1080p or 1080i50

[Thomas Singh]

What is really the difference between setting the timeline to 1080p or 1080i50? I understand that 1080p is 25fps (european) only, but if the footage is shot progressive it will not benefit from the timeline translation anyway, or am I wrong?

Edited December 15, 2017 by Thomas Singh

[Bruno Mansi]

If it's a delivery requirement for the broadcaster, then that dictates your project settings.

As far as the visible effects of choosing an interlaced format is concerned, rollers look a lot smoother, as do some animated effects. Shooting interlaced gives less motion blur, which might be good for sports programmes, but many people comment that it makes things look more 'video' and less 'filmic', which is why so many dramas are being shot progressive.

I'm not totally up to speed with all the issues with NTSC (being in the UK), but if broadcasters were to go over to progressive transmissions, I wonder how they would deal with telecine transfers and 3:2 pulldown, since that relies on having fields. I'm guessing they might adopt a 24 fps transmission system.

[Stig Olsen]

Most dramas, features and commercials are shot progressive, but transmitted in an interlaced environment at the end. The common workflow is to work progressive through the entire pipeline, but to change the project settings to 1080i50 before final output. You will not experience any field issues because they will be duplicates of each other, but as mentioned above, you can benefit from the interlacing on some animated effects like end crawls and transitions if those are added after the timeline change. 

[Mike Leisegang]

I understand that 1080p is 25fps (european) only,  ( This is not quite right )

Most material for broadcast was interlaced not to long ago. Since 2007 things changed very quickly.

There is a lot of information re. Progressive / interlace, really worth while doing some reading if you're asking this type of question.

Interlaced media still delivered to many, lets use the term ( other ) counties due to their networks.

 

Also as a matter of interest, most camera auto-focus systems were far quicker in interlace mode than Progressive. This is now changing or has changed.