Whatever the current standard is, it's eventually all going to be progressive, which does make a case for shooting progressive as a way to future-proof things.

Whether the standard is going to ultimately be 24p, 30p, 60p, or something else is a more interesting question. Digital doesn't seem to do 24p nearly as pleasingly as film, but then again the newer tv's are using super high refresh rates and interpolating intermediate frames, so maybe 60p will just be a waste of storage space for everything but high speed work. The possibilities are pretty wide open right now.

For Bluray distribution, both 30p and 60i look good. 60i looks better on motion, 30p looks better on static or slow moving shots. For Vimeo or Youtube HD, 30p looks best.

Also remember that 30p looks just fine blended into a 60i project. For Bluray, what I like is to do a 60i project and shoot 60i for anything with motion or fast camera zooms or moves, but change the camera to 30p for interview and controlled movement shots. I keep the project properties at 60i and just work normally. The interviews and other 30p shots look like progressive with all the sharpness of that format, but the fast motion 60i stuff still looks smooth like it should.

If your main goal is Internet HD broadcast though, 30p is what the delivery will be so you may as well shoot that to begin with.

I have found that I get better results shooting HD when I don't move the camera much. I would suggest you especially avoid pans if you can get away with it, and if you cannot to pan as slowly as possibly. Zooming works OK.

In terms of viewing the material, the motion anomalies and judder are much more pronounced on an LCD screen than on a Plasma. I found sporting events to look positively sickening in HD although it doesn't bother some people. It drives me crazy.
That's why I bought a Plasma instead of an LCD TV.
The worst is material shot at 24p. Looks great as long as there is hardly anything moving in the scene. This applies to commercially produced video as well IMO.

John

I would agree with John in that I hardly move the camera at all since I started working in HD. HD is so unforgiving of all but the slowest camera movement. Like John said, I agree that I don't think everyone sees it the same way. My eyes may need progressive bifocal lenses to see clearly, but they are still very sensitive to movement. I can instantly tell when a CRT screen is set to a refresh rate of 60. I can see the strobing effect around the edges of movies in the theaters. I can hardly watch PAL TV on a CRT because the flicker bothers me so much. It is just painful. To my eyes, HD looks just wonderful until the camera starts moving. Then I see all sorts of different problems clearly: rolling shutter, judder, and mpeg artifacts. I'd rather see crossfades between shots than anything but the slowest camera movements. At 24p it's even worse. On 24p stuff I just lock the camera down unless somebody really insists on movement, and then I move it as slowly as they'll let me.

I have been pretty vocal about my dislike of 24P because of image judder but I really don't see how the increased spatial resolution of an HD image could affect the speed at which a pan can be executed. Temporal resolution? Sure, but spatial resolution? Rolling shutter and mpeg artifacts not withstanding, I don't see how increased spatial resolution can contribute to judder.

It's a good thing that some of you aren't shooting automobile racing (as I often do) as your screams of pain would drown out the sound of the engines.

Judder? Do you ever go to the cinema? And watch projected film? 24P. Yes, each frame is projected twice (48P, if you like, but not in terms of judder). If you tolerate that then the rule for panning is 7 seconds for a point to cross the screen. Of course doesn't apply to whip pans (where everything is blurred) or for following action (where the background is blurred). Motion blur is 24P's friend, so don't use small shutter angles.
People who have grown up with 60i video can seem, by film standards, rather undisciplined in camera movement. Of course judder comes as a surprise and locking the camera down should be a step towards discipline. Generally I use 360 shutter for 25P and, maybe my film background, am not worried by judder.

OK... so far...

1 - For Bluray distribution, both 30p and 60i look good. 60i looks better on motion, 30p looks better on static or slow moving shots.

2 - For Vimeo or YouTube HD, 30p looks best.

3 - No, little, and/or very slow cam movements/pans

4 - Judder makes it look like a traditional movie so for videographers trying for the movie look... its not an issue.

Some remaining questions...

a - DVD:
I guess creating DVD's is becoming less of issue... but DVD's are still around and maybe the broadest distribution method that you can hand someone... so if you are shooting or rendering for DVD distribution... 30p, 60i, or what?

b - Website Video:
If your shooting for video to be put on a website... probably to be delivered as flash video or h.264/avchd/mpeg4... how are you shooting &/or rendering? Do you do this exactly like you would if you were posting on YouTube or Viemo?

c - Local Channel:
How about shooting HD for the local cable system... anybody doing that... and how do they want the video delivered?

(For locally produce programs... our cable company still will still take mini-dv tape... but I'm not sure about how they want other formats.)

Thanks for any additional comments on any of these items. Very educational for us latecomers to HD :)

1 - For Bluray distribution, both 30p and 60i look good. 60i looks better on motion, 30p looks better on static or slow moving shots.

I don't think here is any real difference here.

3 - No, little, and/or very slow cam movements/pans

Best is to start and stop the camera after you reposition it, IF that's possible

4 - Judder makes it look like a traditional movie so for videographers trying for the movie look... its not an issue.

I don't think it looks like the movie look (film) myself. The judder is much more objectionable to my eyes with HD video.

a - DVD:

My answer will probably differ than most here. I get unacceptable results no matter how I down convert from HD to SD so I shoot with an SD camera for an SD DVD end product. Those always turn out well. Mind you, I shoot mostly stage lit events so the lighting is possibly exaggerating the anomalies(color fringing, halos, etc) going from HD to SD and the anomalies aren't as noticeable on a Plasma or LCD screen as they are when viewed on a CRT television. It is also possible that some of the HD to SD DVD fans here aren't testing the videos out on a CRT television as I do. As a result I use my EX1 very little (For HD only). The VX2000 is still my primary camera. The only drawback of course is that it is 4:3.

John

EDIT: What might be helpful to us is if you tell us which cameras you have. You didn't fill out a profile with your User Name.

"Not worried by judder"

A little correction to my post above: I'm not worried by judder because I don't have it.

"I don't think here is any real difference here."

There's a big difference, 60i has twice the temporal resolution of 30p.

"The judder is much more objectionable to my eyes with HD video."

I still don't see how increased spatial resolution could make judder more objectional.

"I get unacceptable results no matter how I down convert from HD to SD"

That's pretty much the opposite result from everyone else here on the forum including myself. HD is typically 4:2:0 and when it is rescaled to 720x480 widescreen, the color sampling ends up being close to 4:4:4 which will encode to back to 4:2:0 MPEG2 for DVD much better than the 4:1:1 of DV to 4:2:0 MPEG2. By going from standard definition DV to DVD, you end up with 4:1:0 color sampling which is only 12.5% of the original color resolution. The point is you lose much less color resolution by starting with HD. Also, the VX2000/VX2100 (and the pro versions PD-150 and PD170) apply quite a bit of artificial sharpening, HD generally does not. Some people complain the HD to SD looks soft, but it's really that SD is artifically sharp. You can always add a little sharpening to the rescaled HD if you really miss the SD "look."

for the better part of the last year I've been capturing in 1080/60p. So far, I've found that's the best acquisition format for almost any kind of further manipulation - sloMo, rendering to 720p at 24fps for web delivery, or creating DVDs. And BD 60p players arrive in a few months! - why not get ahead of the curve on this one? Do you never re-use old footage? My daughter is an overworked producer in a Burbank, CA post house and already she turns up her nose at interlaced video (they produce ads for big-name corporations and some full-length films - mostly shot on 35mm, but now getting an increasing amount of work shot on video).

In order make DVDs, I simply put my 1080p into the TMPEnc DVD Author 3 and let it figure out what to do. Not that many minutes later, out pops video DVD that looks as nice as any I have seen - rich colors, no judder, no visible artifacts.

Frankly, I don't understand why people who own the TM700 or Sanyo cams or other cams that can capture in full 60p would choose to do otherwise. The TM700, especially, captures much sharper images in 60p than in any of its other formats (see the review in camcorderinfo.com).