Advanced Pulldown 24pA

A variation on standard pulldown

The standard 3:2 pulldown is a means of converting 24 fps film to 30fps videotape. It is achieved by holding every other field of video. The field cadence of standard pulldown is 2:3:2:3.

The cadence of advanced pulldown is 2:3:3:2. It was designed to be less computationally intensive when restoring the material back to 24fps (inverse telecine). NLEs that support advanced pulldown have an easier job than those which don’t. When restoring the material back to the original progressive video the “BC” video frame is ignored by the NLE [Fig. 1].

It is important to consider whether advanced pulldown will work throughout your entire 23.98p workflow before deciding to shoot with this option. Projects finished in 29.97 fps will generally not be affected by the choice of either standard but mixing and matching the two methods in the same timeline may introduce artifacts.

 

advanced pulldown explained

Fig. 1. Advanced Pulldown