Which mode to record in? 60i, 30P, 24P

Im guessing 60i gives the highest resolution, but you lose some "fluid motion" ability on faster objects correct?

Until recently I would have simply said 60i would always give you the best fluid motion. That is probably still the case if shooting in P mode. Recently I shot from a very bouncy truck in sports mode and interlaced and the result was awful. On playback the interlacing is extremely obvious because the camera has shot each field with a high shutter speed. I have not found a satisfactory way to de-interlace this footage, I have either a double image or a smear. If I were able to shoot it again I'd either turn off sports mode or turn on progressive. Turning off sports would give me blur in the camera or turning on progressive would allow me to add controlled blur in post production. The post production route seems more controllable but I won't preach until I get it right myself.

The vast majority of users should just use 60i. In some cases, when a specific effect is required, the progressive modes might be used. E.g., if you're trying to replicate the "film look" then you should probably use 24p.


I have either a double image or a smear.
Sounds like there might be other issues at work here.

In any case, the HF10/100 are not cameras well suited for high velocity scenes, no matter which mode you're using. The sensor is pretty lazy. If you bought it specifically to shoot this kind of material, that was not the best decision.

Sounds like there might be other issues at work here.The most successful process I had was to deinterlace from 25i to 50p which gave me sharp frames except the plug-in I used gave me large alternating tiles of beautifully de-interlaced previous and next frames. :(
In any case, the HF10/100 are not cameras well suited for high velocity scenes, no matter which mode you're using. The sensor is pretty lazy. If you bought it specifically to shoot this kind of material, that was not the best decision.The HF10 is for general use this was an exception. I think the sensor is OK it is the AVCHD codec which gets lazy by blurring heavily during pans etc. IMHO
I had switched to sports mode to see if the blurring could be reduced but the camera went to the other extreme.

60i without a doubt will always have smoother motion than 30p and 24p because it samples the motion 60 times per second, while other modes do it at 30 and 24. Remember 99% of the time, 60i will happily deinterlace to 60p with excellent efficiency.

There are exceptions, as above with a very shaky scene it would be a better idea to use 30p since with 60i, each field is too far from next/previous sample due to very fast shakes/motion and this will look messy.

Resolution wise, they will all be within few percentage of each other so dont let the res be a determining factor.

For general use, i think both 60i and 30p will work fine. 30p is better if u r going to be converting the video for online use, so its already 30p and u dont need to consider which method should be used to deinterlace. But remember, 60i will produce smoother motion, so if thats important to u, then 60i it is.

Ok, I was under the impression that the progressive mode would yield smoother results compared to the interlaced selection. Thanks!

60i without a doubt will always have smoother motion than 30p and 24p because it samples the motion 60 times per second, while other modes do it at 30 and 24. Remember 99% of the time, 60i will happily deinterlace to 60p with excellent efficiency.

There are exceptions, as above with a very shaky scene it would be a better idea to use 30p since with 60i, each field is too far from next/previous sample due to very fast shakes/motion and this will look messy.

Resolution wise, they will all be within few percentage of each other so dont let the res be a determining factor.

For general use, i think both 60i and 30p will work fine. 30p is better if u r going to be converting the video for online use, so its already 30p and u dont need to consider which method should be used to deinterlace. But remember, 60i will produce smoother motion, so if thats important to u, then 60i it is.

I shot some video today, and wow I see lines all over. Was 30P the better option?

Kings, where are u playing back the video?

The reason i ask is because if u r playing back on your PC using a player, make sure u apply deinterlacing otherwise its normal to see lines all over in all scenes. However, if u already had done that and still seeing the lines, then yeah u must have hit the absolute limit of the interlaced capability, which only occours in rare cases.

Fyi, Nero and PowerDVD are the best players for AVCHD. Any other player has inconsistant playback from one system to another, from my experience.

Im using the Pixela software for playback.

That wont do.

What u need is a player which has dedicated deinterlacing options. You must apply 'bob' or 'linear' deinterlacing otherwise things wont look as they should. The reason for this is that, the 1080i is an interlaced signal while all LCD pc monitors are progressive. So if there is no decent software to 'fill the gap' the playback wont be good. Remember just because a software can playback AVCHD does not mean its doing it properly or with the correct parameters.

Simplest thing for u to do is to download the Nero8 trial. It has Nero showtime, which is the player. Showtime has the deinterlacing options i mentioned, however it does not have full hardware support for video card, which is not an issue, just need a powerful enough CPU. Something like a mid range core 2 duo, 2.4ghz or higher.

Download it here:

http://www.nero.com/enu/downloads-nero8-trial.php

Also, to check if what u recorded is infact decent, connect the camera to a 720p or a 1080p TV via component cable (dont use composite A/V cable, that wont do justice) or HDMI cable. Even though the output is still 1080i (not P) the TVs (LCDs and Plasmas) have their own deinterlacers which will do exactly what your software for your PC should.

Hope this helps.

You can also post a small clip somewhere where i can download it and have a look to see if there are interlacing artifacts for u.

Oh and another player u can try is the new version of VLC, its a free software that claims to playback AVCHD. I had a go, gave me semi decent results.

Will do, but a TRIAL asks for a serial key, kind of odd. Do they send it in email or something?

Well I managed to find a serial number, only to find out it was a pirated version "according to the 3rd party activation thing" so I just bought Nero 9.

What a joke that is, I mean Im looking to try out the product and I get a pirated key? Awesome.

What I dont like is that after you buy the new version, they dont even send you an email (as of yet) for the serial # you need for the downloadable copy. LOL what is that about?

Thankfully I saved it in word.

No idea why nero trial asked u for a serial key, by default they come with a "demo" key which should already be in there. Im suprised u had issues there, i have installed trial on many PCs and never had to enter a key.

Anyways, u bought Nero 9. So the key they provided worked and its all good now?

How did u go with your AVCHD files? Remember the first time u playback AVCHD, u need to go into video options and enable 'bob' deinterlacing to get ya moneys worth :P Also a good idea to tell windows to open .mts and .mt2s files with Nero9 for future. Do this by right clicking on the AVCHD file and select 'open with', then select Nero showtime and tick 'always open'. So it will just be a matter of double clicking the next time around.

The options I have are:

No deinterlacing

Software (adaptive)

Hardware (GPU)

Which of those is considered "bob"?

Im still running Nero8 (nero9 just came out), so my options are as follows:

no deinterlcing
adaptive deinterlacing
fixed (bob) deinterlacing

I dont have the same ones as u, but from the looks of it, try hardware deinterlacing. Once u click hardware, do other options come up as well? In any case, is the playback at 60fps without any interlacing lines as it should be?

http://flickr.com/photos/22232154@N06/2902786293/sizes/o/

Thats a screenshot of hardware....

Im still running Nero8 (nero9 just came out), so my options are as follows:

no deinterlcing
adaptive deinterlacing
fixed (bob) deinterlacing

I dont have the same ones as u, but from the looks of it, try hardware deinterlacing. Once u click hardware, do other options come up as well? In any case, is the playback at 60fps without any interlacing lines as it should be?

The playback is fine, I dont see lines, but it looks pretty grainy for "HD"

Would 30P fix this?

Well, being grainy could mean a few things, some of which are not related to being interlaced or progressive. The most important one is, whether there is sufficient lighting.

Why dont u try shooting 30p as well? Nothing beats trial and error with cameras. Also always use the highest possible bitrate the camera offers.

Yeah I will try 30P.

Its just weird, I always thought that 1080i was 60i, but if you run it at 30p it would drop it to 720P?

Is that true with this camera?

No no u r right, 1080i is 60i. Which is basically 60 seperate 1920x1080 res pictures per second all of which are interlaced (odd/even lines). It basically samples at 60 times per second.

1080p is 1920x1080 res, but progressive (ie not interlaced). However there is a small catch with these camcorders, which doesnt really concern many people. But all of the recording modes (24p 30p 60i) are stored within a 60i container. For example, the 24p is not true 24 frames per second, it is electronically stored within 60i with flags. So the playback will look like 24p motion.

But 30p will never become 720p. 30p is still 1920x1080p30. Which is 30 frames per second, 1080 res.

Thank you, I will try it out!

Yeah I will try 30P.

Its just weird, I always thought that 1080i was 60i, but if you run it at 30p it would drop it to 720P?

Is that true with this camera?
1080i does not express the field or frame rate only an interlaced vertical resolution of 1080. Equally for 720p. The HF10/100 only records 1080i and 1080p nothing else.

Camcorder manufacturers have pretty much ignored 720p as irrelivant.

Shooting at 1080p and down-scaling to 720p in post is an option but why not put 1080p on your Blu-Ray disc and let the display do the job of downsampling if it is not 1080 capable? For SD output you will need 480i or 576i for DVD compatability. Scaling from 1080 to 576 or 480 gives much nicer results than 720 could ever give.

Ok.............so I guess I still dont understand how it all works.

I know 60P is optimal, but this camera doesn't record 60P correct?

Or is it 1080P at 30 FPS, 1080i at 60FPS and 1080P at 24 FPS?

Correct Kings.

But just a minor correction, the 60i is better referred to as 60 fields per second (not frames). Since a 'frame' is a full picture, while a field is interlaced so its really a half a frame.

I think we will start to see 60p home camcorders within a year from now. 60i isnt a bad thing at all if we think about it. Its almost same as 60fps but with only half the data rate and to top it off, the deinterlacing techniques are very powerful such that u can almost reconstruct the entire frames from the interlaced fields almost perfectly, by interpolating (ie. filling in the dots with the given information).

Ok.............so I guess I still dont understand how it all works.

I know 60P is optimal, but this camera doesn't record 60P correct?

Or is it 1080P at 30 FPS, 1080i at 60FPS and 1080P at 24 FPS?
A camera with a choice of 24/50/60 frames per second would be fantastic. For now the best we can do is 50/60 fields per second for TV playback or 25/30 frames per second for multi-media playback. When you need to source for TV and multimedia with one set of footage we get into compromises.

1080p is 30 frames per second not split into fields.
1080i is 60 fields per second which when combined makes 30 frames per second.
The difference is:
In progressive all the lines are from a single exposure of less than 1/30 of a second. In interlaced every second line is from an exposure of less than 1/60 of a second and the other lines from another exposure 1/60 later. If anything moved between exposure #1 and #2 then interlacing might become visible if motion blur or persistance of vision does not mask it. Stills from progressive footage will always look better but interlaced will give smooter motion.

I used 1080 30P this weekend and it was much smoother. I will be using that from now on!

Thanks guys

Good to see 30p worked out for u :)

By smoother, i assume u mean better looking picture with minimal artifacts.

Kng: Then the subject could not have been moving much, right?