a couple questions.

thanks so much for all the links, info and time you guys gave me.
it's gonna take a while to digest it all before i can respond intelligently.

one other thing, yesterday i did a test, shot about 5-10 minutes in each mode and today i watched it to compare differences.

what i noticed is that 24p looked the worst to me, 30p in the middle and 60i looked the best, as far as color/sharpness.
the 24p also did not handle low light well or zooming/motion, a lot of... stutter or clipping..
so i think it's safe to say i narrowed it down to 30p or 60i.

as for the footage i already got in 30p, i can convert it to 60i if i have to right?

you guys saved me a lot of time i really appreciate it.:)
 
Well,

24p takes some skill and practice (and some experience and knowledge) to shoot well. The reward is well worth it.

However, 24p lets in MORE light than 30p, but not as much as 60i.

In 24p you have to be gentle with the camera. This is what gives Hollywood the look. No zooming, panning is slow, everything is done gently.

If you want a realistic feel then 60i is the way to go. But you still need to learn to handle the camera well.
 
irvineimages said:
what i noticed is that 24p looked the worst to me, 30p in the middle and 60i looked the best, as far as color/sharpness.
the 24p also did not handle low light well or zooming/motion, a lot of... stutter or clipping..
so i think it's safe to say i narrowed it down to 30p or 60i.

as for the footage i already got in 30p, i can convert it to 60i if i have to right?
Click to expand...

Good! Testing your own workflow from end to end is always the best way to get the results you want. What's your playback system - are you going all the way to DVD?

As to your results - shutter speed certainly has an effect, and default shutter speed varies with the frame rate. As Perrone points out, by default 24p has a longer exposure time, and should be better in low light than the others... are you keeping all other settings equal?

If you liked 60i the best, and are looking at an HDTV, then you may be enjoying the smoother motion of 60i footage. If that's the case,, I'd suggest giving 720/60p a try also - it's smoother, progressive (so it scales better), and with the HMC/HVX/HPX, there's not a lot of resolution difference...

Also, just in case, for images without a lot of motion, you won't see much difference between framerates and between interlaced and progressive...


Perrone - Sure, mainstream film will never have a frame rate other than 24p. Broadcast standards may or may not be relevant, but it doesn't matter... 30p is delivered as a 60i stream. No tape format or stream format specifies 30p because it needs no distinction from 60i. After the moment of acquisition, it's indistinguishable in format.
 
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Ullanta,

Thanks for your input but I am still left with a question.

I want to think that 1080p is a better format than 1080i in terms of resolution, but your points are leaning towards the view that they are the same in the end.

Am I wrong to think 1080p is better than 1080i?

If there was 1080p60, it would have to have more detail & resolution as it is capturing more information per 60 frames than 1080i.

So if 1080p60 has more resolution, wouldn't 1080p30 have just as much resolution just fewer frames?

This is for playback on a progressive HD device.

Thanks
 
You aren't delivering tape if you are shooting the HMC150.



AdrenalineSleep said:
From the Discovery HD spec sheet it says:

" [FONT=&quot]Tapes delivered to CTVGM must be HDCAM or HDCAM-SR in the 1080i format (1080 lines interlaced 2:1 at a frame rate of 59.94 Hz)..."

[/FONT] Does the output of the HMC150 meet this "frame rate of 59.94 Hz" standard?
Click to expand...
 
Bassman2003 said:
Ullanta,

Thanks for your input but I am still left with a question.

I want to think that 1080p is a better format than 1080i in terms of resolution, but your points are leaning towards the view that they are the same in the end.

Am I wrong to think 1080p is better than 1080i?

If there was 1080p60, it would have to have more detail & resolution as it is capturing more information per 60 frames than 1080i.

So if 1080p60 has more resolution, wouldn't 1080p30 have just as much resolution just fewer frames?

This is for playback on a progressive HD device.

Thanks
Click to expand...

Well, it depends how you look at it. In one sense, the resolution is exactly the same - the same number of pixels per second. In images with little motion, you won't see much difference. In images with a lot of motion, you certainly will.

However, in 60i, there is the temporal difference between fields, which causes the jaggie edges, which the eye tends to blur together, causing an effective loss of resolution. The more motion there is in the frame, the closer 60i will come to an effective 50% vertical resolution.

So, comparing 60i to 30p, we can say they have the same general resolution; but 60i has a higher TEMPORAL resolution (smoother motion) while 30p has a higher SPATIAL resolution (sharper image).

Finally, if you ARE scaling a project to other resolutions (SD, etc), progressive footage tends to scale much better.

But you have to look at it, judge what you prefer in terms of the "motion quality", etc.

For most of what I shoot these days, I use "fake" 30p on the HMC: the camera set to 60i HA mode, with the shutter at 1/30. It gives a nice smooth progressive motion, scales nicely to various delivery formats, gives me more shooting time per card and smaller archive files, and works seemlessly with FCP (which still has some issues with PH mode).
 
AdrenalineSleep said:
If you are editing footage and submitting it to an outlet like Discovery HD, based on this spec sheet you have to deliver tape, no?

I was more curious about the "frame rate of 59.94 Hz"
Click to expand...

No, you don't have to deliver tape. Many broadcast outlets now use upload services.

Why are you worried about the frame rate? It's 60i drop frame. Standard across all NTSC.
 
.......silly me My post got "lost in pasting"

Basicly:

30p can be converted to 60i . In premiere make sure you turn frameblending of.
24p can be converted inside of after effects to 60i . it looks really great.

Perrone is right on the money about learning 24p , be gentle, handheld stuff is almost out of the question.. I would definetly consider shooting 1080p with whatever frame rate for that matter.

I said more in my earlier post but maybe some other time....
 
ullanta said:
For most of what I shoot these days, I use "fake" 30p on the HMC: the camera set to 60i HA mode, with the shutter at 1/30. It gives a nice smooth progressive motion, scales nicely to various delivery formats, gives me more shooting time per card and smaller archive files, and works seemlessly with FCP (which still has some issues with PH mode).
Click to expand...
What kinds of issues does FCP have with PH mode? Does this only apple to 1080/60i or is there an issue with 1080/24p as well. I just worked with some 1080/24p sample files from an HMC-150 and they seemed to look/work just fine.
 
Sometimes I still get a few seconds of artifacting, most common at 4GB file segment boundaries, but not always. Very rare with the latest FCP and QT updates... but most of my work is long-form (operas), and those rare few seconds are a problem. (For anyone not familiar with this: it's an FCP issue, not an issue with the camera). I've seen the issue primarily in 1080/30p and 720/30p, 'cause that's what I use most; but it has come up in 24p, though it seems to me less frequently. Not in 60i, and I don't think I've seen it in short (<10 min) clips.

Actually, I haven't seen the issue since the last time I updated Quicktime about a week ago, but my testing in PH mode in that period has been pretty scanty... I suspect the issue may be fixed for me, but I'm not willing to say that or act as if it's true until I've done a lot more testing!
 
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ullanta said:
Sometimes I still get a few seconds of artifacting, most common at 4GB file segment boundaries, but not always. Very rare with the latest FCP and QT updates... but most of my work is long-form (operas), and those rare few seconds are a problem.
Click to expand...
Ah, I understand. You're talking about 22 +/- minutes of footage before hitting the 4GB limit at the PH setting right. Should be a non-issue for me as I don't shoot long-form.
 
Ullanta,

Have you tried the clip merge utility that Pailes wrote?

It joins all the clips you select into one clip and eliminates the long GOP dropped frames at the 4 gig limit porblem.
 
I've done the same thing myself using command-line tools... didn't play properly in VLC. ...but it doesn't really matter, as FCP needs a fully intact SDHC card structure, not just MTS files.
 
What's your playback system - are you going all the way to DVD?
Click to expand...

i just put the sdhc card into my playstation 3/blu ray and played the video raw.
to be fair my tv does have colors saturated a little and that's probably partly why it looks so amazing, yet i'll most likely end up making it look way better in the editing phase.

so, no i haven't tested it on a dvd yet, and that's prob a little ways off as my computer is having a tough time with adobe premiere and it doesn't have a dvd burner yet.

As to your results - shutter speed certainly has an effect, and default shutter speed varies with the frame rate. As Perrone points out, by default 24p has a longer exposure time, and should be better in low light than the others... are you keeping all other settings equal?
Click to expand...

yup, and 24p seemed much darker and less frames per second which to me means that it didn't handle low light as well, but maybe i'm wrong technically....
 
sorry if this is a dumb simple question, but.. what's the best way to get a timelapse?
can i just set it to record like normal and then sorta.. compress the file later in editing?
or do i need to record it originally in a special mode/settings?
any tips or info would be much appreciated. ty.
 
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