What format of HD is generally most desired?

[Elton]

1080 60i?
1080 30p?
1080 24p?
720 60p?
720 30p?
720 24p?

Is HDV still considered unacceptable? Have any of you guys seen a good PhotoJPEG conversion of XLH1 HDV?

Discovery HD accepts XLH1 HDV full origination. This of course depends on the cleanliness of the post production method but it does meet their standards.

If HDV is accepted in the future here, I would recommend that producers post native .m2t files and let the buyers be concerned with conversions. This would give the most flexibility for maintaining original quality, and allow the buyer to only transcode ONCE from HDV source, rather than from another codec.

[VJ Anomolee]

Good question:
Which format(s) do clients want?
I suggest shooting at the highest resolution and highest framerate possible.
And progressive if at all possible, not interlaced.
Then you can offer smaller + slower framerate versions as well, by doing a down-conversion.

With my HVX200 - I always shoot @ 1080-30p, UNLESS its something that I want to show in slow motion(in which case I shoot @720-60p-<but only because my camera cant do 60 progressive frames in1080>), or Im wanting to do a massive undercrank (like 12fps or somit).

So as a rule of thumb shoot natively at the best format possible.
As far as HDV is concerned...Im thoroughly unimpressed...
Mainly with how HDV performs in post,-which is why I sold my JVC-HD10u (I know, I know..not a fair comparison of HDV v.s. DVCPROHD because the HD10u was one of the very first HDV cams) but even with the Canon XL-H1(think thats right) I prefer my HVX200's favorite picture quality. (not to mention all the other sweet features the cam has)
Ok, Im rambling now..
Cut

[Elton]

I guess what I meant is what kind of framerate/standard is usually most desired from stock footage clients? Do they want a live/smooth video look more often? That would be either 108060i or 720/60p...and speaking of standards, which one is more often requested? 1080i or 60p?

It seems like one should either go with a traditional smooth video look ala 1080i or 60p, or a "film look" with full 1080 24p. Not sure how desireable 30p is in general. It's just a hair smoother than 24p, but it doesn't look live/smooth/judder free either.

I understand what you mean about HDV, but I've found it to be better than I originally anticipated...particularly with the XLH1. Of course I would prefer a frame-discrete edit-ready codec like DV100...but I've seen minor issues with this codec too. The color the HVX can produce is definitely nice, however the "4:2:2" is really more of a sub-sampled ratio than people would like to admit. 720p is actually 960 luma x 480 x 480 chroma. (960x720 frame) 1080 DV100 is 1280 x 640 x 640. (1280x1080 frame)

HDV 1080i is actually 1440 luma x 720 x 360 chroma.

It's not so terribly far from the actual sampling of DV100. But where things do get interesting with the XLH1 is with SDI acquisition. You actually get 1920 luma x 960 x 960 chroma. With the Sheer or PhotoJPEG codecs you can retain this full raster info.

Please don't misunderstand, I like the HVX too. It's just a different beast and it has elements to its picture quality that are quite nice. I think its strengths are variable frame rates, color rendition and native codec.

The XLH1 was my choice because of resolution, SDI (for res and color), lenses, and the simple economy of HDV recording too. (simple archive solution too)

Believe me, I do understand the shortcomings of HDV, but I don't think of my Canon as an HDV-only camera.

[KyleHamilton]

the XLH1 has a lot of flaws to it but I do have to agree I would love to monet my 300mm or 400mm canon onto a HVX200 but just cant, one nice thing about the XLH1 is you can do uncompressed HD via HDMI but you need a harddrive unit

I like to take a FX-1 out with me as a back up in case the **** hits the fan you know

[OneRiver Media]

I don't think there will ever be an "answer" to which format is most desirable. It really boils down to 24p vs. 60i; it's purely an aesthetic choice. Shoot 60i for a live feel like sports, news, etc. and shoot 24p for filmic or doc style. I personally don't like 30p at all. If I have to choose between 60i and 24p, I'll pick 24p every time, but that's typically because of the projects I work on. Render times can be drastically shorter in 24p than 60i as well.

The nice thing about 24p source is that it's easy to put in a 60i project without going through interpolation loss (just add 2:3 pulldown) whereas 60i source will definitely go through some interpolation loss to get it working in a 24p project.

On another note, I suggest shooting in the native format that your camera is built to for Revo Stock. IOW, if your camera uses interlaced CCDs, shoot your stock footage in 60i. If your camera uses progressive CCDs, shoot your stock footage in 24p or 60p (or 30p if you must). People should buy the best quality that the camera offers and that means shooting in its native format according to its CCD structure.

If there was "one answer", I'd say 1080p24 but others will have their own opinions.

[Elton]

On another note, I suggest shooting in the native format that your camera is built to for Revo Stock. IOW, if your camera uses interlaced CCDs, shoot your stock footage in 60i. If your camera uses progressive CCDs, shoot your stock footage in 24p or 60p (or 30p if you must). People should buy the best quality that the camera offers and that means shooting in its native format according to its CCD structure.

This logic makes sense but both the HVX and the XL-H1 blur the lines on formats and native CCD structure. The HVX does major pixel shift with native 960x540 CCD's which isn't really enough to achieve true 1080 24p, yet many think it looks pretty good as a 720p camera and only so so optically as a 1080 camera. The H1 on the other hand has much higher resolution CCD's (1440x1080 native and yes, interlace) and also performs pixel shift, but only horizontally to achieve a legit 1920x1080 image. Now, it's 24F mode, (progressive recording actually) whether HDV or SDI, performs an interpolation (most likely) of 48i and stitched together as a 1080 24p image. It loses maybe 20% vertical res, yet almost all who view it say it still looks like great 1080 24p. And this mode downrezzed to 720 24p is exceptionally good.

So what's the answer? I happen to think most HD shooters know what looks legit and what doesn't in whatever format they shoot in. If it's sharp and the cadence is correct at the given HD standard, then in my opinion that's all that matters.

If there was "one answer", I'd say 1080p24 but others will have their own opinions.

Others do indeed. I happen to think 24p is terrible for anything that truly needs to look like the human eye experiences it in reality...which means 60i/p.

[Lee_Wilson]

320 X 240 at 12 frames per second is all anyone needs, anything more is just showing off.