Where are you seeing the trouble with quality, in the preview or the finished movie? I shoot in 60i AVCHD and when I produce to HD the quality is excellent. Also, when I produce to 30p it is excellent. __________________________________
CORNBLOSSOM

OK,
Raw File = Awesome
Preview within Power Director = Awesome
Dragged into project timeline = Reduced Quality
Anything after that no matter what = Same Reduced Quality

What format is your raw file and what are you producing it to? __________________________________
CORNBLOSSOM

The issue of "quality" has been, and will continue to be, the subject of much discussion and will always be a balance between technology - of capturing, editing and viewing systems - and the eye of the beholder.

PD is based on 2 frame rates NTSC (29.97 frames per second) or the common implementation of PAL (25 frames per sec). This is chosen at the start of a project.

Any raw material - 60p, 60i, 50i etc etc - will need to be "translated" to whichever project format is chosen. I do not have access to the exact algorithms that PD uses to do this.

Edited material can then be produced in many formats but based on 30/25 fps.

The timeline preview player will not usually display the edited footage to its best - the performance seems to be governed by the system and graphics specs.

The finally produced material should be able to come pretty close to the original but this depends entirely on the file formats and profile chosen. Not all formats are customisable.

Of course, perceived quality will depend on the viewing method and on the content. For example, it should make little difference if a static brick wall is shot at 60p or 15 fps, nor would much improvement be made shooting an artillery shell at 60 rather than 30fps.

From experience, discussions around quality are notoriously difficult to agree on without examples and a degree of technical analysis - often difficult to achieve "at a distance".

I think most folk experiment to find the best compromise for their particular purposes - web content, BD, media play/streaming, standard DVD etc.

You should be able to achieve a reasonable output but it will never be as good as the original, particularly with a reasonably priced consumer NLE product.

Cheers
Adrian Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. (see below)
Confucius
AMD Phenom IIX6 1055T, win10, 5 internal drives, 7 usb drives, struggling power supply.

Adrian,

Well said and you hit on all the points regarding quality!

I am sure that the Bread Baking forums have similar quality discussions..."My bread just doesn't have the right texture, why?".....and the factors involved in creating the right texture are almost infinite....altitude, oven type, gas, electric, wood.....flour source... relative humidy level, ambient temperature (dough rising conditions)....etc. etc.
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