You should go HD for the camera.
Most, if not all HD cameras can also record SD.
You can record HD and capture or convert to SD, if you are running into problems.
So, even without the horsepower, and even considering current issues,
buy the better camera. HP Envy Phoenix/4thGen i7-4770(4@3.4GHz~turbo>3.9)
Nvidia GTX 960(4GB)/16GB DDR3/
Canon Vixia HV30/HF-M40/HF-M41/HF-G20/Olympus E-PL5.
Tape capture using 6 VCR, TBC-1000, Elite BVP4+, Sony D8 camcorder with TBC.
https://www.facebook.com/BarryAFTT

Quote:
Most, if not all HD cameras can also record SD.

Many AVCHD cameras CANNOT record in SD. This has caused me problems when producing SD DVD for friends. Downscaling on PD and other NLEs is not the best.

I would suggest flash based due to ease of file transfer.

Your PS3 will play hybrid discs (AVCHD on to DVD) and you can also add a media extender and stream from your PC. It should look pretty fine.

Retrospectively I would have bought a camcorder which could shoot in SD and 720p but the other features of the Pana SD9 sold me on that at the time. I also use the Canon HF100 and can't pick between them for quality.

Thank you or your thoughts. So, PJC given that you suggest purchasing a "Flash" based memory format camcorder (for easy file transfer), are you also suggesting I purchase an SD camcorder (given your point that HD camcorders often cannot produce SD output) so that you could share your movies easily with friends.?

the above was just some comments to consider really.

I use HD all the way. 1080i AVCHD straight from the camera looks fantastic on a 1080 panel.
1080i AVCHD edit through PD rendered to mpeg2 1080i looks almost as good.
When PD fixes SVRT and tweaks the mpeg4 rendering I am hoping the result will be comparable to the native footage off the camera.

I am merely suggesting that if you will be producing a lot of stuff for friends/family without HD set-up then consider getting a camera with SD AND HD recording ability.

Thank you again for your time and experience. I will purchase a camera with your points followed. Knowing now what you feel is the right feature set, which camcorder is compatible with PD7, is Vista 64 good to go, and costs less than 1000?

Hi jim,

I endorse pjc's comments. As he says it's important to look at 'the big picture' (sorry about the pun) all the way from camera capability/functions /features, through editing hardware/software, to 'display' kit and methods/channels, such as Youtube.

Each of us makes of that combination what we will. I shoot with a Sanyo VPC HD1010 almost exclusively in 720p (although it does shoot in many other formats), SD card .mp4 files, PD handles them fine, my middling (but growing old) XP system copes OK, and I display on computer monitor, 1080 or 720 domestic TV and on youtube, seemyworldonvideo, and vimeo. I rarely use DVD or blu-ray. It seems to suit me but no doubt things will change soon.

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.

Hi Adrian,

have you ever converted to PAL DVD with your 720p footage? Just curious how PD handles it.
Also is your Sanyo modified for PAL to shoot at 50 fps or is it 60 fps?

Hi pjc,

I can't recall putting 720p onto dvd, my previous (new) Sanyo HD1000 drowned whilst diving in Egypt in September and all the other previous scuba footage was shot with an Olympus compact at 640x480 which went onto dvd for friends etc.

The (even newer) HD1010 has not yet been used for diving and I don't think I've put anything I've shot onto dvd. I'll try something and see what it's like.

The HD1010 shoots as follows :-

1080i 60 fields/sec
1080p 30fps
720p 60 and 30fps
640x480 60 and 30fps
448x336 300fps
320x240 30fps

so it's all aimed at NTSC I suppose.

The new HD2000 apparently shoots :-

Full-HR: 1920 ×1080　(60fps 24Mbps)
Full-HD: 1920 × 1080　(60fields/sec 16Mbps)
Full-SHQ: 1920 × 1080　(30fps 12Mbps)
HD-SHQ: 1280 × 720　(30fps 9Mbps)
TV-SHQ: 640 × 480 (30fps 3Mbps)
Web-SHR: 448 × 336 (240fps Rec / 60fps Play , 1/4 Slow )
Web-UHR : 192 × 108 (600fps Rec / 60fps Play , 1/10 Slow )

Still all NTSC.

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.

Hi Jim,

Like many other members on this forum, I have spent countless hours trying different combinations and workflows to achieve the best quality DVDs. I have no interest in trying to create Blu-Ray disks - I work in IT and believe this will be bleeding edge technology for a while I'm afraid.

In my experience, capturing in HD and then converting to SD gives the best results - far better than capturing and authoring in SD straight through. I have used the following process to create stunning DVDs in SD.

I have a Panasonic SD9 which beautifully captures movies in HD. I edit/convert these in PD7 and create MPEG2 output files. I try to do about 15 minutes footage at a time to avoid crashes etc.

I then feed the edited MPEG2 files to my authoring package to prepare my DVD.

After burning the DVD, I store both the original AVCHD footage and the PD7 .pds files on an external drive as one day I intend to re-author these movies in Blu-Ray or similar format, when it is more easily doable.

Whilst the Panasonic bundled software is fairly basic, it does a great job of converting AVCHD files to HD MPEG2, so you could create/store these files instead of the AVCHD files, if you plan to archive as I do.

I prefer AVCHD as they are relatively small and therefore create little storage overhead.

Good luck! Windows 7 - i7 860, 8Gb RAM, 2 x 1 TB HDD, GTS 250 1Gb Video

Con,

If I understand correctly you are using the Panasonic software to initially capture your video and convert to HD MPEG2 and then use PD for the editing. Are you using the MPEG2 HQ preset for producing the DVD compliant file? In other posts on this forum people are unhappy with PD DVD output quality.

Thanks Q9300 2.5 GHz
4 GB Ram
Nvidia 9800 GT

Hi James,

Yes, I agree Power Director (PD) does not cope very well with AVCHD files. For best results I:

1. Convert the original Panasonic SD9 .mts files into MPEG2 HQ format using the bundled software HD Writer 2.5.

2. Feed these MPEG2 HQ files into PD to edit etc.

3. Output the edited files in MPEG2 SD format, ready for DVD authoring.

I use PD version 7.

If you feed .mts files into PD, you may get mixed results. As I recall when I was using PD6, PD6 would convert the .mts files into its own version of MPEG2 HQ to enable editing, transitions etc.

Whilst this workflow also gave me quite "acceptable" to "good" results, the best quality was achieved following steps 1 to 3 above.

Another factor to consider is whether the authoring process in PD compounds the loss of quality issue. I have not been happy with the PD authoring capabilities (nor Power Producer for that matter) so I decided to use another package which authors the DVD without re-encoding the PD7 .mpg files.

Hope that helps. Please let me know if you need any more information.

Con

Windows 7 - i7 860, 8Gb RAM, 2 x 1 TB HDD, GTS 250 1Gb Video

Hi Con, thanks for your reply clarification.

If you output your files into a DVD complaint MPEG2 file, why would PD have to re-encode? PD already created the file in the proper format after you produced the file.

Currently I have an Cannon HG20 which I record in 1920x1080 30p. PD7 seems to edit the files fine without any difficulty, but I would like to improve the quality of the resulting DVDs. I'm going to try to demo other available software for comparison.

Q9300 2.5 GHz
4 GB Ram
Nvidia 9800 GT

Hi James,

I agree that the PD7 authoring process should not touch the .mpg files once they are rendered, but I understand there may be glitches in SVRT. All I know is that PD7 authoring does not give me best results. I don't know why ....

The point I tried to make is that the authoring program which I use does not re-encode, whereas some programs force a re-encode regardless.

The Canon HG20 is an excellent camera - good choice!


Regards
Con Windows 7 - i7 860, 8Gb RAM, 2 x 1 TB HDD, GTS 250 1Gb Video

So to summarize your position Con, you do not use the PD encoder to either render AVCHD or MPEG2 but use the excellent editing capabilities.

This is the point many of us are saying for a long time. The encoders are not much chop really.

Yes, I use PD7 to edit MPEG2 HQ files and to then generate MPEG DVD quality output.

I also do a lot of slideshows and use PD7 for this purpose.

Con Windows 7 - i7 860, 8Gb RAM, 2 x 1 TB HDD, GTS 250 1Gb Video

Hi Con and others.

I still maintain that you do NOT get a good result from AVCHD when downscaling to standard definition using PD or even HDwriter. I had a bit of time this morning (4am mind you- before the kids get up!!) and did another comparison for those interested. The file is a bit big for this forum rules so I have posted it on a share site (152Kb).

The picture shows a crop of a full frame capture snapshot with each application with a comparison from the original file directly below. The SD frame snapshots were scaled up once using Paint to maintain size.

I used the crop of this sign as it has plain colours, curved lines and text which is good to demonstrate artifacting and noise. I can assure you on areas of complex detail elsewhere on the frame there is considerable blocking with PD and HDwriter. (I might do another comparison if I have the inclination).

Another interesting fact. The original clip is from a Pana SD9 and is 19 seconds long. PowerDirector took 15 seconds to render on my PC whereas my preferred encoder using a 2 pass technique took over 4 mins!! Obviously a little more time was spent getting it right : .

Here is the file:

http://www.4shared.com/file/94220817/49eba7c/Compare_v2.html

So my preferred workflow for producing SD DVDs which I recommend to others is:

AVCHD edited in PD>render using PD Bluray Mpeg2>encode to SD DVD using 3rd party encoder>author using preferred application.

Hi pjc, nice work! This is similar to what you posted back in October when you compared the outdoor scenes with the rocks.

Do you really see that much difference when the video is moving across the screen? There is clearly blocking on the still pictures.

Do you mind sharing what your favorite mpeg2 encoder is? I'm trying a few which I can find online, but its like learning new language in figuring out all the settings. I realize that there probably a difference between what you pay for and what you can find in the public domain. I'll be editing a wedding video this summer and I want it to come out in the best quality possible. Feel free to PM me if you want if you would rather not post all the details on this forum.

Thanks for you help! Q9300 2.5 GHz
4 GB Ram
Nvidia 9800 GT

Today I happen to have a Panasonic DV Camcorder (3CCD model) in the house so did a quick test.

I took a video of a sign out the window.

Captured SD video using PowerDirector
1. DVD Profile (not DVD Fast)
2. DV profile

Recorded MTS file on Pana SD9 (3 CCD model) for comparison.

I did some crops of a frame as before and compared. Attached is a sample of crops.
The second from the left is what PD produces when rendering the AVI capture to DVD.
Although the MTS file had different white balance etc there wasn't much to pick from noise poit of view. The DVD from MTS has some interlacing artifacts.

If I was editing in SD I would capture in DV (AVI), edit, then render to DVD.

see above