Higher quality video without AVCHD

[Steve Rhoden]

Seems you’ve been listening to too much stories.
AVCHD is only one format of HD (a highly compressed format
that can be a challenge to edit).
So there is nothing to fear when considering to shoot and edit
your other HD and HDV formats….just make sure you have a
fast enough computer on hand to make the process more smoother.

Even if you are doing only DV work, shooting in HD then
down-converting it to DV will give you even better quality
picture.

So put off the confusion (its not rocket science)….and start
your HD projects as needed. You can always visit here if you
need further advice on camera choices, workflow assistance or
further explanation on any confusing topic.

Steve Rhoden
(Cow Leader)
Creative Arts Director and Film Maker.
Project Samples at:
http://www.youtube.com/hentys

[John Rofrano]

Just to expand a bit on what Steve said and answer some of your questions directly:

> I have heard that some/possibly many HD camera’s can output there files from the camera in formats other than AVCHD

Yes the two major industry standard formats are HDV and AVCHD. HDV is based on MPEG2 and AVCHD is based on MPEG4. Sometimes you will see it called h.264. It is actually a subset of h.264 and all cameras that claim to be h.264 are not AVCHD and the ones that do not specifically say AVCHD should be avoided.

> If this is indeed the case could I also expect that the resulting output from the camera should be of a picture quality comparable to that of AVCHD but with a larger file size?

Yes.

> I’ve also heard that some cameras, I don’t know which ones, can also output their file at the DVD standard MPEG2 resolution of 720×576

All cameras that are HDV can also output DV (which is your standard DVD resolution). This is part of the HDV spec. You could shoot HDV to tape and have the camera downconvert to DV AVI as you capture to your PC. This does save a lot of time if your final delivery will only be SD and still looks better than if you had shot in SD with the same camera!

> If this is true would it be save to assume that this sort of MPEG2 file should be at the top end of what would be considered good DVD quality?

It is not an MPEG2 file. It is a DV AVI file at DV quality which is better than DVD MPEG2.

> Any comments that you might have in this regard would be much appreciated.

I have a Sony HVR-Z1U and HVR-A1U which are both HDV and I also bought an inexpensive Sony HDR-CX12 to see what all the fuss about AVCHD is. AVCHD is definitely harder on your PC and so harder to edit, but with my QuadCore and Vegas Pro 9.0 it’s pretty smooth. HDV is tape based and AVCHD is tapeless. I still like having a tape backup and I’m not happy about my archive situation for tapeless yet so this is something to consider.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Paul Gregory]

Thank you both for that information. You mentioned that there are a few good reasons to move up to HD. There are even a few more that you didn’t mention like the fact that can also record higher resolution stills. I often found that when I used a video camera to shoot DV that it was much easier to take stills that way. Even though the quality wasn’t anywhere near as great as my digital still camera I could always switch from video to stills & back again in seconds.

Neither of you mentioned that I should be shooting for Blue Ray when burning output. I have heard of people getting very good results when rendering out a video using higher quality codecs settings like those found in in WMV, Divx, XVID, H264 etc & then burning the file as a data disk. I’m guessing that I might only get about 20 minutes of top quality onto a single layer disk this way but its hard to know since I have never seen any comparison chart detailing quality & file size. In any event I have PVR that play almost any codec either from a disk or USB drive.

I don’t expect to ever see a consumer camcorder produce a disk anywhere as good as the best Blue Ray since the cameras have sensors & lenses that are too small. I have already done test HD slide shows rendered out using different codec’ & they look great on the large screen.

Are you saying that all AVCHD cameras don’t use tape & that HDV cameras do? I have never shot on any media other then tape. I suppose that recording to a HDD or flash card is OK as long as they don’t fail. The only problems with tape that I’m aware of is people either getting dirt on the recording heads or worse having the tape jam in the camera.

When the file is transferred from either of these sort of cameras whether its AVCHD or HDV does the file size remain the same or is it uncompressed at the time of transfer? If it doesn’t change then I have no problem since I already have a couple of terabytes of storage.

Thanks in advance

[Terry Esslinger]

I can answer a couple of your questions:

All HDV cams record to tape. But they can also record to HDD or cards with the right add on equipment. Or they can record directly to your computer. No AVCHD cam records to tape.

You capture the footage from the HDV cam to your computer and it is bit for bit – no changes.
You transfer your files from the cards or HDD of the AVCHD to your computer (much quicker) and with no changes (bit for bit)