Apple now has its own HD Video Format -- 540p

540p has 518,600-pixels.
PAL has 414,720-pixels.
Not really much difference. You might as well shoot PAL DV at 1080i50 since you would get about the same detail and smoother motion.

I assume you mean export PAL DV at 1080i.

Personally I think there is a big difference, maybe not number wise in the sense you present them but put them side by side and the difference is day and night.

Steve, why do you say HD is 1M pixels, I've never seen a definition for HD, I've always seen it as relative and why 60 years ago HD was 240 lines of resolution. Do you know of a definition for HD and if 540p isn't HD and it certainly isn't SD or ED, what tag would you give it.

Steve Mullen wrote:
In the USA to label a TV as "HD" it must be at least 1280x720. 540p is EDTV.

That's not exactly the same as a definition for HD.
Are you saying then that if I bought an EDTV in the US it would play 960 x 540

Other than for iPhones/iPods, given there exists a perfectly good definition of HD with "fewer" pixels than FullHD -- there is no need for a camcorder to shoot anything less than 720p30. The Sanyo already shoots this format and the Internet sites already accept 720p30. Moreover if you want the quality of a Sanyo -- why I would ask -- then it already shoots H.264/AVC which iM already edits natively.

So, the advantage of iFrame is half the pixels to process. If you want to do this -- simply Import at Large or Optimize. iFrame really adds nothing -- yet.

The point I'm making is that at low datrates 540p is arguably better quality than 720p, to shoot at 720p and and convert it to 540p is both time consuming and an unnecessary compromise in quality. If I want to create low datarate video I would prefer to do it at 540p and that would entail a preference for shooting 540p rather than 720p, Sanyo gives me that option which is the advantage of iFrame.

Personally, Il'l continue to shoot at 1080, import at 1080, but export at 540 as and when I need to. I have no issue with this because I have enough horsepower and storage to do this, but not everyone does. Importing 1080 at 540 is a slow process for many, which is why shooting at 540 would be an advantage for them.

If folks can't see the difference between 2 million pixels and 1/2 million pixels -- then I would question their HDTV.

That isn't what I was saying. It was said that there was little difference between SD (PAL) and 540p numerically counting pixels, I don't disagree with that, but think it's more important to compare them visually side by side and when you do that the difference is huge.

.............

The 540p option isn't taking any choices away from anyone, it's adding another. When asked what's the point, my answer is that for low datarate distribution 540p is preferable to 720p, if those who ask disagree with this they have the option of shooting at 720p and exporting at 720p, that option hasn't disappeared because of 540p.

I totally miss the boat ..
what need for an 'Apple Video Format'?

tendency here: FullHD 'TVs' and BluRay (FullHd-web-delivery is a torrent-thing only 😉 )

so, why reducing res by ¾?
res is a still a salesmen-thingie .. mobiles with 8MB (thru a pinhead-sized lense ....)

... iFrame format will result in optimized performance in iMovie ’09.

HAHA!!
sure, adjusting the hardware, due to software limitations ( ? ) .... -

iFrame could be a selling-point for CHEAP devices (smaller files=less hardware) ..
.. kinda 'Apple-quality for <80$ ...'
but, 'cheap' as an argument for an Apple product?
iFrame vs. Flip? ...

.. sorry, I don't get it.

Karsten Schlüter wrote:
I totally miss the boat ..
what need for an 'Apple Video Format'?

+in addendum+ to myself ...

reading commentaries on diff. websites tells me, I'm not alone with that opinion.
actually, no samples with this new 'format' are via web available.. (or, I can not find them...)
same with any spec sheets ..
=> difficult to give any hard facts, esp. real-life comparison. but the usual suspects tell, they are standby ...

rumors (sorry, Admins 😉 ) has it, it is no new 'codec' nor 'format', just a combo of settings with a nice logo, whereas h264, 540p, and i-frames only ( ! ) ...- which reminds me of a quarter-sized-AIC.

most interesting fact I found today:
the 'Initial term of License' of h264 ends 31st Dec 2010..
so, perhaps, it is just a business-thing .. 😉

I'm looking to buy one, but the only "brick and mortar" that sells them are Radio Shack (Radio Shack?!?). I just want to shoot in the various modes and see what the difference is for myself. I've been looking for the iMovie 1 equivalent of DV. Every time I've looked into this in the past (and may have stopped looking for a bit), there was some sort of difficulty built into the support of the camera's format.

The one thing that interested me on this camera is the fact that I could edit in the same format that's stored on the camera, again, like DV. Is it true that AVCHD or some other format is also natively supported by iMovie at higher resolution than SD without transcoding?

UPDATE: Just read in another thread that "AVCHD which is a format incredibly difficult to edit"... true?

You can't edit AVCHD on a mac and whilst I don't know anything about the PC side of things my suspicion is (although I'm sure someone can confirm or deny this) that native editing of AVCHD on a PC really means decompressing it applying the edit and re-compressing it, behind the scenes so to speak.

Does the import involve a long process or can you simply transfer the file and start working? Is the recompress on export done ONLY when going to some format other than AVCHD? Or does export involve a long compression step.

I think I can see the utility of the resolution (especially if you can only edit AVCHD when using a Quad Core machine), just interested in pinpointing the tradeoffs.

Steve,

I mean from the PC side. When you import to Windows, is there a long import process? I understand from the Mac side, we're converting to AIC, but on the Windows side, since there's no AIC, is it just a simple "open the file" kinda thing?

Thanks for the info regarding the fact that there's no "roundtrip" AVCHD.

Thanks again, Steve, for helping me sort through this. I've picked up the camera because I was curious about the format. After recording several clips for the day, I displayed them (via a PS3, it read the files from the card directly) onto my 52 inch HDTV. I haven't done a CLOSE examination yet, but, in informal viewing, I can't say that it would be easy to tell the difference between iFrame, 1080p, and 720p.

Now, given that this isn't the best camera in the world (decent reviews earlier this year, but definitely consumer), that might be the whole point. This being my first experience with working with higher def progressive scan video in some time, though, there's a lot to it that I'm still figuring out.

I CAN say that file size may NOT one of the benefits of iFrame over 720p. In fact, the bitrate/filesize appears to be close to that of the 1080p 60fps content, just with the lowered resolution. I'll need to take another look at the settings...

A little more about this resolution choice. Again, this is my first foray into HD at all, and perhaps is NOT the best intro, but looking at what's possible with 1080p, there is no way you're going to even remotely reach that level of quality with this kind of camera. It's just not possible. I'm wondering if all the 500 and below cameras have this same limitation.

Given that, half that may be the most reasonable resolution at this dollar range because I'm having a difficult time telling the difference between 720 and 540 on a 52 inch television. Maybe with a more expensive camera, you get clearer differences, but then, you're probably not using iMovie either 😉