Pulldown – Atomos Ninja Blade User Manual
Page 29
Atomos Ninja Blade – User Manual Edition 1: Feb 2014 27
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
Ninja Blade 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 Ninja Blade to record eg 1080p24, not
1080i60 to the disk. In many cases, it is not easy for the Ninja Blade to
detect the pulldown operation in the video, so you will have to set the
correct mode in the Ninja Blade as well as setting it on your camera.
With some cameras, the Ninja Blade can detect and remove the pulldown
automatically, in which case the mode you expect (eg 1080p23.98) will
display on the Ninja Blade and you will not have to do anything further.
If there is no input detected, then toggle the input by pressing the screen
until you see the input you wish to record.
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 Ninja
Blade 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 Ninja Blade 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 Ninja Blade 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 HDMI
cable or go to Playback mode, you will need to wave your hand or
the camera again, when the signal is restored to the Ninja Blade.
Some cameras use a variant of pulldown removal, for example
Panasonic Advanced pulldown. The Ninja Blade 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.
10. Pulldown
1080p23.98
1080p24
1080p24
1080p29.97
1080p30