1. I don't have any direct comparisons, but I doubt that there is too much difference.

2. My camera can record in both (17 Mb/s and 24 Mb/s) and I can't see the difference. There was a post a couple days ago where someone commented about the light intensity levels and noise.

3. They both look good on my 1080i computer screen. I used to use BD 1920x1080 exclusively for my videos, but that was before the SVRT issues were sorted out. I would say the biggest difference will be file size. The AVCHD profile is more hardware intensive to decode.

4. I tried this a couple of days ago and the resulting video was not good. See this thread.
http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/9820.page

Q9300 2.5 GHz
4 GB Ram
Nvidia 9800 GT

1. My Dad shot some footage on his camera at 9mbps 1440x1080 of my son, and compared to my 16mbps 1920x1080 footage of my son I couldn't see the difference. However, I doubt my son would be the best test subject to comment!
2. My camera shoots at an optimum 1920x1080 at 16mbps. If I had the option of shooting in 24mbps I'd definately give it a go - although the results would have to be awesome to compensate for the increased space the 24mbps files would take. I doubt, as James has said, there would be any big difference.
3. In my case, AVCHD 1920x1080 (not 24mbps) to utilise SVRT.
4. All my projects end up on disc, so I only shoot in the resolution I output in, except in cases when my projects have to be downscaled to DVD for my family. If I wanted 720p at the end, that's what (if I could) I'd shoot in to make full use of smart rendering.

Cheers,

Andrew Alienware Aurora ALX R4 - Intel i7-4820 4.2 GHz - 32GB DDR3 RAM - Crucial 512GB SSD - 1TB Seagate HDD - 3TB WD Green HDD - 4TB WD Green HDD - MSI NVIDIA GTX 1070 8GB

Sony HDR-PJ810 and HDR-PJ530

James/Andrew,

2. Andrew, I own Sony HDR-XR520V it records in AVCHD 1080i. How can I found out what bit/rate it records at? Andrew, if your camera shoots at 16Mbps, what would happen if you tried to Produce at 24Mbps?

3. James, I tried to Burn BD file to a file (i/o of actual BDisc), wasn't able to open the video. It is a bunch of folders. Which file do you open and with what program? Andrew, good point about sticking to the format of the source files when producing/burning.

4. I will have to give 720p a try and see formyself.

Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted... but to weigh and consider.

I don't have a blu-ray player and have not shot in 1080i as it causes too many problems.

I just have a couple of comments after over 100 videos uploaded to youtube.

1. Since I have been shooting with my TZ7 which only shoots at 720p 14-17mps I don't think I will go back to 1080p

2. I have played back raw 720p & 1080p footage straight from my Sanyo HD1010 in a store onto a 50" plasma and......there is a difference IF I look for it.

3. I recently had some 45 year old super 8 video digitised and it might equal 640X480 and honestly content is soooo much more important that squeezing that little bit more resolution.

Bottom line is I think 720p is the right balance between ease of editing and visual quality. If you are only shooting a few videos each year 1080 may be OK but it soon starts to drag as you shoot more and more.

This may change when editing software finally catches up and when storage gets down to 1c/gigabyte but at the moment 720p is going to be my standard.

Cheers

Robert S My youtube channel====> http://www.youtube.com/user/relate2?feature=mhsn

Hi Andy,

Taking a 7 minute clip and producing in 1920x1080 AVCHD 24mbps changed the bitrate from 16.55mbps to 16.58mbps. So in answer to your question, not alot happens in terms of bitrate!

You have a very nice camera. It's picture quality settings match mine, with the optimum resolution being 1920x1080 with a bitrate of 16mbps. We do not have the option to shoot in 720p. The three lower HD settings are 1440x1080 at 9, 7 and 5mbps.

These are shown on the camera screen as HD-FH (16mbps), HD-HQ (9mbps), HD-SP (7mbps) and HD-LP (5mbps). Check the manual to see how to change them.

It very much depends on what you want to do with your footage - produce a file to play on your PC or burn a disc. If so, what disc?

I changed my camera last year from a Sony HDV MiniDV camera to my current Sony HDR-XR200 AVCHD camera for three reasons:

1. I was fed up capturing from tapes;
2. I wanted a camera that started up quickly, as this does;
3. I wanted comparable picture quality to my HDV camera but with a lower bitrate, to use less space on my PC and blu-ray discs.

Using my camera at optimum quality settings, I use 30% less disc space - which equates to an hour more on a 25gb blu-ray disc than with my HDV camera.

So I choose to shoot in 1920x1080 16mbps and produce my discs in H.264 blu-ray, with matching resolution.

I don't use the 'Produce' section at all, I go straight to 'Create Disc' from 'Edit'. When my disc is being produced, due to SVRT, only transitions and effects are re-encoded leaving the rest of the video almost 'as is'. This means my PC doesn't have to work as hard and it burns quickly.

I burnt a 3 1/2 prduction to folders, using this method, in 1hr 25mins the other day - and 35 mins of that was encoding the menu.

Of course, if I hadn't used the matching resolution and/or the encoding method, SVRT wouldn't have worked, the whole production would have been re-encoded and it would've taken alot longer.

That's why I only shoot in what intend to produce in. Why make the PC work hard when it doesn't have to - for me anyway!

Cheers,

Andrew Alienware Aurora ALX R4 - Intel i7-4820 4.2 GHz - 32GB DDR3 RAM - Crucial 512GB SSD - 1TB Seagate HDD - 3TB WD Green HDD - 4TB WD Green HDD - MSI NVIDIA GTX 1070 8GB

Sony HDR-PJ810 and HDR-PJ530

I never actually tried to burn a Blue Ray disk since I don't actually have a Blue Ray burner. I produced my video as a files on my PC. I selected the Blue Ray option under MPEG2 from the production tab. Q9300 2.5 GHz
4 GB Ram
Nvidia 9800 GT

Taking a 7 minute clip and producing in 1920x1080 AVCHD 24mbps changed the bitrate from 16.55mbps to 16.58mbps. So in answer to your question, not alot happens in terms of bitrate!

I'd retest, PD8 would not be doing it's job if that really happened.
1920x1080, no GPU, 15.53Mbps video, 117MB/min
1920x1080, GPU, 16.12Mbps video, 121MB/min
1920x1080 24Mbps, no GPU, 22.40Mbps video, 167MB/min
1920x1080 24Mbps, GPU, 23.41Mbps video, 174MB/min

Jeff

Jeff,

To clarify:

1920x1080 (24mbps) with:

SVRT - 16.58mbps as reported
GPU - 10.60mbps
No GPU - 21.92mbps

Andrew Alienware Aurora ALX R4 - Intel i7-4820 4.2 GHz - 32GB DDR3 RAM - Crucial 512GB SSD - 1TB Seagate HDD - 3TB WD Green HDD - 4TB WD Green HDD - MSI NVIDIA GTX 1070 8GB

Sony HDR-PJ810 and HDR-PJ530

Either I missed something in your footage and/or post, or it looks like another SVRT hickup if you ask me. If your footage is and I quote "My camera shoots at an optimum 1920x1080 at 16mbps" and you select 1920x1080 24Mbps as H.264 produce options, you should not even be able to tick the SVRT box.
But then again, your GPU results are equally disturbing. Hard to say much about video format and quality when that behaviour exists.

Jeff

Jeff,

I agree, very unsual results, and SVRT should not have worked.

I'll certainly be passing these results on.

However, with normal production in 1920x1080 everything works as it should.

Additionally, as I have successfully created several HD projects on blu-ray and completed hours of testing for Dafydd, I think I'm more than qualified to comment on quality issues - thanks all the same Jeff

Andrew Alienware Aurora ALX R4 - Intel i7-4820 4.2 GHz - 32GB DDR3 RAM - Crucial 512GB SSD - 1TB Seagate HDD - 3TB WD Green HDD - 4TB WD Green HDD - MSI NVIDIA GTX 1070 8GB

Sony HDR-PJ810 and HDR-PJ530

Andrew,

Additionally, as I have successfully created several HD projects on blu-ray and completed hours of testing for Dafydd, I think I'm more than qualified to comment on quality issues - thanks all the same Jeff

Maybe lighten up a little bit. My statement had nothing to do with your ability to create HD projects, whatever work you did with Dafydd, or your ability to write comments. We are talking about a piece of software. If the software is performing as you have indicated, it is slightly out of the norm and makes it difficult to know what quality one is getting. A piece of software is giving bitrates of 10 to 22Mbps for essentially the same "production" quality.

Jeff

To the QUALITY contributors -

I've been reading this thread with interest... without saying anything. When the discussion gets all technical like that, I know that if I said anything at all I'd not be able to disguise my limited knowledge. In these matters, I bow to your wisdom and experience. In this forum everyone benefits from that, including the silent majority.

When I read forum posts, I have mental reactions ranging from "Wow" to "Oh oh!" to "Huh?" to "?*#$!" Sometimes, without knowing the writer's intent or their circumstance at the time of writing, it's difficult to know how to frame a response that accurately addresses the writer's content and manner. Written words are easily misread because they're not attached to a voice or a face. We all do it. Dafydd would be able to tell you how good I am at doing it!

So - we're dealing with a number of variables here that can be challenging.
1. PD has shown itself to behave inconsistently on a variety of machines. We can each only report on what's in front of us.
2. Words on the screen, without a facial expression or tone of voice, can easily by misunderstood.
3. At any moment, each of us has varying degrees of resilience, confidence & preparedness for risk taking.

See? I just wrote, "Come on - group hug!" to end on a lighter note... then I deleted it just in case... then I put it back.

Respectfully - Tony
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Hi,

Tony is absolutely right... yeah about misinterpretation, wry smile moment.

OK, just for the record.
Andrew carried out extensive testing of earlier builds of PD to isolate a problem with finished quality for AVCHD and BR disc production. I have a huge amount of respect for the tenacity shown in locating and isolating the cause. His work was replicated by R&D at CyberLink.

Also for the record.
Jeff has consistently carried out a thorough appraisal of PD8 (and PD7) providing me with a list of observations for R&D to investigate. I value his insight and intuitive appraisal of PD and his specialist knowledge of disc writing. His work was replicated by R&D at CyberLink.

Both of you complement each other. I find the information you provide on the forum and in emails very valuable, as do all members here.

We are all video editors and having fun.

Thank you BOTH.

Dafydd
[Moderator]

Guys, thanks a lot for all your feedback.

James, I tried to "Produce 720p" from 1080i source. Nah, the quality went down on fast moving scenes. Video got jerky, so no good. Therefore, I think it is safe to conclude to Produce videos in the exactly same format you are shooting in with your camera.

James, you also wrote:

So I choose to shoot in 1920x1080 16mbps and produce my discs in H.264 blu-ray,

I have some comments.

In Produce mode:
Blue RAY is listed under Mpeg-2 and not under AVC H.264 How come?

In Burn option:
User can chose on what they want to burn their project onto/basis what hardware they will be using for playback.

DVD - it can only be a Standard definition video to be played on DVD players.
Blue-Ray - it can be either a standard or high definition to be played on blue Ray Disc players. .
AVCHD - let's not get confused here, the destination disc is DVD but the video can be either standard or high deff, recorded in AVCHD format, to be played on Blue Ray disc players.
Did I get this part correct?
Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted... but to weigh and consider.