1080 or 720

C

c3kings

Well-known member
Dear All,

I am from a Pal country, and I am not familiar about HD. Please help me.

I am planning to shoot a documentary with HVX200 HD format, but I am not sure if I should choose 1080 or 720. Of course, I would like to get the "best" quality and tend to choose 1080, but I still have the following questions:

1./ As I am using PAL system, the camera will not have anything 24p, right? So I just need to choose something 25p instead. Am I correct? In other words, 24p in NTSC system is kind of equal to 25p in PAL system. (yes, I understand the film speed in US is 24fps, and in Europe, it is 25fps. I know stuff like this as I was studying in film school and used 16mm camera, but I don't quite know how it connects to HD.)

2./ As I read the manual of PAL HVX200, I realize that it says something like 1080i/25p and native 720/25p. Why there is an "i" after 1080? Why does it just mention 720 as native, but not 1080? Is there any "special treatment" to make 1080 have progressive scan? Can anyone teach me the difference between 1080 progressive scan and 720 progressive scan in HVX 200 camera except the resolution aspect?

3./ A little bit ashamed to ask: Is there any obvious visual difference between a progressive scan shot and a interlaced shot when I project it on screen (I mean when using a projector to show the film in a hall, and I don't mean showing it on a TV set)? As I don't have the camera now, I cannot do the test by myself.

Thanks a lot.
King
 
Lots of stuff to cover here:

ok first there is a difference between interlaced and progressive footage. Most will say progressive looks better, but honestly its a matter of taste.

As far as i recall (...it is 2am on a friday night in the states) there are some differences between 1080 and 720 when shooting the 24 or 25 modes: basically if you're just showing on a projector I would just go ahead and shoot 720 25pN.

The difference is when you shoot 1080 you always have to record 60 fields (50? in PAL?) and then you use a 2:3 or whichever pull down to get the 24 or 25 progressive frames out of it. So that means you can fit less on a P2 card than if you were shooting in a Native mode.

The Native modes (only available in 720 resolution) will only record however many frames you record so instead of recording 50 fields and converting that to 25 frames, it would only record 25 frames, this allows you to record quite a bit more information on your P2 card. something to the effect of:
8 minutes in DVCPRO HD 1080 on an 8gig card
or 22 Minutes in 720P24N mode.

If you had to go to a filmout or perhaps eventually go out to broadcast i would say record in 1080, but since it seems to me from what you are writing that this is your first time experimenting with HD and that the distribution of your film will be on a (I assume) SD LCD Projector via DVD I would say shoot in 720p24Native mode, or even on DVCpro50.

Daniel
 
decisions, decisions

decisions, decisions

The biggest issue is data handling: shooting 1080i/25p will give you the best image quality for further processing. But you abolutely need to have proper data backup (2-3 copies in different physical places) and the workflow set up right, if you want to shoot in HD. DVCPRO50 is wonderful when you are certain that you don't need HD. I am doing documentaries in 1080, as the Film Board and broadcasters demand HD. Otherwose I'd be happy to shoot DVCPRO50, as it is much easier to store and backup, and beautiful for SD.
 
Thanks, Daniel and soren k jensen,

Daniel, do you think 1080 progressive scan is not as good as 720 progressive scan, because 1080p needs the pulldown?

Can we generally say that, in terms of just the quality of progressive scan, not the resolution, 720pN is superior to 1080p in HVX200 camera?

Why Panasonic doesn't make 1080 be native progressive scan? Is it because 1080pN will take up even more stroage space? (please pardon me if you feel this question sounds really ignorant, and in fact, I am quite ignorant about HD stuffs.)

About my project, we are not sure at this moment if it will be transfered to 35mm yet.

soren k jensen, why do you emphaize the data backup particularly when shooting 1080i/25p? Are you saying that 1080i/25p is particularly vulnerable to have data loss? Have you experienced any data loss of 1080i/25p format? Maybe, I just misunderstand your meaning.

Thanks again.

King
 
480p, 720p, 720pn, 720pa, 1080p, 1080pa are all true progressive. They are all scanned by the camera progressively. The only difference in pulldown or no pulldown is to make those 24 progressive frames fit into a 60 field format.

I don't know why there isn't a 1080pn mode. It would actually take up less space whenever shooting anything slower than 60fps. The only thing I would guess is that it has to do with the fact that 1080 was a 60i format in its original incantation when the HVX came out. At least for HD broadcast. The first 1080 broadcasts were all 1080i. I don't even know that any stations broadcast 1080p yet.

You will not be at any greater or less risk of data loss from format/framerate to format/framerate that you choose to record in.
The reason people stress backup and redundancy, is because of the inevitability of HDD's going bad, crashing, etc. If you record to p2, your footage is going to have less risk of flaws, etc. than the days of shooting tape and dropouts, etc. It's the storage/archival of the footage where things can go bad, and redundancy becomes a great idea. No, it's not likely to happen often, but it does happen and you want to have backups in case it does.

Hope that answers your questions,
Jason
 
c3kings, have a read of this information posted by Barry Green. Perhaps go through most of that thread and look at Jim Arthurs image tests. It might help you, and help you make a final decision.
 
Thanks a lot, Jason and Christopher Barry.
Barry, the thread is really valueable!
By the way, I want to make sure one thing: For shooting 720/25pn, I cannot use Firestore, and I can use only P2 card. Am I correct?
Thanks.
King
 
Correct, the camera doesn't send any data to the DV port in any of the native recording modes.

However, Focus Enhancement is about to release new firmware for the FS-100 (it was originally supposed to be out in Q4 2006, but was held back for a few bug fixes) that will perform automatic pulldown. What this means is that you can set the HVX to a non-native mode and record to the FS-100, which will throw away the redundant frames and give you the recording capacity and convenience of native mode -- no further post-processing is needed in your NLE.
 
I see. Thanks, THoff.
By the way, I want to ask about the offload time, but I think I should open another thread.
 
When I first received my HVX I did a number of tests between 720 p and the 1080 mode. Although the resolution was slightly better in 1080, I have decided to go with 720 p for essentially everything that I do. Perhaps if I was shooting film-like in 24 fps I would have chosen the 1080, but for sports and high-motion video, the 720 p 60 is great !
 
THoff said:
Correct, the camera doesn't send any data to the DV port in any of the native recording modes.

However, Focus Enhancement is about to release new firmware for the FS-100 (it was originally supposed to be out in Q4 2006, but was held back for a few bug fixes) that will perform automatic pulldown. What this means is that you can set the HVX to a non-native mode and record to the FS-100, which will throw away the redundant frames and give you the recording capacity and convenience of native mode -- no further post-processing is needed in your NLE.
Click to expand...

Dear THoff,
May I make sure the follwoing? Are you saying that even with the updated fireware, FS100 cannot record the native mode?
Thanks.
King
 
Correct, but that's not the FS-100's fault, the camera simply doesn't send any data out to the DV port in PN mode because it doesn't conform to the realtime requirement of the DV protocol. PN mode is strictly an invention for saving prceious disk space on P2 cards.

That being said, having to use a non-native mode with the FS-100 won't be a problem with the upcoming firmware, because what the FS-100 will record with the new firmware is equivalent to being able to record a PN stream from the DV port -- the FS-100 will see which frames are flagged and automatically discard duplicates.
 
THoff said:
Correct, but that's not the FS-100's fault, the camera simply doesn't send any data out to the DV port in PN mode because it doesn't conform to the realtime requirement of the DV protocol. PN mode is strictly an invention for saving prceious disk space on P2 cards.

That being said, having to use a non-native mode with the FS-100 won't be a problem with the upcoming firmware, because what the FS-100 will record with the new firmware is equivalent to being able to record a PN stream from the DV port -- the FS-100 will see which frames are flagged and automatically discard duplicates.
Click to expand...

Thanks, THoff,

I see now. It is very clear now.

As I understand, the native mode can not only save space but also do the VFR, or more variety of VFR. Am I correct about it? So, the FS100 somehow limits us to use VFR.

Thanks.

King
 
What about shooting a project in both 720 and 1080?

Will the new Firestore 3.0 be able to take both, or will it only take one at a time?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top