Editing 24p (section)

=== Conversion of 24p to NTSC-based frame/field rates ===
{{Main|Telecine}}

Working with 24p material via video equipment working at NTSC frame rates has many of the same attributes as the 24 frame/s workflow, but is more complicated by the NTSC-rate practice of using [[Three-two pull down|telecine pull-down]] rather than the PAL practice of transferring 24 frame/s material at 25 frame/s.

At 525 lines analog NTSC video rates (30000/1001 frames per second) a full "interlaced" frame, unlike a progressive frame, is nearly 1/30th of a second and is composed of two separate "fields," each field nearly 1/60 second. The first field (the odd field) contains visible scan lines 21-263 and the second field (the even field) contains visible scan lines 283–525 (though lines 263 and 283 are half-lines).<ref>{{Cite web|title=Nicky Pages' Digital Solutions|url=http://www.hamradio.si/~s51kq/V-INT.HTM|access-date=2020-08-29|website=www.hamradio.si}}</ref> What is seen onscreen is two of these fields, "interlaced" together, to produce a single full frame. This comes from the proper longhand designation being vertical resolution, followed by the interlaced/progressive notation, and then the frame rate. So typical DV video is correctly listed as 480i/30. The long hand for 24p is 480p/24. Often the resolution is dropped and the i/p designation moved after the frame rate for shorthand.

24p cameras do not, as NTSC video cameras do, shoot 30 interlaced frames per second (60 fields); they shoot 24 full progressive frames per second.

24p material can be recorded directly into formats that support the framerate. Some of high definition formats support the 24p framerate in addition to 60i and 50i (PAL). Previously, few formats supported 24p and the industry used workarounds to work with 24p footage with 60i equipment.

To record 24p material onto a 60i format (i.e. any NTSC-based format), pulldown is typically added to 'pad' the 24 frames into 60 fields. This is done by taking every frame and splitting it into two fields. Then, every second frame has one of its fields duplicated, resulting in three fields. The fields are then played back in that pattern – 2-3-2-3-2-3-2-3-2-3-2-3-2-3 ... and so on. The resulting video becomes a 60i stream and can be displayed on NTSC monitors. However, the aesthetic of 24p motion is retained and the footage does not have the motion of typical 60i video.

This 3:2 pulldown is the same process that is used when transferring [[telecine|film into video]].

Any editing application which supports NTSC video can be used to edit footage employing the 3:2 pulldown scheme. It can be captured as a standard 60i file and edited like footage from any other camera, while still retaining its 24p aesthetic. There can be issues when editing the footage as 60i, however, including choppiness in short transitions or fades, and also a mismatch in the motion characteristics of the footage and any graphics which may be added to it, such as text or logos. So, while 24p footage can be edited as 60i, it is usually better to edit the footage on a 24p timeline with the pulldown removed.

Most current [[wikt:prosumer#Etymology_2|prosumer]]-level editing applications which edit native 24p can remove the 3:2 pulldown for editing in native 24p, although some cannot. However, this is not ideal; the removal of the 3:2 pulldown involves reconstruction of every fourth frame from two different field groups, which can cause a generational loss and some banding problems if the application doesn't interpret the footage properly. Therefore, using the 3:2 pulldown scheme is not ideal when planning to edit on a 24p timeline.

Note: "3:2 pulldown" has a cadence of 2-3-2-3-2-3..., but in the industry is called "3:2 pulldown", even though the cadence is 2–3. Some people use the term "2:3 pulldown", which corresponds to the cadence, but is not normally used in the industry for the technique.