Making the Canon C100 and Atomos Samurai work together at 24p

A while back I was having some difficulty getting the Canon C100 to work with the Atomos Samurai while in 24p mode.  We were doing some green screen tests and I didn't think to check for the Samurai's frame rate since the FS-700 didn't require any special operations.  What I ended up with is progressive footage at 29.97fps.  It turns out that the C100 always outputs a 60i signal out of the HDMI port.  The Samurai *can* recognize that this 60i signal requires 3:2 pull down and recover the original 23.976p (24p) frame, however this requires an extra step when using a camera that outputs 60i. 

Since then I did a bit of research and found section 10 in the Samurai manual.  The section basically highlights this issue and says that a user should shake their hand in front of the camera for a few seconds so the Samurai can recognize which interlaced frames need to be recombined to make a 24p frame.  Let's test if this is true.

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The Samurai will recombine 60i frames to make 29.97p frames, but we already knew that.

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Obviously 60i isn't an issue since the camera already outputs 60i.

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You can see that the C100 display says the camera is in 24p mode, but the Samurai won't recognize 24p or do pull down.

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Following the highly scientific instructions in the manual I shake my hand in front of the lens.

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Viola!  The Samurai recognizes 24p and does the 3:2 pull down from the 60i camera output.

Hopefully this helps a customer or two.  I personally really like using the Samurai.  Having Prores 4:2:2 footage from the C100 makes a difference to sharpness and detail.  We also recently upgraded the firmware so DNxHD is available as an option - just in case you're using Avid.

Stop by the shop and check out this camera and recorder combo.  I'm sure Michael will be happy to give you a demo and answer any questions.