yes Yes

The first thing I noticed was the 1440 resolution of the SONY, I disregard this one. Then the JVC was in Mpeg2 and when I saw their movie publicity on the web, I realized that it was also 1440 not 1920 ! So with the Canon, same brand as my actual Canon Rebel XT camera, new version of the softwares “Canon Utility” and “Canon Browser” plus the 24p and the 1920 x 1080, it seem to be the better choice for me, not to mention the lower price…

What do you think? What is your opinion on the JVC one? Should I expect a more professional camera taking the price into account? I still can return the Canon and choose another one…

Basically, what I want to shoot are the Moon, Rising Sun and Falling Sun. I am an hobbies astronomer. See my pcitures…

Best regards,
Yves

So, to get support for your AVCHD camera, you need iLife 08. You didn’t need Leopard, you just needed iLife 08 that has iMovie 08 in it. iMovie 08 sucks, and has fewer features than iMovie 06. So what you need to do is give back Leopard if you don’t want it, buy iLife 08, capture from the camera with 08 to change the .m2ts files to .mov files, and then iMovie 06 can open these .mov files and edit them.

Now, iMovie OR Final Cut Express, DO NOT support true 24p. Neither Ulead does. You need a professional editor, or Vegas Platinum to get support for true 24p (after you remove pulldown). Which is what this tutorial here does, to tell you how to remove pulldown and change the bastardized PF24 format that Canon writes to the camera, to true 24p. However, if you don’t want to upgrade your editor, you just leave the pulldown inside the stream and edit as 60i, but you are risking ghosting. If you don’t remove pulldown, you get what you got: 29.97 fps, because the 24p is wrapped inside the 60i stream.

Now, as for the 1920 vs 1440, the current Canon cameras only record at 1440×1080 with aspect ratio 1.3333. It is not full HD. The sensor in the camera is full HD, but they write down in the hard drive a portion of that data. 1440*1.3333=1920. That’s how you get your 16:9 to fill up your screen, with the usage of that aspect ratio. But no, it’s not full HD, and it’s not progressive either. If you de-interlace the footage, you will get 1080/30p. But it will still be 1440, unless you resize to 1920.

The new Panasonic cameras that were announced at CES have full HD recording and 24p support. Although I must say, you don’t really need 24p. It’s a gimmick and NOT recommended for casual recording. Unless you are filming a movie or a music video clip for your local indie rock band, avoid.

Now I understand that I will never achieve a real progressive 1920×1080p resolution, Am I right?

I still have some questions. I have a MacBook with Tiger and iMovie 06. After I plugged the Canon HG10, I was only able to open the new drive from the desktop. Nothing could be done with iMovie 06. Back on the specifications from the retailer, I realized that it was only compatible with version of iMovie 08. In the attempt to upgrade to this version, the retailer told me that the last version of the Mac OS X, version 10.5.1 called Leopard does include iLife with iMovie 08, so I bought that. This is unfortunately not true!

Yes iLife 08 come with a new computer with Leopard installed, but I did upgrade my Tiger with Leopard from the original CD and I finished with a new desktop environment but still with my previous version of iLife applications! iLife is NOT included with the OS X Leopard CD !!

My next step idea was to go and buy iLife 08. After I just read your article I have some questions…

Should I understand that even with iMovie 08 I should never use the 24PF setting?

I did a test with two movies, one in 60i and a second in 24PF, both were in mode “CINEMA” at 1920×1080i on the HG10. Then I imported these two clips into a PC with Windows XP Professional and ULead installed from the CD-ROM that came with the Canon HG10. My question is why these two clip formats were reported as 1440×1080 at 29.97fps ?

Does it mean that even at 1920×1080 we still record the movie at 1440×1080 ?? This isn’t it a compression ??

Yves

So overall, while this method might be the last thing someone should try, I am not convinced. MEncoder and FFMPEG should add native support for AVCHD before the whole Linux thing becomes really viable for pulldown removal (or even plain AVCHD usage).