Settings for Canon AVCHD 30p in 60i wrapper

MilesCrew wrote on 4/22/2009, 3:52 PM
I know this has been talked about a whole lot, but I'm still getting some off-looking video. I've got the new Canon HFS100 and I've recently shot some video on my trip to Germany last week. I shot it all at the 30p setting which I've read is actually 30p in a 60i wrapper. I'm not sure what settings to use for the project, the media on the timeline, and on the render. I'm wanting to just render it out to MP4 for Vimeo or something. So, questions are...

For Project Settings...
(a) Field Order...is this interlaced or progressive since it's wrapped?
(b) Pixel Aspect Ratio...square or HDV 1.3333?
(c) Frame Rate...should this be 29.97 for 60i or 30.00 for 30p?
(d) Deinterlace Method....none or one of the others? is it actually deinterlacing or just removing the wrapper?

For media on timeline...
(a) one person suggested for these 60i wrapped clips to right click->properties->media->Field Order->None (progressive). Is this correct?

For rendering...
(a) Frame rate, field order, pixel ratio....should these be set to whatever is set above in project settings?

Lastly, Vimeo recommends uploading in 720p. Since this is 1920x1080, would I simply change my project settings to the 720 resolution and then render it out to 720? Or do you leave project at 1080 and then render down to 720? Or if you can do both which is better?

Sorry for all the newbie questions. This is the first time I've worked with HD since I just got this camcorder.

Comments

othersteve wrote on 4/22/2009, 8:02 PM
Let's see if I can handle this...

I also have an HF-S100. Here are the settings I've researched and found to work best:

- Leave Project Settings res to whatever is detected by Match Media (or whatever you know to be the format the camera is currently shooting at).
- No deinterlacing since the video is, in fact, already progressively recorded in 30p.
- It's actually 29.97 NTSC frame rate
- Field order is (None) progressive as well.

When you are prepared to do the final render, choose Mainconcept AVC, VBR, 6,000,000 max, 4,000,000 avg, progressive, 1280x720, 29.970.

Also, in case you're curious, Quality in the Project tab of the encoder can be set to Good; it's the same result provided you don't have any high-resolution still images involved in the project.

I hope this helps.

-Steve
MilesCrew wrote on 4/23/2009, 8:01 AM
Thanks for the response. A few more...

- Would it be beneficial to put the project resolution to 1280x720 if I wanted to do some pan/zooms on 1080 media so that I could zoom without losing quality?

- What about the question I had about media settings on the timeline? (the right-click->properties->media->Field Order->progressive) Is that suggestion correct you think?
MilesCrew wrote on 4/27/2009, 5:46 AM
Anybody else? Thoughts?
FilmingPhotoGuy wrote on 5/8/2009, 11:44 PM
As a rule I never film in interlaced, never ever. I only film 25p since I'm in PAL land. Mostly film in CINE mode 25p with Canon HF10.

Proj settings 1280 x 720 before you start.
Field order? since you've filmed progresive set to none.
PAR = square
Frame rate 25p.

This is what I've read in the "HD Survival Handbook (2008)" This book is worth every cent and it's not expensive and you can download it.
All TV sets deinterlace nicely and TV stations broadcast interlaced so if you're doing TV stuff feel free. They'll do it anyway so let them do it.

My stuff will be viewed on LCD monitors which show progresive material beautifuly and you dont loose any detail.

-Craig

Did I mention never shoot interlaced?