Need help! Editing HDV 1080i/24p (pulldown) in FCPX

Hi,
I'm planning on filming a documentary with my Sony FX1000, which shoots in HDV 1080i/24p (2-3 pulldown) and am new to Final Cut Pro X. I'm having trouble retaining the best quality of my footage in FCPX while editing and exporting and was hoping someone who has edited 24p in FCPX could give some advice about what my settings should be while importing, editing and exporting footage.
When I set the project properties to 1080i/23.97, the video doesn't look close to the quality I shot it on. The best quality I've gotten has been settings project properties to 720p HD 1280x720 29.97p, but I still feel like I should be retaining better quality in the footage. I also experience tons of 'combing' in certain shots after I export, which I cannot have at all.

Anyone have any thoughts or experience with this? I've read 24 progressive can be a pain, but there's no turning back at this point. Any help is much appreciated!

That seems to be a general problem with Sony's 24p implementation. I had the same issues with my A1. I never got something out of 24p.

The issue is described on Wikipedia's HDV entry:

Prior to the HVR-V1, Sony was offering Cineframe, essentially an interlaced-to-progressive converter, to simulate film-like motion. The conversion process involved blending and discarding fields, so vertical resolution of the resulting video suffered. Motion, produced in the 24-frame/s variant of Cineframe was too uneven for professional use.[13] The same or better film look effect can be achieved by converting regular interlaced video into progressive format using computer software

If I'm not mistaken, your FX also uses Cineframe instead of PsF24.

I get a better PsF24 out of my Canon HV30 that cost a quarter of the A1.

I used to have an FX1000 and only ever used it to record 24p. It records 24p at the sensor and uses a 3:2 pulldown to get it onto tape at 60i. You can either keep the pulldown in there and edit directly on a 29.97fps project or remove the pulldown to get the true 24fps video.

Unfortunately the FX1000 doesn't flag the pulldown. I used to use After Effects to interpret the footage and remove the pulldown, it guessed the pulldown correctly very close to 100% of the time. The rare clips it never got right were easy enough to change manually.

I believe, and hopefully someone can confirm, that Compressor can remove un-flagged pulldowns. To work that way you'd need to run all your clips through Compressor before importing them into FCPX for working on a 24fps project.

If FCPX can deal with it, missing out that step, I'd also love to know.

I'm glad I found someone who also had an FX1000. Thanks for replying. How would I remove the pulldown to get the true 24fps? After importing my footage, when I click on the video and look under 'info' in the inspector, it recognizes it as NTSC 29.97fps. I don't mind the 29.97fps, but what is the NTSC about? I want the HDV 1080i quality and none of the project settings seem to retain this. I've come across the "Settings View" in the inspector where I can change the Field Dominance Override to Progressive, which improves the sharpness, but also increases the "combing." There's also an option for "Deinterlace" but that skews the entire image to the point it's not even workable. Do you have any suggestions for this? Do I need to have specific settings in place before I even import the footage? If so, what should they be? The combing (I think also known as artifacts?) usually appears after exporting to a quicktime file. How do I keep this from happening?

Sorry for all the questions, but this is fairly new to me. Thanks again for any advice.

Yes, Compressor can do it.

So I would need to run my clips through Compressor before importing them to FCPX? What exactly am I converting them to before importing to FCPX and then exporting? This will definitely solve the "shredded/combing" look after I export it?

Thanks again.

Without getting too technical, when you shoot 24p the FX1000 takes every 4 frames and turns them into 5 by splitting them into fields. 3 of those frames have fields from a matching frame and 2 are mixed, having fields from adjacent frames. This is to get it to record to tape at 29.97 interlaced HDV.

Don’t worry about the NTSC thing. It’s not really NTSC, it just stuck and is used to differentiate between 60i and 50i (still termed PAL) HDV.

If you try to tell your NLE to de-interlace this it isn’t straight forward and there are going to be problems with the 2 mismatched frames, so the pulldown has to be removed in an exact reverse procedure of how it was constructed.

I’ve not yet worked with pulldown since FCPX came out, but in Avid and Premiere you can remove the pulldown from clips shot on a camera that flag the pulldown. Flagging is additional information in the video that tells the NLE the pattern of how those 5 frames were constructed in the camera. The FX1000, like the HV20, doesn’t flag the pulldown.

So on the assumption that FCPX can’t do it either (which may be wrong) you can either edit directly on a 29.97 fps interlaced project, but without de-interlacing the footage, to get a 60i video with a 24p look, or you can first remove the pulldown. Which Ben has confirmed can be done in Compressor.

If I was you, on running it through Compressor, I’d export as 24p 1920x1080 ProRes 422, with reverse pulldown of course.

ProRes 422 progressive