AC160 Comparison AC160 1080/24p versus 1080/60p (firmware update)

to shoot 60p you need 1/60 for shutter speed
24p you only need 1/24
if both are set at the same shutter speed should have very similar result in the stopped frame

60p will be great for sports kind of event when you need the audio recorded and need to have some 1080p slow motions
 
To be honest I did a few tests on my HMC's last years shooting at 25P and at 50P (we are PAL hence the difference) and seriously unless you are looking at SLMO footage I really couldn't see any huge advantage using a double frame rate... If shooting normal video in either frame rate had massive differences (sorta like VHS quality and Broadcast Quality) I would be on it in a flash!! In fact I did a series of shoots (same subject) using 50i, 25P, 24P and 50P and dropped each clip down to an MPEG2 for DVD and got a bunch of people to rate each clip in terms of quality in their eyes and all the results were different. I think we tend to get over technical with our footage and the person who ends up viewing it could never say, "Aha, I can see you shot this in 24P/60P"

I still honestly cannot see any striking difference between even interlaced and progressive once viewed on a TV from a DVD player ...technically Progressive should be way better but the end result often shows otherwise .

Still I would love to have 1080/50P on my 130's BUT I would only use it during stedicam shoots so for me it's not a big deal

Chris
 
Agree re 1/48 being the proper choice for 1080/24p. But then, I should have rightfully for 1080/60p set the shutter at 1/120?

I did both tests with shutter at 1/60. My intent was not to have multiple variables going at the same time.

Can you invent a meaningful test that shows the benefit of 1080/60p? I can repeat my test.
 
The following souce footage was from my Panasonic TM700 @ 1080 60p. I've observed two things: 1) Slow motion is much better in 60p, and 2) Image stabilization seems to work much better in 60p (fast shutter speeds help as well).



...Jerry (who really, really wishes there was a 1080 60p upgrade for his AC130)
 
ChrisHarding said:
I still honestly cannot see any striking difference between even interlaced and progressive once viewed on a TV from a DVD player ...technically Progressive should be way better but the end result often shows otherwise .
Click to expand...

Keep in mind that not all DVD players will play back footage progressively. If your DVD player is churning your 24p footage out at 60i, then you definitely wouldn't see any difference at all.

Higher frame rates - whether progressive like 60p/60p, or interlaced like 60i - are excellent for fast motion shooting such as sports. This is most visible when the motion occurs ACROSS the frame. The difference is more subtle or really just invisible when tracking a subject that doesn't "move" in the frame, no matter how fast it is going. If you are shooting a racecar going 200 mph but the car is essentially stationary in your frame, then shooting 24p or 60p or 60i would exhibit little difference, certainly nothing that a casual viewer could see.

However if you're shooting a gymnast performing a floor routine and moving left to right, bouncing around and leaping, falling, etc....well, 24p would exhibit a LOT of stuttering that anyone would notice when compared to 60i or 60p.

Yes, higher frame rates are also handy when doing slo-mo shots (if you wanted to capture the splash of a guy cannonballing into a pool, you'd shoot 60p and use a 24p sequence for 2.5x of slow motion). But slo-mo is not the only intended usage. Many broadcast stations produce in 720p60. There are at least 2 that I'm aware of here in Atlanta (possibly 3, can't remember). NBC produces 1080i60 across the board. I don't know any that do 720p24 or 1080p24, but I'm sure there's probably a few out in the world. Maybe.

There's also tradeoff....encoding 60 frames on the fly - whether interlaced fields or progressive full frames - taxes the bitrate of your camera differently than 24p. It's simple math, if you've got 24mbps to work with, do you think that 720p24 and 720p60 will exhibit the same compression artifacts? For that reason and others, I tend to prefer shooting at 1080p24 most of the time, which gives me some frame latitude in a 720p24 sequence, and I find that rendering DVD compliant SD footage from a 720p24 sequence is actually a bit quicker a prettier than shooting 720p60 for DVD output. That's just me....I've done it both ways many times, but 1080p24 is a good balance of frame size and bitrate optimization at 24p.
 
Well, it looks like two people wish they had bought 160s?

I think cameras like the 130/160 are really good to the point where it does not matter whether you have one or the other - its more what you do with what you have.

I agonized over the choice for a long time and it was the VFR that got me to pay extra for the AC 160. I don't expect to be worried about trips overseas and I suppose I could get SLMO by other means, so why did I do it, retrospectively?. Gadget addiction is the answer.

The truth is the way the technology changes, you can hardly pull away from a store parking lot without the impression that a truck is arriving at the back door with newer models.

As for the "A" upgrade, once on the slippery slope, I cannot see the idea of paying 7.5% more as being a show stopper so soon as I get invited to turn my camera in for an upgrade I will go for it.
 
What gets me is when people make these comparisons of 24p and 60p when it's been downgraded to DVD spec and DVD playback. The downscale and dvd spec just further muddles the slight difference to the point you can't really tell. I agree with the others, you should be using the 180 degree rule for shutter...especially for 24p, unless you shooting in such low light that you rather sacrifice motion blur for that quarter stop of light. I have been shooting 1080 60P with a Panny TM700 and two TM900s for over 2 years now and I have run a battery of tests comparing it to 24p footage from HMC and Canon dSLR. Especially with high-motion scenes, 60p with a 1/120 or slightly higher shutter gives a better "presence" and feel. I'm finding it hard to come across a set-top blu-ray player that rejects 1080 60P discs and with more people playing content back from HDTV-attached media players, viewers have been giving me "wow" comments for a while now.
 
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