Technical Help with Formats

1) The Canon Vixia is a pretty decent consumer grade video camera. Its video quality tops out at around 20-22Mbits/sec. ["bandwidth"]

2) the Canon T6i is capable of shooting outstanding video at twice the "resolution" (Mbits/sec) as the Vixia.

a) *every* camera with a number bump shoots better video than anything that came before it is... horses***.

When is it NOT in somebody's self interest to convince you to buy newer equipment from them?

b) Movies have been made with iPhones.

c) The BEST camera you have is the one you have with you!

[Your cellphone, if it's a model from within the last 5 or 6 years, is quite likely a viable alternative —

get a clamp/tripod mount for it.]

3) Most consumer grade video cameras use a base frame rate of 60i and recalculate all the other frame rates from that raw video... that means no matter what the documentation says (and they all flat out lie), it's interlaced video. It might recompile frame rates to 24p, 25p and 30p, but the interlacing is still in the "raw" footage. Many years ago (no so much anymore) this led to serious problems with PsF ("Progressive segmented Frames"). In my estimation, the best format to shoot in for FCPX is 60i and let FCPX conform the video to whatever project frame rate you select. Do not attempt to lie to FCPX - you will probably have to manually set the (Info inspector) > Settings > Field Dominance Override to Upper First (all non-DVx formats are Upper First - all DVx [including MPEG-2 aka DVD] are Lower First). You generally do not need to Deinterlace, but the option is there if necessary.

4) There's a cheap Jar Opener thing you can buy at Walmart or Target or a dollar store near you -- looks like this:

https://trudeau.com/us_en/twist-jar-opener-0999025.html

It takes a little practice, but you can learn to zoom and/or follow focus with these gizmos. Make sure you camera is on a secure tripod. Wrap one of those around the focus ring and cinch it down -- practice the shots before executing a final take.

As a side note: Auto Focus is ... bad bad bad. Cameras have a tendency to "bounce" the focus until it locks on and it is terribly obvious.

You'll want more zoom. 18-55 is a wide angle to ~portrait lens. For Canon: make sure it's one of the USM lenses (silent focusing). [I would recommend the 18-135mm USM if you can find a decent deal - it's rather expensive - and a better lens than the 55-250mm zoom which in itself is a very good lens. (One of the best quality lenses I've ever seen is the Canon 60mm f2.8 Macro USM... but it is a fixed lens but if you ever get a chance, you should check it out!)]

The lens on your Vixia has a 35mm equivalency of 43.5mm to 435mm zoom (keep it around). (Do not use Digital Zoom).

FCPX is supposed to handle AVCHD although I have seen plenty of people complain about it. Your T6i doesn't shoot avchd and will produce much better video quality (in Mbps) than the Vixia, so if you generally use the DSLR, you won't have AVC issues. About the only thing you have to worry about is if the SD card is fast enough to handle recording the video (Class 6 is an absolute minimum - Class 10 or better is much better!) [As for transcoding AVCHD, there are several apps that only repackage video without transcoding when possible - I believe Smart Convert Pro 2 is likely a viable option.]

If you are not already familiar with it, you will want to learn about shutter speed vs frame rate. The general rule is that the shutter speed should be twice the frame rate. If you're shooting 30 fps (frame rate) then you would set your shutter speed to 1/60th of a second. Any faster shutter speed will begin to introduce a "stuttering" effect (which can be difficult to watch). Slower shutter speeds will begin to introduce significant motion blurs. You should experiment with this concept to find what you like. Locking down a shutter speed means all you have to adjust exposure is aperture and ISO and that can be a sticky balance.

Did I forget anything?

can not share many of fox' comments … my Lumix FZ1000, a 5y old consumer grade camera, records in native 25p, no multiple of 60i or whatever. The old AVCHD v1 didn't allow progressive recordings, actual v2 does.

Anyhow… looking closer at the 2nd screenshot the OP shared…

… let me suggest, check your cams settings:

the area the arrow points to, that is interlacing left-overs.

But the circle area is not only that but shows (massive) compression artifacts.

(ok, no easy content for a codec: a sharp contrasting edge…)

So, check your cams settings, it offers 5 'quality' settings, set it to 'max', MXP. And, a quick googling of specs, it looks like it offers a 'p' mode either.

Secondly: avoid any in-camera 'pic enhancers' - the screenshot of the two women leaves to me the impression of some 'sharpener' at work = tree in bg, black hairs … sounds silly, but 'sharpening' in videos results often in 'muddy-ness' in flat, solid areas (don't tell the girls, I call their faces flat!! 😉 )

Final word: judge pic quality only in final resolution (the women pic is a blow-up, hm?). video is 1980x1080… use a second monitor with such settings or be sure the player is set to 100% … fullHD (interlaced…) full-screen on a 5k Retina is … a mess.-

sorry, except the playback-settings, nothing to fix in post.-

Under good lighting conditions, in right modes, your cam should deliver fully acceptable video…

… not the Retina, the zooming is the 'problem', to mention that …

iSwitcher wrote:

… I've set it to PF24. Is that the best option?

Why to 24p? What is your definition of 'best'?

Makes only sense, if your goal is that mythical 'cinematic look' - which asks for slow shutter speed = 1/50th, which asks for manual settings, which probably asks for ND-filters, and can cause issues with artificial light, and grading, and …

Back to square #1: why 24p, and not some … 'handy' frame-rate?

conc. camera suggestions:

Why spending 2k for a new device, when you haven't winkled out the max of your actual set-up? And, here I fully agree with fox 😉 , it way too much depends on your hands-on usage: some need&prefer a run-and-shoot device, others 'need' big-size-sensors with swappable glas for their projects.

AVCHD is fine for fullHD, going 4k automatically delivers other formats (all supported by FCPX…). Or, if you ask for higher bitrates beyond 28mbps (sorry, tech yadda …), which is a limitation of the AVCHD standard, cams deliver other codecs, such as XAVC (Sony) …

Brands … the big players all deliver good to superb results, esp when you go up to 2k$ range … but will YOU find the differences? One can use a 30k cam with 15k glas, and deliver poor results… Meanwhile, the market for camcorders is shrinking dramatically; therefor any 'still' cam offers 'moving images'; any phone offers video! And all sectors have their +/- … There's no universal, for all possible needs best camera (looking for it myself for years…). Only YOUR best camera.-

If you feel the itch of purchasing a new, 'better' device (who doesn't?) = Make a wishlist of features (… dare to say, you don't know exactly what you're looking for 😉 ) … such as super-tele-lens (bird watch, sports), super-wide-lens (landscape, indoors), audio (ext mic, headphone jack), slowmo, low light, AFspeed, size/weight, usability, … then check the usual compare sites (dpreview et al)

… and ask for a 2nd opinion in a different shop … … …

Try updating your OS to the current version, 10.13.6. The AVCHD problem you mention seems to have been solved.

As always, do a full backup before updating your system.

That’s normal if you shot interlaced video. Most cameras offer progressive formats, especially newer cameras. UHD formats have no interlacing.

PsF was really a problem when trying to use 3:2 pull down to create 24 video. I wouldn’t recommend interlacing for anything anymore unless you’re specifically shooting for a network that requires it. 60i of course is 29.97i, and should have been put down years ago. More and more cameras offer a 59.94p option, which would be preferable, even if it means shooting 720p.

Cameras a very personal and there's more to selecting a model than specs for specs sake.

Do you like the way the camera feels when you use it? Test drive a few models at your camera shop.

Some things that are important regardless of the brand are, headphone socket, external microphone input, output for external monitor or recorder if required, Optical Image Stabilisation if hand holding, 3 chip sensor.

For $2000 you can get a top notch prosumer model.

Al

A cheap solution for the audio would be to look for something like a HDMI to VGA adapter with a 3.5mm audio out. Ignore the VGA and just plug headphones into the jack. (I think the T6i uses a mini-HDMI, so you might need a further adapter.) Worked with my Sony in the past, it may or may not work with the Canon but only costs a few pounds/dollars to try.

As always, the best solution is to use an audio recorder to record the sound. Zoom and Tascam do inexpensive models. It's fairly easy to sync the sound later in FCPX.

I agree: never use interlaced unless somebody is holding a gun to your head (facetiously speaking). It's strictly old-school TV. In the case of these kinds of camcorders, it can't be helped.

I may have used a poor example pulling PsF out of the hat like that... the issues almost always involved "consumer grade" camcorders and each brand had a proprietary format for their video files.

I had one of those consumer grade camcorders. The format looked like this in QT:

amsung AVC Encoder ˇˇ!avcC B ˇ· gB ¶Ä¥=ê hŒ8Ä btrt, 720 × 480, Millions

AAC, Stereo (L R), 24.000 kHz

(I did NOT skip the initial 'S' -- it's simply not there!)

FCPX 10.0.0 didn't handle it out of the gate, but I think by about 10.0.2 Apple caught up with the Samsung cameras. (Must have been like playing Whack-a-Mole there for awhile 😉 )