I'm shooting with the DVX100-a this weekend and want to make sure I understand the basics of 24p. I combed through the forums and the following is what I understand to be true, please post any corrections.

1. When shooting 24p normal you DO NOT NEED to import or treat the footage any differant than regular 29.97 footage. The pulldown is done as it records. so when setting up, importing and exporting your project in FCP 4 you treat it as any other 29.97 footage.

2. A pulldown is only needed with 24p advanced. And 24p advanced is only ussed if you plan on transfering to film at some point.

Does this sound right to everyone?

Yes, that is right as far as I know. The F5 setting (24p normal) is pulled down in the camera to make it 29.975 fps and the advanced (F6) is good if you want to edit it in a 24 fps timeline, which you can do in FCP, and yeah, it's better to shoot with F6 if you plan to go to film-out, because then you won't lose those 6 frames.

If you are just going into an NLE and not to film it is my understanding that there is no advantage whatsoever to using 24pA. Actually, i've gotten worse results from using it. Use standard 24p, and also you will get better results if you use the 24p project presets in either FCP or Premiere Pro. If you analyze the footage encoded using a 29.97 project every fourth or fifth frame has an interlacing pattern to it that is eliminated using the project presets that are designed to do the pulldown correctly. Hard to see in the final product unless you are displaying it progressive, but it makes editing easier when every frame is complete. Good luck w/ the project!

Try looking at www.dvxuser.com - that site has just about every answer to every question about the DVX100(a). It's an excellent site. Check it out.

24PA is the way to go. It uses a cleaner method of reproducing the frames, which is good necessary if you plan on putting it on a DVD or film. Because yes, technically you're editing on a 29.97 timebase, but whenever you telecine ot film or burn it to a DVD, it's going to go back to its 24P timebase, and so it's cleaner to use 24PA than 24P. 24PA = completely remove 2 frames, the rest are fully intact. 24P = remove 1 frame, merge 2 = lower quality when sent back to 24P.

The only question here is whether or not your NLE can resolve interlaced fields pulled down in a 2:3:2:3 cadence back to their original frames.

Both settings perform a pull-down, regular does 2:3:2:3 and advanced does 2:3:3:2. The advanced cadence allows you to drop two fields, one each from the two middle frames, and not have to deal with pulling apart the 5th and 6th fields to get your original frames. Either way, you should be able to get back to your original 24 fps.

You can output from there accordingly. As long as you get back to your original 24 fps, the output options, whether to film or DVD, are not affected by what cadence you captured at, at least to my knowledge.

Please note that with advanced you are dropping FIELDS, not frames. No frames are ever dropped in either mode, you don't lose frames. When talking about pull-down, frames and fields mean specific things and you can't use one in place of the other. Doing so results purely in misinformation and confussion.

My advice is to find out the deal with your software, and if you can resolve 2:3:2:3 then go with regular 24p. That way, you're not dealing with the visual stutter that accompanies the advanced mode.