True 1080p vs Native 1080p

iamWZA

iamWZA

Active member
EDIT: that should read 'True 24p vs Native 24p'. Apologies for the confusion.

I don't even know if I'm making sense. What do these two terms mean? Is there a difference? I can't seem to find an answer anywhere.
It is always so obvious if something was filmed on a proper film camera, and equally obvious when something is shot on a DSLR, even if they are shot with the same settings. So I thought that maybe one shot with true 1080p and the other with native. Or perhaps they both mean the same thing?!

Can someone clear up this noob-ish mess I've made?
Will
 
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I don't know what either means, because I suspect it's out of context.

There are those, for marketing reasons, who call 1080p "True HD." This may be what you're referring to. It's also exactly that -- marketing, nothing more.

Then there's native, which could refer to a number of things, such as recording a particular frame rate "native" -- for example, recording 24p as 24 frames per second, rather than embedding it in a 60i or 60p stream.

Or it could mean that the sensor is "native" 1080p, which could also mean any number of things.
 
True HD (and sometimes Full HD) is the moniker typical used to differentiate 1080p capable displays over 720p only, and also to refer to videos which are 1080p, not 720p.

Native HD would likely refer to a display having a native resolution of 1080p? I'm not sure myself.
 
When some camera says it records in 1080p, it means that yes, it records in a 1080p recording format. But that does not give you any indication of how sharp that camera is. The first Canon DSLRs record "1080p", but the image they put into that "1080p basket" is one that's resolving somewhere between standard-def and 720p. It's in a 1080p format, meaning essentially it's in a 1080p bucket, but that doesn't mean it's "true" 1080p. It is a 1080p recording, yes. But that doesn't mean it has 1080p worth of detail.

Think of the recording format as a bucket. A standard-def bucket might be a two-gallon bucket, and a 720p bucket might be eight gallons, and a 1080p bucket might be 10 gallons. But just because your bucket "can hold" 10 gallons, does that mean it's full to the brim?

What if you dubbed a VHS recording (about a quart) over to a 1080p recording format (which can hold 10 gallons). Would your VHS recording now be "1080p"? Well, it would be akin to pouring about a quart of water into a 10-gallon bucket. It would be a 10-gallon bucket, so yes the recording would in fact be 1080p, but obviously it wouldn't be full, it wouldn't resolve the image the way an HPX3700 might. The HPX3700 is a camera that outputs a true, fully-resolved, sharp-as-any-camera-can-get 1080p image. So would a DSLR (about a gallon and a half) recorded to 1080p, be as sharp as an HPX3700 (about 9.5 gallons) recorded to 1080p? Not a chance. No way, no how, not even the most fervent DSLR advocate would try to make that argument!

Yet both deliver 1080p recordings.

1080p is an image format, and if you put your image into that format, it is a 1080p image at that point. Regardless of how much detail or how much resolution it has. Digital Betacam is the premium standard-definition format, and VHS is a horrible standard-definition format, but both of them are standard-definition video. Well, the same applies to 720p or 1080p or 1080i; the format is capable of a certain level of performance, but it's up to the camera to deliver what it can deliver.
 
I've just realised I've been even more stupid than I had first thought. I meant to say native 24p vs true 24p. Got my knickers in a right old twist, sorry about that. Can anyone shed some light on that?
 
Anything which is imaged at 24 frames per second is true 24p, even if it's recorded in a 60hz stream (that's pulldown).

Native 24p is when it's recorded as 24 frames per second.
 
iamWZA said:
I don't even know if I'm making sense. What do these two terms mean? Is there a difference? I can't seem to find an answer anywhere.
It is always so obvious if something was filmed on a proper film camera, and equally obvious when something is shot on a DSLR, even if they are shot with the same settings. So I thought that maybe one shot with true 1080p and the other with native. Or perhaps they both mean the same thing?!

Can someone clear up this noob-ish mess I've made?
Will
Click to expand...

"True" is what the final product is given to you as, "Native" is what it is recorded as.

Realistically, "True" could be anything, it could say "Real" or "Full", I am just describing it simply in opposition to "Native" which is pretty much the only way to describe what Native is.

True 1080p means you will get a video file that is 1080 progressive, regardless of how it was recorded. Native 1080p means it was recorded with a resolution of 1920x1080 progressive.

The Panasonic GH2 when in ETC mode, records Native 1080p because it uses what is called AOI(Area of Interest) or ROI(Region of Interest) or Windowing, where in it only grabs pixels from a 1920x1080 block in the middle of the image sensor. I believe the Canon T3i does this same thing when running Digital Zoom at 3x, not sure on the Canons though. There are also cameras that only have a resolution of 1920x1080, or something close to it and they crop the image before recording, or use ROI.

However, when not in ETC mode, the GH2 will give you a True 1080p video file, it is just that they take the full sensor, and interpolate it down from 4592x3056 to 1920x1080, using various methods (binning, line skipping, etc...)

Hope that helps.
 
David Jimerson said:
Anything which is imaged at 24 frames per second is true 24p, even if it's recorded in a 60hz stream (that's pulldown).

Native 24p is when it's recorded as 24 frames per second.
Click to expand...

And do they look absolutely identical? Can you give me an example of which is which? Like, are DSLRs true 24p and high end film cameras native?
 
iamWZA said:
And do they look absolutely identical?
Click to expand...

If shot by the same camera, with all the same settings, yes. If shot by different cameras, perhaps not.


Can you give me an example of which is which? Like, are DSLRs true 24p and high end film cameras native?
Click to expand...

Any video camera which shoots 24 frames per second and records them as a straight 24p file (actually 23.976) is shooting true 24p and recording native 24p. Most current video cameras do this. I don't know the rundown of the DSLRs; I know some record in a 60i or 60p stream, and some record straight 23.976. I don't know which ones they are, though.
 
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