1080p vs. 1080/30p or 24p or 60i confusion!

Hi...I used to be involved in DV production before HD became a reality. Now I'm trying to break back into the field in HD. My problem is that I am a bit lost with the terminology associated with HD acquisition.

What is the difference between the 1080p and 1080/30p? I understand that the p stands for progressive and that there is also "i" for interlaced...but what does it mean when the "p" is placed after the frameRate?

I've been combing the forums for info on the Sony HRV-Z5 and all this time I've been thinking that it was a 1080p camera...but then I read the manual and it clearly states that it is a 1080i camera. To add further confusion...the manual also says "Progressive" on the front page...so which is it? Is there such a thing as a 1920x1080p camera?...or does that terminology only apply to HD TV's?

I've been doing a ton of research on cameras and NLE's and I can't seem to find a clear explanation about this anywhere. I realize the Z5 records in the HDV format which I believe is 1440x1080. But is that 1440x1080 Progressive?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!:o

All the best.

The "p" just means progressive. I'm not familiar with HDV format. I have a Canon HF-S100 that uses the AVCHD format.

I'm not also familiar with this 2 camcorders. Giving us a brief review will going to be a big help..Your reply will be appreciated. Thanks.

First off welcome to the forum. I sent you a PM about the HDV format.

There are a lot terms in HD and some get a little confusing. Here's a slight overview.

Number of pixels per line
1280 & 1920 (HDCAM & HDV record 1440)

Number of scan lines (not counting letterbox)
720, 1035, & 1080 (1035 was the orig HD format and many of those tapes are still out there)

Type of scanning
progressive (p), interlaced (i), & progressive segmented frame (PsF)

Frame rates
23.98, 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 50, & 59.94

Some of the sample rates
4:4:4, 4:2:2, 4:1:1, 4:2:0, & 3:1:1

So to address the Z5/FX1000 specifically...

It IS confusing, because the term 1080p means nothing without a frame rate. There's either 1080p30, (or 1080/30p; they're the same) which means 30 whole progressive frames at 1080 lines each per second; there are tons of cams that do this.

Then there is 1080p60, (or 1080/60p), which means 60 whole progressive frames at 1080 lines per second. There are only a few "toy" cams that claim to do this, among them a couple of Sanyos (the HD2000 and FH1). No serious cams do this as yet. It is a matter of debate as to whether any NLEs can actually handle this format or whether you could actually distribute this in any form of media. 1080p60 is mostly a distribution format for HDTVs and upscaling BD players.

There are also the 720-line equivalents of both of these, which are quite common and no problem to edit or distribute.

The Z5 does do some progressive: 24p and 30p at 1080, as well as 1080i60, and records to tape as such. It does not do any flavor of 720. The prosumer cousin of the Z5, the FX1000, does a version of these progressive modes as well, but writes them to tape as 60i. Doubtful you'd notice the difference, although you might encounter some issues if you tried to mix them on a timeline.

BTW, the terms 'Full HD" and "True HD" are also meaningless marketing tools, as they are used by manufacturers to fool gullible customers into believeing anything they want them to believe. There are no real definitions for either term.

Hope this helps.

McScratchy,

I am not familiar with your camera but recently bought a Canon HF S100 and the type of questions you are asking drove me nuts for months, so here's my 2c on what I found out.

First off, I believe there is no difference between 1080/30p and 1080p30. I read somewhere this is just a difference in terminology between Europe and the US - it's 1080 vertical resolution, 30 frames/sec progressive. Interlaced would be 1080i60 or 1080/60i, which is actually 29.97frames/sec (two interlaced fields in each frame).

In my case, most of the confusion came from the way the camera handles the footage and the software I was using for post processing. It's important to know exactly what the camera is recording and how your software handles the footage afterwards. I'm not sure how this is for HDV, but in my case (AVCHD), it depends on the camera.

My camera records true 24p, 30p or 60i, but everything is stored on the flash card as 60i. This means, if I record in 24p or 30p, and I want to edit in true 24p or 30p, my software needs to convert the stored 60i from the camera back into 24p or 30p.
In the case of 24p, this is not done automatically on import (frame rate is 29.97 after import), and I need other software to manually perform the 3:2 pulldown to convert 60i back to 24p (there is good free software out there to do this - JES Deinterlacer).
In the case of 30p, my software (imovie09 on the MAC) seems to automatically extract the original 30p from the 60i stored on the camera and I get progressive footage at 29.97fps after import! On other software, this may or may not be the case.
If I record in 60i, fields seem to get dropped on import and I loose resolution (this was confirmed with the help of some people on a MAC forum).

Conclusion: I record everything in 30p and am probably going to change to professional software so I have more control over what is happening to my footage. Consumer cameras are geared towards the casual user, and if you want to seriously get into the details, documentation is very poor (Canon tech support were completely useless when I called for an explanation of how all this worked - they basically read verbatim from the manual, as if I can't already read).

Good luck!

Thanks to 1080PsF, Adam, and Sharant for providing me with very helpful clarifications on all of this stuff. :bowdown:

Now I don't feel like a complete idiot.:banghead:

All the best,
Gared C.

Hi...I used to be involved in DV production before HD became a reality. Now I'm trying to break back into the field in HD. My problem is that I am a bit lost with the terminology associated with HD acquisition.

What is the difference between the 1080p and 1080/30p? I understand that the p stands for progressive and that there is also "i" for interlaced...but what does it mean when the "p" is placed after the frameRate?


That's an easy one... 1080p simply means progressive HD video, nominally 1920x1080 (though 1440x1080 is also a common enough format, thanks to HDV). In this, the frame rate is not specified by the name.

When I write 1080/30p, then I'm specifying both frame size and rate. So that would usually be a 29.97fps progressive video at 1920x1080 pixels. 1080/60p would be twice that rate. 1080/60i would be 29.97fps, interlaced -- twice that rate if you count fields instead of frames.

Standard ATSC forms include 1080/60i, 1080/50i, 1080/24p (though no one uses it), 720/60p, and 720/50p. Blu-Ray, at least, supports all of these.

1080/60p as a video format isn't supported on Blu-Ray, or most video cameras for that matter. The PS3 will play it, and many modern HDTVs support it as in input format (most HDTVs these days are upconverting everything to 1080/60p anyway... none of the new digital displays support a true interlaced picture anymore).


I've been combing the forums for info on the Sony HRV-Z5 and all this time I've been thinking that it was a 1080p camera...but then I read the manual and it clearly states that it is a 1080i camera.


Most modern HD cameras support several variations of video format. The HVR-Z5 records 1080/60i, 1080/30p, or 1080/24p.. your choice. The 24p mode is popular, since it mimics the 24 fps rate of film.. so your videos have a more cinematic look (where that's appropriate), they look better if you ever do a film conversion, and you get to use longer shutter speeds, thus improving the low-light behavior of any camera.

> Is there such a thing as a 1920x1080p camera?...

Of course there is... most consumer AVCHD camcorders can do 1080/60i and 1080/24p or 1080/30p, and perhaps a few other modes (Sanyo just released a couple that do full 1080/60p). Pro models often offer even more video modes.

However, the HVR-Z5 is a HDV camcorder... like all HDV camcorders, it's limited to 1440x1080 on tape, no matter which format (there's also a 720/30p option on tape from some camcorders). The Z5's sensors (3-chips) are 1920x1080 each... you could probably record full 1080/60i from an HDMI or other digital output (not sure what ports they have on this bad boy).


I've been doing a ton of research on cameras and NLE's and I can't seem to find a clear explanation about this anywhere. I realize the Z5 records in the HDV format which I believe is 1440x1080. But is that 1440x1080 Progressive?


The names for these things are the same, whether applied to camcorders or TVs. In fact, the full resolution would be stated like "1920x1080/60i" for an HDTV... it's just that, within the context of an HDTV, everyone knows that it's 1920x1080/60i or 1280x720/60p for ATSC, since that's all anyone broadcasts. Thus, 1080i or 720p is the shorthand -- it's a consumer market, and consumers like to keep it simple.

You add the modifiers when talking about video cameras, simply because there are more options. For HDV, you still say 1080i, but everyone knows it's actually 1440x1080/60i. Or it was.. many HDV camcorders (like the Z5) can record in 1440x1080/30p and/or 1440x1080/24p modes. And once you get to tapeless (eg, flash, Blu-Ray, HDD, etc)... the formats can be just about anything you can imagine, since you're really dealing with computer media, not something like non-variable-speed tape.