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Is my HV30 supposed to look like this?
https://img91.imageshack.us/img91/7644/freewaybx1.jpg
That’s one frame from what I recorded today, and I have to say… I’m a little disappointed with the quality. Granted, we were going 60mph down the freeway, but I still would have hoped that the building would have been a little bit clearer.
Plus, I thought that the resolution was supposed to be 1920×1080, (I was shooting at 1080i60) but it’s 1440×1080. Now, I know that camcorders are supposed to record in this resolution with non-square pixels, but I thought that the software (I’m using AE8) was supposed to correct that. I guess I have to tell it to do that?So, just wondering if I was doing something wrong- if so, please share =)
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3 Replies
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The 1440×1080 was a disappointment for me as well, but it is something native to the HDV standard. The camera does indeed capture at 1080 but you can only get that full res (and without any pulldown – 4:4:4: as well) by using a card that captures from the HDMI directly. Otherwise you’re stuck with what HDV gives you at 25MB/s bitrate. I’d say over all you’re still doing ok, especially compared to the other AVCHD cameras that compress the crap out of it at only 17MB/s and leave you no viable way to edit without first recompressing.
As for the image quality on your sample, it’s just motion blur… try running it in sports mode to get a faster frame rate, or shutter priority mode and tighten the shutter speed.
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ah, so… this doesn’t look distorted, but maybe I’m understanding it wrong, because I thought that they were kinda squished together so it could be 1440 pixels wide and then it would be stretched to 1920? But I guess that’s not how it works, if the picture isn’t distorted?
Thanks for the help!
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Yeah HDV format is a non-square pixel aspect, so 1440×1080 actually translates to 1920×1080 on screen. The editing software will take care of it, and even Photoshop should display it properly with an aspect ratio warning. Most editing apps have an aspect correction feature to show it to you proper width. Technically you’re still getting ripped off a few pixels but it all works…
I had to transcode a video for a friend of mine who had painstakingly made sure all his animation and elements were 1920×1080 and the format they wanted it in was HDV 1440×1080 so it got squeezed in the end anyways.
Point being, don’t sweat it – your camera is doing exactly what it’s supposed to.
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