Questions about the panasonic hmc40

[Camera Expert]

I just don't think $3,500 is a fair price for a camcorder that does 24p within 60i when even the Canon HF S21 can do native 24p without pull-down. I also think 720 60p is very important for fast action shots. That's why I'll recommend something like the HMC40 or if they have more money to spend, I'll add the HMC150 or the NX5 as a recommendation.

 

[hazydave]

I just don't think $3,500 is a fair price for a camcorder that does 24p within 60i when even the Canon HF S21 can do native 24p without pull-down. I also think 720 60p is very important for fast action shots. That's why I'll recommend something like the HMC40 or if they have more money to spend, I'll add the HMC150 or the NX5 as a recommendation.

Native 24p is of course better, but if the camera's really shooting progressive, the 60i doesn't have to do much more than waste storage space. Of course, this was done for tape, when you didn't have any choice -- the rate was 60i, period. Of course, if you factor in compression bitrate, then obviously native 24p at 24Mb/s will look better than 24p -> 60i at 24Mb/s.

Sports of any kind benefit from a higher frame rate. The big reason that 720p is part of the ATSC spec is because ESPN (= ABC Television, = Disney) wanted the higher frame rates, primarily with sports in mind.

I would claim that 1080/60i is still better for football (either kind), but for any sport that's fast and shot closer, you're going to prefer 720/60p. It's also true that progressive video is far more appropriate for anything going online, even if you might not upload 60p video to YouTube.

I've been shooting soccer in 1080/60p since last fall, and it's a big improvement over the 1080/60i I shot in 2008 and 2007. And this was with a relatively cheap consumer camcorder (Sanyo Xacti FH1). That's probably overkill, since I'd have to cut it down to 1080/60i or 720/60p for Blu-Ray, and of course, shooting native with my HMC40 in 720/60p (now that I have it) will result in higher quality video than the Sanyo.

The point is, for fast motion, the more frames per second you have, the better.