Interlacing artefacts

T

tcglog

Active member
Hi!

From this forum I have got the idea that interlaced footage e.g. 1080i of the GH1/2 is totally useless crap and is good for nothing, the resolution is less than 720 footage, motion is complete **** etc. Could someone please post a link which clearly shows the incapabilities of the interlaced shooting mode please? I would really like to see with my own eyes how big of a problem this really is, or is it just something a group of fanatics cry about.

Thanks in advance!
 
Say, that's some Intro -- warm, friendly, respectful. With that kind of attitude I expect you'll get an avalanche of enthusiastic response.
 
AFAIK, GH1(3) cannot take (make) interlaced footage. Only progressive footage is written to the memory in "interlaced way". So, the footage is progressive, but some editing SW can recognize it as interlaced. Usually this is not a huge problem and there are ways how to solve it. However, due to the "interlaced way" of storage, you could loose some vertical colour resolution, but luma resolution should be almost the same. I am quite satisfied with resolution of GH1(3).

With GH2 it's a different story. AFAIK, it can also take interlaced footage, which is somehow inferior to progressive one due to lower resolution of moving subjects, but it's more fluid (read: video-like) due to higher temporal resolution (more suitable for some sports).
 
crunchy said:
AFAIK, GH1(3) cannot take (make) interlaced footage. Only progressive footage is written to the memory in "interlaced way". So, the footage is progressive, but some editing SW can recognize it as interlaced. Usually this is not a huge problem and there are ways how to solve it. However, due to the "interlaced way" of storage, you could loose some vertical colour resolution, but luma resolution should be almost the same. I am quite satisfied with resolution of GH1(3).

With GH2 it's a different story. AFAIK, it can also take interlaced footage, which is somehow inferior to progressive one due to lower resolution of moving subjects, but it's more fluid (read: video-like) due to higher temporal resolution (more suitable for some sports).
Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply! Do you mean the GH2 could have worse effects of interlacing than the GH1 because the GH1's sensor outputs the video as progressive? How about the artefacts with interlaced motion, is it like whenever something moves in the video I can tell that it's interlaced or is it barely noticeable?

Thanks again crunchy!
 
Is interlaced footage total useless crap? No of course not. Some of the world's biggest broadcasters shoot and transmit in 1080i50 particularly for things like sports.
It looks different from footage shot at 24/25p and which you prefer is an aesthetic judgement.

50i can be turned into 25p albeit with some loss in quality but most people probably wouldn't be concerned.

So is this only a matter for "fanatics"?

The question is why are you interested in the GH1/2 at all?
If you're happy with footage that looks basically fine - there are plenty of much cheaper cameras that will do it.

If you want that last 1% of quality that makes something really gorgeous then you should be concerned about interlaced vs progressive.
 
mpgxsvcd said:
This is the best video I have seen showing the difference between interlaced and progressive video. However, it is an old video so the image quality is less than optimal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-JXfyvlPh0&feature=related
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Thanks, I think I have seen that video before. The part where they freeze the image does not tell everything since the interlaced part is frozen right after a kick and that's not the case with the progressive footage. I froze the picture at different parts myself though and progressive still looks better, but not by as much. Also when watching the video the progressive image seems a bit better. I wonder how big the difference would be with GH2.. What about 720, is it clearly worse than 1080?
 
nathankw said:
Is interlaced footage total useless crap? No of course not. Some of the world's biggest broadcasters shoot and transmit in 1080i50 particularly for things like sports.
It looks different from footage shot at 24/25p and which you prefer is an aesthetic judgement.

50i can be turned into 25p albeit with some loss in quality but most people probably wouldn't be concerned.

So is this only a matter for "fanatics"?

The question is why are you interested in the GH1/2 at all?
If you're happy with footage that looks basically fine - there are plenty of much cheaper cameras that will do it.

If you want that last 1% of quality that makes something really gorgeous then you should be concerned about interlaced vs progressive.
Click to expand...

Thanks, any good links which show the difference between 25p and 50i? Or 50i and 50p? It's hard to decide which is more pleasing to my eye without comparing from similar clips. I'm not the guy who buys a new camera every year. When I do I will have it for ~5-8 years so I'm still wondering whether to wait for a camera that offers 1080p50.
 
tcglog said:
Thanks, any good links which show the difference between 25p and 50i? Or 50i and 50p? It's hard to decide which is more pleasing to my eye without comparing from similar clips. I'm not the guy who buys a new camera every year. When I do I will have it for ~5-8 years so I'm still wondering whether to wait for a camera that offers 1080p50.
Click to expand...

What are you going to do with 1080p @ 50 FPS? Nothing supports it currently and nothing will support it for quite some time. Everything just converts it to 1080p @ 25 FPS or 1080i/50 right now. If you want good 1080p @ 25 FPS video then the GF2 looks like an excellent option. Unfortunately, Panasonic has chosen not to support 1080p @ 25 FPS natively for the GH2.
 
I think there still is some confusion on the interlacing topic. 1080i video can be interpolated into 1080p @ 60 FPS video and it can look very good. The problem is that most TVs, monitors, and software mess that deinterlacing up when compared to the very best deinterlacers.

With 1080i it is hit or miss. It might work very well over here and then work very poorly in another application. With 1080p you know what you are getting. If your device supports 1080p then it is going to work very well.
 
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