User manual

Atomos Samurai – User Manual Edition 2: November 2012 23
What is Pulldown?
Many professional and consumer cameras available
today do not send true 1080p24, 1080p23.98, 1080p25,
1080p29.97 or 1080p30 signals down their SDI or HDMI
outputs.
Instead they send 1080i59.94 in NTSC regions (eg USA, Japan), and
1080i50 in PAL regions (eg Europe)
In order to convert the signal from the internal recording format to
1080i5994 or 1080i50, they use a process called 3:2 or 2:2 pulldown.
Camera Setting Pulldown Samurai Receives
1080p23.98 3:2 1080i59.94
1080p24 3:2 1080i60
1080p25 2:2 1080i50
1080p29.97 2:2 1080i59.94
1080p30 2:2 1080i60
You will, of course, want the Samurai to record eg 1080p24, not 1080i60
to the disk. In many cases, it is not easy for the Samurai to detect the
pulldown operation in the video, so you will have to set the correct mode
in the Samurai as well as setting it on your camera.
With some cameras, the Samurai can detect and remove the pulldown,
in which case the mode you expect (eg 1080p23.98) will display on the
Samurai and you will not have to do anything further.
Atomos is adding auto-detection support for more cameras, please
check for firmware updates regularly at www.atomos.com
1080p23.98 or 1080p24
If you have set 1080p23.98 or 1080p24 in your camera and your samurai
displays 1080i59.94 or 1080i60, then you can easily remove the pulldown
by following these steps:
• Press the
blue arrow next to the video format
repeatedly until you see 1080p23.98 (or 1080p24) displayed. You
will see that the Mon button is dimmed. Your samurai needs
to analyse the video for about 1 second, in order to detect the
pulldown sequence and remove it.
• If it is not automatically detected after 1 second, wave your hand
from side to side in front of the lens, or wave the camera from side to
side for a few seconds. The Samurai will detect the pulldown in the
movement, the input video format will show 1080p24 and the Mon/
Rec button will highlight.
3:2 pulldown detection is difficult, if not impossible to detect on
completely still video. This is why you should wave your hand in front
of the lens.
If you lose the input detection – for example you unplug the SDI cable
or go to Playback mode, you will need to wave your hand or the
camera again, when the signal is restored to the Samurai.
Some cameras use a variant of pulldown removal, for example
Panasonic Advanced pulldown. The Samurai does NOT support this
format, and it will not be detected.
Standard Panasonic pulldown is supported, ensure in the Panasonic
camera settings that pulldown is not set to Advanced.
1080p25, 1080p29.97 or 1080p30
For these modes, simply press the blue arrow repeatedly until your
1080p desired format is displayed. There is no need to wave your hand
or the camera, as 2:2 pulldown removal does not require moving video.
Your Samurai always remembers whether you wanted 3:2 or 2:2
pulldown removal. If you change the format on your camera eg from
1080p24 to 1080i60, you will need set to the Samurai input to match
your camera setting again.
10. Pulldown