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

You can natively edit AVCHD on PC that have an Intel Quad Core chip. There's no reason to recompress video until the decision us made to export.

Yes, but the perception is that by importing AVCHD and being able to edit it without conversion is that there is some sort of major time saving principle that doesn't involve any de/re compression, all I'm trying to ascertain is that is it not the case that it doesn't matter when the de/re compression takes place it is still a necessary evil. The additional step of writing AIC to your drive is not significantly time consuming, although yes by using imovie on a mac you don't have the option to export back to AVCHD.

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.

I'm a little surprised that you can't see a difference between 720/540p at 30 fps and 1080p at 60 fps. I generally don't see much difference between 1080i and 720/540p although I do see a difference it isn't as great as between SD and 720/540p. I note the Sanyo camera records 1080p at a datarate similar to that other cameras use for 1080i, which may have a bearing on what you see.

I personally would not use the 540p shooting option but unlike others I see the value of it to some. If the datarate of your export is limited then I feel this value is revealed, although I take the point that datarate isn't always restricted in this way and that there may be certain websites that don't accept 540p, (but none that I use).

If datarate is fixed and so is the duration of your video, then so is the room it takes up. Let's say you have 1,000 units of space (it's really datarate we are concerned with, but it simplifies matters to talk about space, since space is proportional to datarate). Video is broken down into macroblocks. Each macroblock requires a fixed amount of space just to exist, let's say in our example they take 1 unit of space.

With a larger resolution there are more macroblocks, lets say 500 for our example and a smaller resolution has 400. So allowing for a few other bits of essential information, say 50 units, the larger resolution video has 450 units left to fit 500 macroblocks worth of picture info into (0.9 each) and the lower resolution has 550 units to fit 400 macroblocks of picture info into (1.3 units each).

Please ignore the simplicity and especially the numbers involved which are admittedly not representative in anyway, but hopefully you get the idea.

At low datarates I see no improvement by using 720p and indeed I consider 540p to be better in many ways. Yes your situations where low datarate video is required may be limited but when it is I see an advantage in 540p especially if you can shoot in 540p to begin with. I wouldn't suggest shooting at 720p to convert to 540p as this introduces unnecessary quality loss and conversion times, but you now have the option of shooting at 1080p/1080i/720p/540p. If your desired export is 540p for whatever reason and you don't want to take up the room on your SD card by shooting at 1080 i/p, then yes I see the value of being able to shoot at 540p.

Once again, it's an additional option, not a replacement option.

I'm a little surprised that you can't see a difference between 720/540p at 30 fps and 1080p at 60 fps.

I was, too. However, when I shot a scene specifically only using 1080p, I got a feel for how "not good" this camera is. Again, not knowing what to expect, perhaps this is the norm, but anyone who uses this particular camera to shoot 1080p is using it for a purpose it's not well suited for (in my opinion).

I'll have to take my SD card to my nearest Best Buy and capture some samples...

I jumped in a little early in the HD camera market, I have a sony HDR SR8 which cost well over £ 1,000 at the time and have always been a little disappointed with it, however when I compare it's picture exported to 540p for my tv, I have to admit it's significantly better than my Canon XM2 at 576i (PAL)

I would love to see the difference between the sanyo 1080 60p, vs 540 and how that can compare to say a higher end consumer camera such as a canon avchd.

I don't think you can compare a pro camera to consumer camera, but its certainly fair to compare a higher end consumer camera to a midlevel camera like a sanyo.

Please do....

I got an opportunity (sunny day) to shoot a couple 1080p versus 540p clips. This time, instead of trying to shoot motion or landscape (far away) objects, I focused on some potted plants. I CAN clearly see the difference now, and it's quite obvious. The veins in the leaves and the entire scene pops out more. While I'm glad to finally see that this camera can actually render 1080p, this now means I've got to make this quality choice when I had convinced myself it wasn't significant 🙂

Kyn Drake wrote:
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...

Been there, done that. 540p is definitely noisier on a full size HDTV (46") than 720p and 1080p. So much so that it's one reason why the AppleTV is a poor seller. Why buy a 1080p HDTV at silly low prices now ("This is the year of HD", ummmm.....Steve, which year was that?) when all the content Apple offers, or allows you to edit with iMovie is 540p.

It's plain and simple downcoding to squeeze into mobile devices. I have no problem with that as it makes sense. 5Mbps/file is a data rate limit almost universal on internet servers, Amazon S3, amongst others. Why do you think Cisco bought Mino?

Where there is an issue is when iMovie (and AppleTV) struggle to upscale to 720/1080p, or takes my 720p video and run it through a 540p "default" editing workflow. It's the fidelity of the original files and their ability to be up or downscaled/coded to meet the end device, end user needs that is the question.

Where Apple has botched it is assuming that most people will be happy going through iTunes to watch "HD" 540p on their 1080p TV. Or the same for their 720p DSLR videos. Uh, no. Apple is actually making the case stronger for Blu-Ray. The more they wrap things around the portable format, the more they lose the home viewer. iMovie seems to be the canary that points out this problem as it is the main venue by which prosumers with 720/1080p recording devices hit Apple's fidelity wall.

Message was edited by: Aristophanes

Kyn Drake wrote:
I got an opportunity (sunny day) to shoot a couple 1080p versus 540p clips. This time, instead of trying to shoot motion or landscape (far away) objects, I focused on some potted plants. I CAN clearly see the difference now, and it's quite obvious. The veins in the leaves and the entire scene pops out more. While I'm glad to finally see that this camera can actually render 1080p, this now means I've got to make this quality choice when I had convinced myself it wasn't significant 🙂

There is significant loss of fidelity going from 1080p or even 720p to 540p. The latter images are much noisier with less contrast. Likely unnoticeable on a small iPhone or iTablet screen, but a glaring problem on larger viewers.

The key is to be able to record, edit, and archive in the highest fidelity possible, then downscale depending on the capabilities and portability of the receiving device. iMovie isn't there when it comes to keeping that fidelity in the Projects.

There may be a significant loss of fidelity, but, seeing as how from a recent report, most people with HDTV's do not have them properly configured for the best quality, there is a GOOD chance that many consumer users will not know what they're missing.

Also, remember, this is not a pro-cam by any means. Move the camera too quickly in any direction and your video is going to contain h.264 artifacts which are going to be blocky at ANY resolution.

Kyn Drake wrote:
There may be a significant loss of fidelity, but, seeing as how from a recent report, most people with HDTV's do not have them properly configured for the best quality, there is a GOOD chance that many consumer users will not know what they're missing.

Also, remember, this is not a pro-cam by any means. Move the camera too quickly in any direction and your video is going to contain h.264 artifacts which are going to be blocky at ANY resolution.

Many people do not calibrate their HDTV's true, but this in no way takes away from the loss of fidelity when being forced to downscale to 540p with an original 1080p input!

Imagine if an HDTV did that to a Blu-Ray player?

I have seen very good motion and fidelity with H.264 and MJPEG from a Canon Mark that looks terrific on a 50" HDTV, calibrated or otherwise. It just likely hasn't been through iMovie.

I'm not talking about just not calibrating their HDTV's, I'm talking about things like connecting via RF or video cables to their cable boxes instead of component or better yet HDMI. The picture is bigger and brighter than their old TV and they think that's what HD is.

A Canon Mark? $2000+ camera? Yes, I'm thinking the person that would spend that much on a camera would likely have the right setup to tell the difference. For someone that just shelled out shy of $500 (the Sanyo FH1a), maybe not so much. I'm not saying there's no qualitative difference, there most certainly is and I see it now with a specially captured clip. But, for the ease of working with content geared for being delivered online and not as Blu-Ray HD quality, (and which is more likely to be downconverted to an even worse res), it's suitable.

Kyn Drake wrote:
But, for the ease of working with content geared for being delivered online and not as Blu-Ray HD quality, (and which is more likely to be downconverted to an even worse res), it's suitable.

Let's not get too down on the "average" consumer.They likely aren't here because they don't buy Macs.

They're not Justin Long enough.

No, 540p is not suitable. That's why it is proprietary to Apple, and hardly anyone is buying the AppleTV. The iTunes HD content is a wasteland. People buy 1080p, then Apple tries to sell them 540p?

Yeah. That's going over real well. On the iPhone, yes, maybe even an iTablet. But not the home theatre crowd (and the 27" iMac crowd). They need better. The 30" monitor I have right now with 540p vs. 1080p is no contest, with the former having "smeary" colouring. Not good. Diminishes the value of the very pricey monitor. Thats not what content should do.

I'm not "down" on them, I've just seen enough examples of what's "good enough" for many average consumers (remember, this camera records using standard MPEG4 and can be used by Windows or Mac) and a very large number of people think that the pre-1080p YouTube is "good enough".

540p < 1080p

Kyn Drake wrote:
I'm not "down" on them, I've just seen enough examples of what's "good enough" for many average consumers (remember, this camera records using standard MPEG4 and can be used by Windows or Mac) and a very large number of people think that the pre-1080p YouTube is "good enough".

No they don't!

They complain endlessly that YouTube is not "good enough". It's rampant on the forums.

The new slate of HDTV's often have YouTube direct access. People are returning them faster than you can say Firewire because the net content looks terrible. YouTube hits a viewer's wall because of quality, so as much as a phenom it is, it begins to slide off the radar unless it ups its game. Which is why it is offering 1080p. And Apple just put out a proprietary 540p format. Now YouTube cannot do anything about those small cam MP4's being uploaded, but there will definitely be a zeitgeist forming around higher quality content, pushing viewers, and therefore revenues, in that direction.

This is where Apple may be going off the tracks a bit. They are zigging on content, while everyone else is zagging. Apple's track record with video is not very good. This is one area of the Appleverse where NIH is alive and well.