Camera HD Confusion :)

pulse

Hello there,

My partner and I bought a new Sanyo FH1 camera - so far so good

I'm just a little confused with the numerous HD recording choices:

1920 x 1080 pixels, 60 fps (60p)
1920 x 1080 pixels, 60 field/s (60i)
1920 x 1080 pixels, 30 fps (30p)
1280 x 720 pixels, 30 fps (30p)

the manuel says: The 60 fps frame rate of this camera is 59.94 fps, the 30 fps frame rate is 29.97.

The issue I face is that I'm not sure which HD format to record in. For example if I film at 1920 x 1080, 60 fps (60p) and I wish to downgrade that later for Pal DVD playback - will I have potential pauses during playback?

I hear some camera's have 25 and 24 frame options, its odd that the Sanyo doesn't... or am I missing something?

Just to note the reason why I want to record in HD, is to future proof the material as later on down the track we might put it on blu-ray, etc...

Would really appreciate some help....

Many thanks in advance,

Anthony

Kingpin112

You must asked yourself where you want your final movie to be watched?
In other words, if you have a FullHD plasma/TFT with 60i I should choice the 60i mode and edit in 60i because you have to avoid as many conversions to have the best results.

__________________

hazydave

That's correct.. those are standards based off NTSC values. The 1920x1080/60i is the standard rate for ATSC video (US HDTV), while the 1080/60p is something fairly new... this is the first consumer camcorder to offer this, and few professional models do.

If you do a proper frame rate conversion, you can get perfectly smooth video going to DVD from either format. However, the conversion process samples and interpolates frames, so you will get some blurring, where you wouldn't have had it with native 25fps video.

You are better off with the 60p video IF you can deal with it, for these purposes. This is fairly difficult for more PCs to play back full speed, much less edit. Some video editors don't handle it yet.

A small number of professional video cameras allow the option of PAL or NTSC timing via a switch or menu option. Most of them don't.. they come in PAL or NTSC models. Same is true of consumer camcorders... in fact, I don't know of any consumer model with this feature, but perhaps some do exist.

If you really want PAL video, use the PAL version of this camcorder, which would presumably offer you 1080/50i and 1080/50p options.
That will give you the best result.