Excellent – I really hope M100 can activate the 720P/30PN format – for 3 serious, real-world reasons.
1. Despite current film-look fashion, video records and plays back more smoothly at 30fps that at 24fps. So unless theatrical release in film format is intended, I still prefer 30 over 24fps for purely video distribution. At least, I want to have the option to choose for myself.
2. 30PN, in the P2 world, gives you around 2 minutes of video per gig of storage – similar to 24PN’s 2 1/2 minutes per gig. ANY OTHER FORMAT uses 1 GIG per MINUTE !!! – in which case there is almost (see #3) no point in shooting 720P/30P or 24P – we might as well shoot 1080i or P, since it is the highest quality and you’re burning up a gig a minute anyway.
3. 30PN, like 24PN, has better low-light capability than 1080i, so for documentary work, the extra 1/3 to 1/2 stop can be very helpful.
In my view, 30PN is the best of both worlds – smooth capture and playback, doubled storage capacity – both with P2 on location, and later on the hard drives in the edit suite – and more shooting latitude. Even with the new E series P2 cards, P2 storage isn’t cheap, so doubled capacity without loss of quality – in low-light instances, even better quality – is significant.
Thanks for listening – we are starting a new project and would like to use 720P/30PN if possible. We have already shot aerials of the client site in this format, only to discover that we can’t so far use them. (My bad – of course I should have run a test first, but didn’t think it necessary and we were short of time before the flight, which came up on very short notice.) Can this footage be saved?