1080 60p is here!

[Stephen Mann]

I would be careful about a camera which lists YouTube as a feature.

Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com

[Peter Nestor]

Interesting. where do you show it? broadcast?
Is it included in the blu-ray specs?

[Danny Hays]

Stephen, The only place YouTube shows up is in the software that comes with the camera, since very few NLE’s will edit it, Vegas Pro and Affter Effects from CS5 are the only 2 I have verified. It has some converting software and basic editing and a preset for youtube. I don’t use that software disk. I’m saying search youTube for HDV-TM700. there are some good videos that discuss this camera. There are some good video samples too but their ony 30p. Peter, no BluRay doesn’t support 1080 60p yet, just 1080i. 1080 24p and 720 60p I believe. I render to MP4 and WMV and play them on a fast computer. It’s only a matter of time until Bluray and other deliverable, streamable sites support it. After watching some of these videos, then watch 1080 30p, it looks jittery, studdery, as if the player can’t handle it. I will make a few downloadable clips, 1080 60p and 720 60p for quad and dual cores so you can see. I will start a Vegas post and put the downloadable links there.

[Stephen Mann]

“…It’s only a matter of time until Bluray …”

Why?

It’s already an uphill sell to get consumers to buy BluRay and HD in its current form, I can’t imagine why the manufacturers would expend any more resources on expanding the BluRay spec to include 60p.

Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com

[David Shirey]

[Stephen Mann] “It’s already an uphill sell to get consumers to buy BluRay and HD in its current form, I can’t imagine why the manufacturers would expend any more resources on expanding the BluRay spec to include 60p.”

Agreed. I think the only real-world application for 1080p@60fps for the near future would be if you’re making a 30p project and want to slow motion footage, which is certainly a nice ability.

[Danny Hays]

I agree most people for now will use it for slow motion, but Sony Vegas Pro 9 and 10 can edit it and render it from 1920×1080 60p to the same but in WMV, MOV and MP4 format as well as CS5 After Effects if you costumize the settings, and play great on a fast computer.
I only had vinyl albums and 45’s when I was a kid, then cassettes, 8 track players,(LOL) VCRs Laser disc, CD, DVD Blu Ray,,,,, You realy don’t think we’re stopping now do you??
Google 1920×1080 60p and check out the forums. Most people believe it’ll be supported soon by Blu Ray, You Tube, Vimeo ect…

[Dave Haynie]

I shot the fall 2009 season of my daughter’s JV soccer in 1080p, on a Sanyo FH1. It worked, but I wasn’t all that happy with the camera itself. I bought that primarily to reduce wear and tear on my pro HDV camera, but really got to like the progressive video.

While I have a TM700, I used my HMC40 at 720/60p this season. I just find the larger camera and pro mic (with dead cat) better for this kind of thing… and of course, without the tape drive, I’m much less concerned about putting extra mileage on a higher end camera.

1080/60p output is less useful. Sure, I’d LOVE for Vegas to learn to Smart Render AVC, since I’m now shooting nearly everything in AVC. But 1080/60p as a delivery format is still a problem… too big for internet, and not yet supported as a Blu-Ray format. It’s still useful to shoot in 1080/60p… you have the option, in editing, to decide if the material looks better on BD as 1080/60i or 720/60p.

-Dave

[Dave Haynie]

I was kind of hoping they’d drop that in there along with the 3D spec, given that the bandwidth requirements are similar. Given that they didn’t do that, I wouldn’t hold my breath on 1080/60p support in Blu-Ray any time soon.

I do think Blu-Ray is doing fairly well in the market. There’s some contraction of the whole DVD/BD market, but given both the economy and the transition of the rental market (eg, from the meatspace pay-per-view model to an “all you can eat” mail and online model, thanks to NetFlix), it’s actually surprisingly still pretty healthy.

This is also boosted now by the fact that SDTVs are end-of-life in the market.. no one’s introducing new SD models. And that BD has basically become the hot $100 feature this year in DVD players… last year it was DVD upscaling over HDMI, before that it was 480p or whatever. Anyone looking beyond discount DVD players will get BD, and they will almost certainly connect it to an HD screen.

-Dave

[Dave Haynie]

30p isn’t supported on Blu-Ray either. Both 30p and 60p have to go on Blu-Ray as 60i. Of course, anything goes online… it’s just that the bandwidth isn’t there, really, for 720p yet.

And that’s kind of an interesting thing. I never believed in the download-for-sale market at this point in time, and that’s pretty much proven true… it’s the rental model that’s supporting downloads. But a report last week claims that NetFlix accounts for 20% of all internet bandwidth use in the USA, during prime viewing hours.

That does suggest just how big Netflix is, and why they almost single handedly ended the meatspace rental market. But consider what you get. Their HD offerings are encoded in fixed bitrate VC-1, with a transport that can dynamically switch bitstreams based on your actual bandwidth. If you’re lucky, you see 720/30p or 720/24p in VC-1 at 3.8Mb/s. They downscale you to VC-1 at 2.6Mb/s, and if you fall below that, you’re at SD (640×480) at 1.5Mb/s, 1.0Mb/s, 500Mb/s, and then 300Mb/s.

In short, at best, you get about 1/10th the quality of Blu-Ray. This will get better, but given the current bandwidth use, that’s probably not going to happen before there’s a battle with the ISPs over this. It could take many years… and by then, we’ll all be worrying about how to deliver 4K to the home 🙂

-Dave