Talk:Telecine

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[edit] Merger with telecine

The pulldown information for film-->video transfer should be summarized in 24p, and the bulk of that info should be in telecine. However, 24p video-specific pulldown methods such as advanced pulldown belong in 24p. Glennchan 05:22, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok, let's talk about this and get rid of the tags. I don't think there should be a merger since the two articles cover two distinctly different topics. 24p refers to video running at 24fps framerate. Telecine refers to transferring film to video. Glennchan 23:41, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

  • 'I don't think there should be a merger since the two articles cover two distinctly different topics.' I agree. Telecine Guy 06:47, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:3 pulldown

I added a piece regarding the newer method of PAL telecine. Does anyone know if it has a proper name? Is this a decent technical explanation for it? -- Lmb71

@Lmb71, above: It is a known method, that's for sure, but the best reference I could find is the MPlayer homepage... It's known as 2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:3 telecine there. Although the technical name is unknown at this stage, I did add the information, in an attempt to make the article more general. Niek Bergboer 17:34, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Misc

Is this original work? Any chance it could be wikified, if it is? -- Zoe

It is original, as good as my word is for it. -- iluvcapra

"is photographed at 25 frames per second, and the PAL video standard broadcasts at 25" and what' done for movie films at 24 fps this make +4% is it acceptable ? Ericd

The speeding-up of the motion is no big deal, but a bigger issue is the pitch shift. Actors with recognizable voices can pitch up and sound unrecognizeable, or at least recognizeably bad. I worked with a UK crew recently and they told me all UK theatrical features were shot 24fps and projected so, and that only the TV version would suffer. Pitch shifters are sometimes installed in European theaters for when they project American films, but only if they happen to use a 25 fps projector. It's apparently a huge mess but nobody seems to mind, since sync doesn't suffer. Holman covers the issue better in Sound for Film and Television. -- iluvcapra

Great picture!!! iluvcapra

This paragraph seems dubious:

"3:2 pulldown" creates motion artifacts in the video signal that can be clearly seen in the above image. This is one reason why NTSC telecine viewed at home appears to lack smoothness in motion compared to viewing actual film in a cinema.

The fields are displayed in chronological order: A1, A2, B1, B2, B3, C1, C2, D1, D2, D3. Each film frame stays on screen for either 2 or 3 fields, for an overall average rate of 2.5 fields. (2.5*24=60) I can't say this has ever seemed very uneven or non-smooth to me; is that what's being referred to, or the artifacts of freeze-framing on one of the video frames consisting of fields from two film frames? --Brion 20:23, August 27, 2005 (UTC)

The original version of that para was added here, and sounds even more dubious. What it seems to be trying to say is covered in more detail in the reverse telecine section below it, so I'm removing it. --Brion 20:32, August 27, 2005 (UTC)

I simply do not understand why so many movies are still made at 24fps if most of their viewers are watching them on DVD and Video, which operate a higher framerates. On photographic film I can see a rational reason, it saves film. But why do even digital movies still stick to this framerate. And, if 100+ line tv was techically possible even way back in the 1940s, why didn't a 100+ lines analong video format replace cine-film over a decace before digital video was a reality? And what is the origin of the 24p framerate?

Questioner, please leave your name! We still shoot films at 24fps for many reasons. First, all the projectors on earth are built to run at 24fps, and adjusting most of them would be technically non-trivial. As well, movies shot at 30fps would, of course, consume 20% more footage and so be that much more expensive to develop, print, and ship for the same length movie, without a significant gain in motion rendition. Digital movies shoot at 24 because it's guaranteed to transfer to 35mm film without visible artifacts (it's much easier to do frame conversions from film to a lesser medium, like NTSC, than it is to go to it.) As well, you need at least a 2000 lines to begin to approach film's rendition, as opposed to 100+, and analogue video can approach this, as you say even in the 50s and 60s (in labs), but the issue was being able to reliably record such a signal and disseminate it on a reasonable piece of bandwidth, which was not practical until recently, with the advent of digital transmission. --iluvcapra

[edit] "HD advanced telecine"

Could you talk about HD Advanced Telecine? a.k.a 1080p 24f --Jack Zhang 20:30, Feb 9, 2004 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with the phrase "HD advanced telecine". Regardless... there is a 24Psf (23.98fps) format for HDCAM tape. In this format, no pulldown is required since it's 24fps. There is also a 24psf format for HD-SDI. Glennchan 23:41, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pronunciation

The first pronunciation given on the page "tele-seen" is wrong in my experience; saying it that way in LA is the mark of a total noob. I'll change it unless someone wishes to attest otherwise.Iluvcapra 06:57, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

On the east coast pronouncing it any other way is seen as pretentious snobbery. I guess to remain impartial we should include both. In my opinion its a To-MAY-to To-MAH-to thing.  ALKIVAR™ 06:47, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree that "tele-seen" is wrong. I have never heard this pronunciation ever used by colorists (the operators of professional telecines), manufacturers of the machines, or film laboratories anywhere in the USA or England. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.166.186.128 (talk) 18:04, 31 December 2005
On the east coast, I've also heard "tele-seen," and it doesn't seem there is reason to not include that based on the discussion here (but my experience is in projection and not cinematography). Curiously, that pronounciation was removed by User:Monotonehell on 15:44, 24 December 2006 with this edit summary: "Adding alternative pronounciation. RM non MoS pronounciation guide. See WP:PRON." That revision replaced the IPA pronounciation of "tele-seen" ([ˈtɛl.iːˈsɪn]) with two IPA pronounciations for "tel-e-Sin-ee" ([ˈtɛləˌsɪni, ˌtɛləˈsɪni]), and removed the references to "tele-seen" and "tel-e-Sin-a."
WP:PRON does not prohibit phonetic pronounciations, it indicates IPA is desired and recognizes that phonetic can be helpful for people who don't understand IPA (see Other transcription systems).
So, I've added back the phonetics, ordering "tele-seen" last based on the above discussion. HELP: Can someone better versed in IPA add the IPA version of "tel-e-Sin-a"? Jhawkinson 15:05, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
I added [ˌtɛləˈsɪnə] for "tel-e-Sin-a" and changed "tele-seen" to [ˌtɛləˈsiːn] ([ˈtɛl.iːˈsɪn] is more like Tel-ee-Sin). Are [ˈtɛləˌsɪni] and [ˌtɛləˈsɪni] both needed? If so the non-IPA pronunciations should be updated (the former corresponds to Tel-e-sin-ee and the latter to tel-e-Sin-ee). DopefishJustin 04:04, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I have been advised via my talk page that my removal of the incorrect pronunciation "tele-seen" has been reverted because it had been discussed here previously. The advisory noted "[...]contribute there if you can substantiate the invalidity of the pronounciation. ". Unfortunately, I'm afraid that this is a misconstrual of how Wikipedia, and encyclopedias in general, work. I was previously aware of this discussion. That some people contend that their - or others' - mispronunciations exist, does not constitute verifiable proof that this mispronunciation is a valid pronunciation. The onus is upon those who contend that this mispronunciation is valid to produce documentary proof from reliable sources to substantiate it. Discussion here, absent some citation from a reliable source, is meaningless.

I realize this may seem contentious, but the reality is, many people routinely refer to realtors as "real-a-tors". That they do this does not validate their mispronunciation by repetition; it merely means that they are mispronouncing the word repeatedly.

I am removing 'tele-seen'. Absent a citation from a reliable source, other than one found via google that ultimately winds up pointing back to this article, then feel free to restore it. Anastrophe 03:12, 2 August 2007 (UTC)


Anastrophe, with modern jargon it is often difficult to come up with reliable sources. Language is a moving target, and especially so with technical jargon. Your example with "realtors" doesn't extend well here, because that word has been in the language since 1916 and has seen widespread use in common parlance. What is your reliable source for the two pronounciations of telecine that you have left remaining? I hesitate to nominate a dictionary that I think is appropriate for pronounciation of modern technical jargon. jhawkinson 15:07, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
that is an excellent point! i'm demanding citation for one pronunciation, but accepting uncritically the others. i'm basing my judgement on the roughly a decade i spent working in a film/video lab in the 1980's, where the device was referred to as a 'tele-sinny' by everyone, including the operators. and that constitutes - tada! - original research. having never once heard it referred to as a 'tele-seen' until about a week ago (before reading this article), i could see no other possibility. ...so, i will attempt to track down a reliable source for all pronunciations. i still maintain that the only correct pronunciation is 'tele-sinny', because - as is noted - the root is the same as cinema, and *nobody* pronounces that "sign-ma". Anastrophe 16:58, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 3:2 pulldown section

I think that this section would be much easier to understand if it discussed the principle in isolation first, and then added in the complexity due to interlace and the 59.94 frame rate. Certainly it makes the illustration easier to understand:

image:Basic-3-2-pulldown.png

Also, IMHO the other version of the image gives too much emphasis to the idea of two video fields making a frame. Since fields are exposed and viewed one at a time on normal screens it is them, not frames, that are important when discussing fluidity of motion.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Algr (talk • contribs) 07:33, 29 January 2006

Fields are not viewed one-at-a-time, they are viewed two-at-a-time. One field represents the odd lines on the screen, and the next represents the even lines, alternating. So, it's quite important to show that the image on the screen as seen by a human is made up of two fields. Jhawkinson 13:04, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
Which makes me wonder - why not do 3:2:2:3 or 2:3:3:2, to (perhaps) avoid at least some of the judder? --moof 08:52, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pirating?

I'm disturbed that a reference to "telecine" as a pirating term is placed in the introduction to this article. It should be no more than a footnote - at the very most given its own section at the bottom of the story as an "also" - not given a spotlight in the introduction. Nearly every movie ever photograhed on film undergoes a telecine process, now with the advent of digital intermediates, even theatrical releases ON film have been "telecine'd." The fact that - very rarely - a telecine can be utilized to make pirated copies of movies should be an afterthought. In addition, this is taken to the exteme that the article is CATEGORIZED as an article about pirating. As a professional involved in the images of motion pictures, this is offensive. I can't imagine I'm alone with that. This would be like adding a reference to the Mafia in the introduction to the article on Italian Americans. As I work on the color grading article, this will be a revision for the near future. LACameraman 08:33, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Because many of the editors of WIkipedia are kids (physically or mentally), Wiki accumulates a lot of cruft from the sorts of people who spend their time downloading illegal MP3s and ripping DVDs. You are absolutely correct: An article about Telecine should be about the process that the industry recognizes, not about something somebody's doing in the basement of their parent's house or sitting in a movie theatre in the dark with their video camera. Please be bold and make those changes to the article that you believe are needed.
Atlant 11:02, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
This seems to've been solved with the "Telecine with regards to piracy" section, and I've just edited that to shift the emphasis away from pirate slang and fix some mis-statements, though I'm afraid "telesync" probably has to stay, just because the word is similar enough to engender confusion. I'm a bit more disturbed to see that this is "Category:Warez", and I'm not sure what to do about that. It really tars the entire article with a pretty negative brush, but it probably can't be removed. Would it be appropriate to consider splitting off the piracy term into a seperate article so the "Warez" tag can be removed from here? Jhawkinson 15:40, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
There could be a disambiguation page that differentiates between telecine and telesync. I agree with LACameraman, that stuff should absolutely be moved into its own page. Glennchan 03:35, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
Just describe the phenomenen, okay! Don't get confused about moral issues. Describe the world. Kind regards, [search for 'telecine' and 'torrent'] Ottfried 15:21 GMT+1, 4 april 2007
Telecine is not the same as Telesync in the pirating vocabulary. Also you can't exclude content from wikipedia simply because it explains an illegal activity. There are many articles on wikipedia, many about much worse crimes such as murder etc.--Jackaranga 01:46, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
The intent is not to exclude, but to seperate. I'm going to go ahead and make this change. jhawkinson 02:07, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Separate 'Reverse Telecine' article needed

The Reverse Telecine article absolutely needs to be split off into a separate article - it is a massively big subject in the audiovisual industry. There also needs to be more information about the close relationship between reverse telecine (3:2 pulldown removal) and deinterlacing. Sometimes these two are even confused. However, 3:2 pulldown removal applies to movies broadcast as video, while deinterlacing applies to video broadcast as video. Because both movies and video are broadcast, many modern devices (line doublers, upconversion in HDTV sets, some progressive scan DVD players, etc) automatically switch between reverse telecine (3:2 pulldown removal) and deinterlacing, based on algorithms that automatically analyze the video for the prescence of a pulldown sequence in the video. Chips such as DCDi perform this task. As proof, there are over 70,000 search results that cover both "3:2 pulldown" and "deinterlacing" on the same page: Search ... therefore more consistency needs to exist between the deinterlacing article and the reverse telecine section in the telecine article. I've added a few sentences to refer to each other, as a result, because of the close relationship that exists here (especially in the explosion of modern end-user video equipment, such as HDTV sets which, when upconverting NTSC 480i material to high-def, automatically do both either deinterlacing or reverse telecine, depending on the video material being displayed). Mdrejhon 22:54, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Telecine pirating

From the article:

"...this process requires not only a print of the movie on film, which cannot be obtained legally by an individual..."

Huh? It's illegal for people to own films? That can't be right, even in theory. —Chowbok 19:22, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

An individual (e.g., Sumner Redstone) can own a theatre chain (e.g., National Amusements). A theatre chain can possess (not own, but legally posess for a period of time) a print of a movie for public display. Ergo, an individual can legally posess (blah blah blah) a print of a movie.
An individual can't legally rip a print into an MP3 (etc.) though, without permission of the copyright owner. ;-)
Atlant

It is approximately the case that theft is involved in an individual obtaining a 35mm film print. The major studios do not sell them or give them away, so aside from renting them (and putting aside those rare individuals who might rent 35mm films), the gist here is correct. At this point the text has been changed to "which often cannot be obtained legally," it is more correct now. Jhawkinson 12:47, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed merge from Motion picture film scanner

No. It should not be moved to Telecine. Telecine are real time scanning to SDTV or HDTV. Scanners can be real time or as slow as a a few frames per second and go to data files (DPX). Telecine Guy 06:20, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Can we keep this discussion in one place? The merge tags specify the discussion location as Talk:Motion picture film scanner. Thanks. jhawkinson 05:49, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Fine with me. Talk:Motion picture film scanner it is. Telecine Guy 06:52, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Frame rate differences

In this revision, 84.56.228.131 (talk) changed the justification for 2^11:3 pulldown from based on pitch to based on avoiding the shortening of runtime by 4%. Is there some justification? In my experience (having some 25fps 35mm projectors), the pitch change (and action changes) is quite noticable. But few people care about the runtime changing (especially when it gets shorter! More stuff to program, more commercials, etc.) for its own sake. Can someone justify the change? jhawkinson 00:11, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

hearing nothing, it's gone. jhawkinson 22:52, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] PAL DVDs using 2:3 pulldown?

In the case of PAL DVDs using 2:3 pulldown, either soft or hard telecining may be applied.

What PAL DVDs use 2:3 pulldown? That implies the original framerate was something like 21fps. David 18:37, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Least common multiple (120fps) instead of Pulldown

One of the alternatives to method to pulldown is finding the least common multiple frame rate, and use that as as a sample: 24 fps => 120 fps => 30 fps. Is this ever used in the film industry or just for hobbyists? If it is should it be mentioned? --Voidvector 08:41, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

No, that's not a common method bc there's no standard broadcast signal that accomodates it. The video frame rates are largely a function of the 50 and 60 Hz mains frequencies, which explains the 25 and 30 fps (29.97 is a technical slowdown to accommodate the color subcarrier in the NTSC system). Whereas 24 fps was an economic speed choice for worldwide sound prints, as it was considered the slowest framerate that the available sound-on-film technology could be played at and create an acceptable sound quality - producers wanted the slowest possible speed so as to save on the cost of film stock. Girolamo Savonarola 21:26, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Correction: 24fps was the slowest frame rate for silent movies to look natural. Anything slower looked awkward, jerky and disorienting. Kakomu (talk) 16:33, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
That's not true, many pre-sound films were recorded at 12 or 16 fps. Maury (talk) 16:41, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 2^12:3, or 2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:3 pulldown

Shouldn't the title of this section be 2^11:3, or 2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:3 pulldown, because I count the 2 being repeated eleven times, not twelve, but maybe there's something I'm missing here. Thanks! ☆ CieloEstrellado 19:54, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

There's a note at the end that says that "for convenience" the article will refer to this method as "2^12:3." Isn't this original research? ☆ CieloEstrellado 20:22, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
I think I'm taking out the "2^12:3" as original research. ☆ CieloEstrellado 20:26, 11 January 2008 (UTC)