Getting a 500, but what's the right format for me?

W

walnutcrunch

Well-known member
I'm one signature away from a 500 with 4 cards and the canon 2x lens.

I'm trying to figure out my ideal format. I work for a public gallery. Most of our footage is of wildlife and marine environment. We have a huge number of HD 720p screens we are responsible for and several 10-16 foot HD 720p projection screens.
We're editing on Macs and we have the infrastructure to support the P2 workflow. We also have one 24 foot 1080p screen that we will occasionally do content for.

Now what do I shoot in? There is historic significance to our footage library so we want to shoot a format that will stand up over time (or at least take our best shot at it). Our screens are driven on QT mpeg 4 or WMV. It's PC based playback so framerates are not a concern to the player.

We sometimes have requests from media or productions for footage. Normally it is SD but we imagine the requests for HD will only grow.

We've been shooting 1080i with our Z1U, because that's all it shoots, then outputting in 720p because that is what our screens are.

Should we use the 500 to acquire in 1080p, i, or 720p? Can we safely go 24pn or 30pn to save space on the P2 cards? If we're pn I guess we'd need to be 720p.

My main concern is that I don't want someone looking at the footage 3 years from now saying, "damn, I wish they would have shot it using x format on the camera".

Any advice?
 
With 4 card slots available I feel the need to shoot PN mode to save space is no longer a requirement. Shooting 1080p would be best for the added resolution.
 
Yeah. If you are saying you want the absolute best picture you can get out of the camera, then shoot 1080/24p. 4 16gig p2 cards in camera is a little over an hour of footage. Plus, you've got tons of time to offload p2 cards while continuously recording if need be.

Or, if you just absolutely need 2 and a half hours at once without offloading any cards, then shoot 720p/24pn. But, for quality, you would obviously want to shoot the highest resolution the camera offers.

Jason
 
It would seem obvious to go for the best resolution possible on the camera, but I'm just checking to make sure the obvious choice is truly the best choice.

I'm thinking, since we're internal and out to media on occasion we should probably stick with 30p. Since they all run 29.97 and it would save us the step of converting from 24fps.

It seems to me that shooting progressive instead of interlaced is the best bet because then we avoid all that deinterlacing stuff.

1080p means we enter the world of longer renders, but we can live with that. There are just so many options within options that it isn't always as easy as dialing it up to 11 on everything and I just want to check that that is the right thing to do.
 
In the end, it will come down to personal preference, and how much you can/will sacrifice in terms of 'saving time' in your workflow... But, since you are talking about renders, etc. you are already involving yourself in a longer workflow. For best quality, it'll be 1080... Other than that, your only considerations of whether or not to shoot something else instead would be dictated by other factors. Workflow, continuous record time needed, etc.... whether your footy is only going to sd broadcast, etc.

Concerning 30p vs. 24p... it's not really going to be an extra step for you. You can keep the 24p cadence and output as 29.97 with 3:2 pulldown on final output... Something you will have to do anyways, so its just a matter of choosing the proper output settings. I'm not familiar with FCP, but I would imagine its the same thing. You make a 24p file, or a 29.97 file with pulldown. It shouldn't cause you any extra time or steps spent... The time extra time you are spending beyond what the workflow will do at it's most efficient is going to be spent in transcoding to .mov's to work with your footage and rendering your footage during the editing process. But, that's just the nature of the NLE you have chosen... Though, you might look in to Raylight for MAC. It'll allow you to drop the mxf's right on the timeline and not have to spend time transcoding first. Save some time there.

Take care,
Jason
 
Has anyone compared HPX500 1080i/24p to 720p/24p shot with a good lens and projected on a big screen?

Of course 1080 is higher resolution than 720, but if I understand correctly the 1080 lines of resolution are being synthesized via pulldown from interlaced frames shot at 60 Hz. Fine detail, especially with a moving subject or camera, has got to take a hit from this. It seems plausible that shooting true progressive 720 might yield a better picture under some circumstances.
 
there is no hit if you shoot 24 PA - the advanced pulldown gives you EXACTLY what you would get with native 24 frames - no synthesis at all. Pixel for pixel the same
 
Andy44 said:
if I understand correctly the 1080 lines of resolution are being synthesized via pulldown from interlaced frames shot at 60 Hz.
Click to expand...
No, you misunderstand entirely. There is never interlacing in an HVX200. It internally shoots 1080/60p (or any frame rate up to 60p). 720 is downrezzed from 1080. 1080/24p is captured natively from the original scan of the chips.

The HVX is always, always, always true progressive.
 
Barry_Green said:
No, you misunderstand entirely. There is never interlacing in an HVX200. It internally shoots 1080/60p (or any frame rate up to 60p). 720 is downrezzed from 1080. 1080/24p is captured natively from the original scan of the chips.

The HVX is always, always, always true progressive.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your response, Barry.

The Panasonic brochure describes HPX500 recording video formats as "1080/24p (over 60i)" and "720/24p (over 60p)". It's the "over 60i" versus "over 60p" that's confusing. It suggests interlacing somewhere along the way when the camera is set to record 1080 frames. I suspect from your response that this refers to something like slicing the progressive frame into fields for CCD to DSP transport and then re-integration of the original frame for signal processing. Is this the case?

Another question related to picture quality: Is the 1080 image noisier than the 720 image?
 
I suspect from your response that this refers to something like slicing the progressive frame into fields for CCD to DSP transport and then re-integration of the original frame for signal processing. Is this the case?
Click to expand...

Not quite. *ALL* processing is done progressively. It only gets sliced to fields when all processing is done, and the finished signal is being recorded or output on the analog outputs. And only then because there is no SMPTE-codified 1080P recording or broadcast standard in place.
 
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