Years ago I converted some old VHS tapes from the '80's using low quality software. I soon found PD and could have made much, much better copies, but I didn't keep the original tapes. The point is that I now keep one copy of everything in the highest resolution that I can. Then I make DVD quality copies for the family and friends since I am the only one with HD capabilities. If I'm shooting a quick video for YouTube, maybe not so much, but family memories are too important to skimp on, in my opinion. __________________________________
CORNBLOSSOM

I wrote up these some time ago - maybe they might also be of interest?

Article 1: http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/5924.page
Article 2: http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/5925.page
Article 3: http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/0/5926.page

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.

You know when I first got my video camera I shot everything in 1920X1080 with the thought that I wanted the highest quality for when I get my 50" plasma.

Well it was a pain editing 1080 video and then with 99% of my videos going onto youtube I ended up shooting in 1080 and rendering to 720.

Now that I have been shooting in 720 with my Panasonic ZS3/TZ7 and realising the excellent quality I am getting and the ease of editing. I have decided to shoot and edit in 720 and to be honest on a computer monitor, even my 24" monitor the difference between 1080 & 720 is not that much.

Also to be realistic when I do get my 50" plasma there is no way I am going to go back and re-edit my 100 plus videos to 1080. I am going to be satisfied with 720 and maybe start my new videos at 1080.

Anyway that is my experience so far, your mileage may vary.

Cheers

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

Hi All

I also own a Canon HF200 to shoot family footages.
My experience:
- low light shots: < 5-7Mbps (LP, SP respectively)
- normal light, outdoor >12-17 (XP, FXP)

If I shoot everything under 17Mbps, clips are rendered natively at 1440x1080 and SVRT3 (in PD8 2508 pre-patched) deals with them without transcoding. If I put a clip of 17Mbps (FXP) it renders as 1920x1080 thus does not mix well with <17 clips as they are 1920x1080 (vs 1440x1080), svrt will re-render either the 1440s or the 1920s depending on the target disc burning avchd profile or produce avchd profile.

Sidenote: sensors in these camera classes are almost the same (technology generation-wise) as those in any of the point and shoot cameras. They are not even aps-c sized. As a consequence even if they shoot say 25/50 frames per second, they stretch the sensor up to ISO 3200-6400 or even higher (when shooting indoor).

So the question is: would you shoot TIFF if your camera is set to ISO 3200? (at a rate of 25fps or 50i) Probably not.

Motion-wise there might be a slight advantage because of the extra bits utilized when pumping up bitrates to 17Mbps or sonmething. But if I pause an yof my clips shot even at 24Mbps indoor (or even outdoor) I hit the barrier of the current consumer CMOS/CCDs first, maybe for these sensors, even 12Mbps is an overkill.

At least from my experience. (several hours of tweaking, pixel peeping and such)

Anyone else?

/z

I think Robert has made a good point. It depends what you intend to do with the footage you've shot.

I have a young family, so the vast majority of my filming is of them. I output to blu-ray mostly, although for other family members I output to DVD or AVCHD DVD. PD8 does a good job of downscaling footage shot in HD to SD, with DVDs turning out well.

I have a Sony AVCHD Camera. It's optimal setting is 1920x1080 with a bitrate of 16mbps. On a 25gb blu-ray, I can get up to 3 1/2 hours of footage on the disc, using H.264 encoding with SVRT.

I can imagine it would use alot more space on a disc if I was shooting at 24mbps. Doesn't the Canon have a 17mbps option?

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

Hello

Yes it does indeed!

- LP (5Mbps) - 1440x1080
- SP (7) - 1440x1080
- XP (12) - 1440x1080
- FXP (17) - 1920x1080
- MXP (24) - 1920x1080

Apart from the audio glitching issue (for which I have submitted a ticket for support) svrt3 in PD8 2508 works OK for me.

Kind regards

/z

I completely agree with Jaime's sentiments.

Looking at the cost and maintenance overhead - I rationalise it this way .... at 1Gb for 6 minutes, one could store 6,000 minutes or 100 hours of video on a 1 TB external disk.

These disks are now sold for around AUD $130, which is very reasonable.

As long as your PC can cope with HD / AVCHD files, I think preserving family memories at the highest resolution is highly desirable.

This is especially so when you consider that what we capture today could become a great reference resource for future generations.

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

Con and Jaime,

What you both say, I couldn't agree with more!

It was actually my principle argument for convincing my wife we needed a new Sony AVCHD camera and i7 PC when she was pregnant with our son.

Now we have hours of him in fabulous HD, and she's glad. They'll be one of our most treasured posessions one day!

We should start a new thread - list of new gadgets that you can/can't sneak past your wife!

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

Andrew,

You have not bought a High Def camera to produce a standard definition movies. It is such a pity waste! 1080 all the way!!!!
I know 720p DVD quality can be considered somewhat good enough but your breath will be taken away when you produce a Full High Def 1080 AVC file. The video quality is significantly superior to DVD, the footages are life-like and take up all the screen of your HD TV, unless you are still using an old school 4:3.

Yes, high res clips require resources, but it is a fact, so please accept it. 1gb is nothing when you own a 750Gb-1Tb hard drive. So do yourself a favor and up-grade. Trust me, you will be thanking me later. We all know that our family memories are priceless.

p.s. Working with high res videos is tricky but we eventually learning some tricks here and there. So, do not hesitate to come back and ask for help when you need. We have already been there and done that.
Good Luck.

p.p.s. I play my videos (m2ts AVC files) through Playstation 3.
Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted... but to weigh and consider.

At the risk of being contentious, the relative merits of 1080i and 720p are really not as clear cut as Andy makes out, although 1080p has a clearer run, so to speak.

There are endless reports/opinions and discussions out there on the subject and there does not appear to be a really definitive answer. It all seems to revolve around compromises of one sort or another, or about the relative merits of the individual components or of the video content - movement .v. static footage for example, or viewing distances .v. screen size.

As this thread indicates - its more about horses for courses than a right or wrong. Of course, it is "better" to have original footage at the "best" quality - (however that is defined) but it may not be necessary in all present circumstances whatever the future may hold.

Perhaps I'll wait for this one to to drop below $21,000 and then convert all my 720p footage.

Although
"Panasonic has been describing the camcorder as an AVC-ULTRA 3D model. The name stems from Panasonic's new compression system that is in development for, among other things, capturing 3D footage."

probably means PD wont be able to handle the codec.

"Joined together, the final footage from the camcorder would be 1080/60p, with each lens recording at 1080/30p. Whether or not this system will be effective in capturing smooth motion, especially high-speed action like sports and movies, is left to be seen."

Yet another debate to be had.





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.

vn800rider,

I totally agree that 1080 progressive is better than 1080 interlaced. I hope to see Sony (my fav. brand) to come up with one in the near future.

Guys, I must admit my mistake above. For some reason I had DVD quality in mind all this time (which is only 720x480).
Martin was asking about 720p or 1280x720. Please accept my apology.

vn800rider, you therefore stand correct that the difference in quality is insignificant. Martin, see for yourself.

The higher the bit-rate - the higher the video quality. Let's compare bitrates of different resolutions/formats (bits per second):

mpeg-2 HQ DVD 720x480 - 8,000,000
mpeg-2 HDV 1280x720 - 19,700,000
mpeg-2 HD 1920x1080 - 20,000,000
mpeg-4 AVC 1920x1080 - 22,500,000
Blue Ray 1920x1080 - 25,000,000
Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted... but to weigh and consider.

I agree, as a straightforward guide, bitrate may be a useful indicator but again it "may" not be the full story.

It might be better to look at :-
best quality= high resolution+high bitrate+best codec

Given that :-
Bitrate is the number of databits .v. time
Resolution is the number of pixels (to be filled with data) .v. "area" (for lack of a better description)

Say encoding/re encoding at 10Mbs at 30 frames per sec

10 million bits distributed over 2073600*30 (1080p30)
or
10 million bits distributed over 921600*30 (720p/30)

Is the quality better at 1080 or 720? Calculating slightly empirically, the "density" of data is better at 720p.

However, current codecs may also have specific profiles for specific purposes ie they may be better for some applications than for others. I think there are 17 profiles/sub-profiles in the H.264/AVC standard. For example Baseline for videoconferencing and mobile, High Profile for broadcast and storage (adopted by Blue Ray)

So, typically H.264 may have better "quality" than MPEG2, but only needs half the bitrate.

It gets beyond my technical understanding after this so......

But for me, it makes it difficult to compare different situations or offer advice except in broad terms.

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.

Thanks guys for the feedback and ideas.

I've decided to shoot in 1080 but depending on light levels I'll downscale some indoor footage to 720p. Movies taken in the evening can appear very grainy and 1080 quickly draws attention to the grain rather than the detail. Downscaling these to 720p actual seems to reduce the grain 'distraction'!

Thanks again,

Andrew