Discussion:
what is 3:2 pulldown?
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j***@adobeforums.com
2004-05-19 07:11:00 UTC
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I'm new to video production, please could someone fill me in on what exactly 3:2 pulldown is? What is all the WSSWW etc? How does it help in rendering etc? Thanks in advance!
B***@adobeforums.com
2004-05-19 08:18:39 UTC
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3:2 pulldown is a process of taking 24fps footage to 30fps by laying down the original 24fps frames in a repeating sequence of 3 fields and 2 fields. Given the film frames ABCD, you wind up with video frames AA AB BC CC DD where the first character represents field 1 and the second character is field 2.

WSSWW means "wiggle still still wiggle wiggle" which describes what the 3:2 frame sequence looks like after pulldown if you were to step through the frames. The various configurations you see of WSSWW in AE are so you can feed a piece of footage into AE of 24fps material (at 30fps) and undo the 3:2 sequence to get back the original whole 24 frames.. it needs to know how that sequence falls on your clip starting from the first frame in order to properly undo the pulldown.

Now, as far as how it helps you rendering, it doesn't -- arbitrarily anyway. If you had ***@30fps material that you removed the pulldown from, made a 24fps comp with it, but wanted to output a standard 30fps NTSC comp, you would render and put the pulldown back in. Or maybe you are doing cartoon-style animation in a comp at 12fps; To play back at the right speed in NTSC, you'd render at 30 with pulldown again to get back to 30fps.
j***@adobeforums.com
2004-05-19 09:00:00 UTC
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thanks!
C***@adobeforums.com
2004-05-20 13:15:13 UTC
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Hey Bob,

That's about the clearest decription of puldown I've ever seen. And I never knew that about the Ws and Ss, what they stand for I mean, how simple!
D***@adobeforums.com
2004-05-20 14:49:25 UTC
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I think the W stands for "whole" frame and the S stands for "split field" frame.

dan
C***@adobeforums.com
2004-05-20 16:16:39 UTC
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Hey Dan,

Whatever, until I read this I never knew they stood for anything!
B***@adobeforums.com
2004-05-21 08:12:59 UTC
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Yes you're right Dan, AE does actually refer to them as 'Whole' and 'Split-field'.. which also makes my terms backwards from what they are in reality. My bad.

I've seen other apps call them Flicker and Still - can't remember where I've seen 'wiggle' now :) Anyway, sorry for the confusion.
N***@adobeforums.com
2004-05-22 11:34:50 UTC
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Wiggle-Still, etc etc. I love it! I always used Whole and Split and wish I could get by with that in my books! Anyway, Bob's explanation of 3:2 pulldown is not about the best I have read-- it IS the best I have read. Well said!

Ned Soltz
B***@adobeforums.com
2004-05-23 06:47:39 UTC
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That is correct. W = whole and S = Split. If you step though the video one frame at a time you will see some combination of 2 Split and 3 Whole frames.
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