Question about frame rate as it relates to final output

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ProAmateur

Active member
For shooting fast action anything (motorsports in my case) I think it's pretty well known that 720 60p auto everything is the best way to go. But, if your final output is going to be the web, (like vimeo), are you better off just shooting at a lower frame rate since its gonna be converted down anyway??

I am not sure what frame rate vimeo converts to (I think 24?) and I know that the site I use (Smugmug) converts everything down to a max of 30. Meaning if you shoot 24 it stays 24, 30 will stay 30, but 60 goes down to 30. So I am wondering if its just better to shoot 30 and have no frame loss. Or is 60 still better?

Regards,

G.
Frame Counter
 
From what Ive learned 720/60p is a pain to work with on some editing programs.

If you are going vimeo anyway, I would just shoot 1080/30p.
 
ProAmateur said:
For shooting fast action anything (motorsports in my case) I think it's pretty well known that 720 60p auto everything is the best way to go.
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I completely disagree about using auto-everything. I never use auto... I don't trust auto focus, especially for fast moving stuff. You could get away with auto-iris if the lighting consistent... but I used to shoot for the U of Washington athletic department, and in the gymnasium... especially with gymnastics where I was often shooting at an up angle... the very dark background would consistently cause the camera to overexpose what I actually was shooting when in auto-iris. The glare from the floor during basketball and volleyball caused it to underexpose. You shouldn't need to worry about auto-white balance... either use the 3.2k or 5.6k presets or white balance once in the primary light source and leave it.

As to Vimeo, I think it uses whatever framerate you use. Whether to use 60p or not is a personal choice. I don't like the look of 60p, but that's just a "me" thing. You should shoot whatever framerate you like the look of the best. And 60p converted to 30p still has a bit different look to it (at least to me) than something shot at 30p.

MadHMC150 said:
If you are going vimeo anyway, I would just shoot 1080/30p.
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I believe Vimeo is 720p, so if you're just shooting for Vimeo, 720p makes the most sense.
 
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I shoot action sports exclusively in 24p. You just have to learn how to shoot to accommodate your frame rate. I can't stand the look of 30p or 60p, blegh, nasty.

Auto everything? no way. That's just asking for some nasty, amateur looking footage. Learn to be quick on your feet and know your camera in and out, shoot everything in manual. Control your camera, don't let it make decisions for you. Because most of the time they're wrong, especially when shooting fast paced action.

vimeo converts all videos to 24 fps also I believe.
 
DM_rider said:
I shoot action sports exclusively in 24p. You just have to learn how to shoot to accommodate your frame rate. I can't stand the look of 30p or 60p, blegh, nasty.

Auto everything? no way. That's just asking for some nasty, amateur looking footage. Learn to be quick on your feet and know your camera in and out, shoot everything in manual. Control your camera, don't let it make decisions for you. Because most of the time they're wrong, especially when shooting fast paced action.

vimeo converts all videos to 24 fps also I believe.
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Exactly
 
I agree :) I have done several test with auto and manual. Auto will basically give you the look of an amature camcorder, but it's easy. I don't even use anything auto anymore, the results you can get with the manual setting are far better, even thought I make a mistake now and then. I also use 720/24p 90% of the time.

Vimeo and YouTube both convert everything to 24p. Their HD is 720/24p (1280px X 720px). Shoot in 720/24p and when rendering do NOT interlace, and use H.264, 24p, square pixel - widescreen, 16x9, 44.1 audio. I made a sheet of all the web specs and did about 15 renders one night in Premier untill I go it right.
 
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s3films said:
I agree :) I have done several test with auto and manual. Auto will basically give you the look of an amature camcorder, but it's easy. I don't even use anything auto anymore, the results you can get with the manual setting are far better, even thought I make a mistake now and then. I also use 720/24p 90% of the time.

Vimeo and YouTube both convert everything to 24p. Their HD is 720/24p (1280px X 720px). Shoot in 720/24p and when rendering do NOT interlace, and use H.264, 24p, square pixel - widescreen, 16x9, 44.1 audio. I made a sheet of all the web specs and did about 15 renders one night in Premier untill I go it right.
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Hey thanks for the info on web settings.
 
Thanks alot for the frame rate information! I did alot of experimenting myself working with SD footage from a DVX100B and figured out all the specs EXCEPT for frame rate. Couple questions:

1) If I record in 24p and the footage is captured using Premiere at 30p, the footage saved at the end of the process if 30p. How is that discrepancy handled?

2) For things delivered to the web (youtube/vimeo): They all do 24p 720 for HD but what is the benefit of shooting in 720? Would it not be just as well to record in 1080 and simply export to 720?
 
AdrenalineSleep said:
1) If I record in 24p and the footage is captured using Premiere at 30p, the footage saved at the end of the process if 30p. How is that discrepancy handled?
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All DV files are technically 60i, see if you are able to check the pulldown option so it is interpreted as 24p. I haven't had to capture in a while, but there is a procedure to follow to get footage in as 24p from the start if you are having problems.

AdrenalineSleep said:
2) For things delivered to the web (youtube/vimeo): They all do 24p 720 for HD but what is the benefit of shooting in 720? Would it not be just as well to record in 1080 and simply export to 720?
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If you know it will never be viewed anywhere else, shooting in 720 will be more than fine (and even most of the quality gets recompressed to hell after upload). Your logic is correct, it cannot hurt to shoot in the best quality mode... you have to export no matter what, so scaling down is not a big deal. Many have even claimed that scaling down results in a better picture. It was originally thought that 720p24 was the way to shoot since there are less pixels to compress, but the codec holds up great at 1080p too. Main reasons to go with 720p24 are if you have a ton of motion in your shots and are worried about compression artifacts or if you are editing files natively and your computer can't handle 1080.
 
720/24p is a smaller file size. 1080p to me gives the feel of a HD nature documentary and 720p has a more grainy (wrong word, not literally) feel, or more of an artistic feel. However I adjust my scene files all crazy so nothing looks like real life, and I don't know what I'm adjusting but I like the look :)

If you shoot in 24p and save as 30p then I think it ads a frame every 6 frames. If you know the end product is going to be 30p then film in 30p.

Really you just have to use the camera and test and test untill you find the look that you like. Everyone will have a different opinion.
 
It's awesome to see how people go nuts about that 24p thing. It's just an ancient relict from times where cameras were too slow to capture more frames per second. People tend to think that they're adding film look when shooting at 24p but that's just silly because it's only in our heads. The ability to record 60 progressive images is a blessing. I agree it might be overdose for certain things, but for action sports this is the way to go. Not to mention that you always have a choice for a pretty smooth slow motion in post if you shoot 60p. People should really start shooting at higher framerates so 24p can finally disappear. It should disappear like interlaced recording will hopefully disappear soon.

Have a look here:
http://bscenefilms.blogspot.com/2008/04/cinema-is-lies-told-at-24fps.html
 
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Yesterday I spent 10 hours at the drag strip shooting motorcycle drag racing.

720 60p...I like the 60p, I think it works better for what I'm doing. The guys that buy the DVD at the end of the season don't really care about "film look". They just want a nice clear shot of them racing.

As I'm still new with this camera, I tried auto mode, but by the end of the day I was all manual mode.

We had sun and clouds changing the iris on me in mid shot, plus panning down track would do the same thing. Also the auto focus was a disappointment.

What I would do, when I needed a quick set up, was pop it into auto to set the shot and then back to manual. Then I could tweak as needed. This seemed to work OK.

I'll let you know how it worked, I just got done loading the 20gig of clips on the PC.

Later,
 
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