John Cline has it exactly right... let it go. I can't even figure out if you have a Canon camcorder. If you do, you could have returned it already with the time you've spent in this post. If you haven't, then don't buy one and buy a camcorder that doesn't record 30p in a 60i container.

Speaking strictly for myself, there is absolutely no merit in the proposed class action lawsuit against Canon's Vixia use and description of the 30p mode. Technically, Canon is not only completely correct, their marketing description does conform totally to truth in advertising, and in fact Canon should be applauded for the very clever and useful method they devised to have a VERY TRUE progressive 30p mode in a 60i wrapper. I could not have thought of it myself and I am glad that this thread discussed that feature.

In fact, the suggestion of shooting in mixed mode for events depending on the amount of motion, is also very clever and useful and it is a brilliant way of later obtaining the best stills from video. In fact, there are a couple of threads on the still capture from video subject which would benefit from this insight.

Andy, you will be scalped if you join such a silly and ill founded lawsuit. I would defend and testify in favor of Canon.

Video is a fantastic and very creative hobby for some, a source of income for others. I concurr that we should use and enjoy it as it exists today, which is darn good, and leave the future for tomorrow.

By all means have fun buying these stuttery video cams.

I'll wait for at least for 1080 60p not 30p. (canon 7d is the exception for me)

The Sanyo FH-1 records a true 1920x1080-60p at 25Mbps VBR to an SDHC card.

"For those of us who own Vixias, there may be a class action suit pending: "

What you have there is an "ambulance chaser" looking to drum up business. And BTW...the "FullHD" thing was not only Canon's little line but Sony's as well. My Sony HC3 (which is HDV) has "Full HD" written on the side of it.

Any body who seriously believes they'll see any money out of this..... is a dreamer.

To FishEyes:

It's your money and your time, so by all means do what's important to you with it; no question there is a perceptible, if small, difference between 60p & 30p. I guess you can't stand watching TV or movies, though, right? I mean those $100,000+ Panavision and Arriflex movie cameras only shoot at a stuttery 24fps, and those IMAX movie cameras only shoot at what, 30fps? Just keep holding your breath a little longer and someday there might be stuff you can watch. Maybe then James Cameron will finally shoot something worth seeing. Me, I'm waiting for them to remake "My Dinner With Andre" at 60fps. I don't want to miss any of the action.

Hey guys I didn't mean to stir up any trouble with the lawsuit link. Maybe I should have put the smiley face in bold?

John Cline, there's no need to get personal. If you've read anything I've written, you've seen that I'm just asking questions. Whether or not I own a Vixia (I do) is irrelevant. And I understand the concept of splitting a 30p scan into a 60i stream.

But there is some evidence, as I've pointed out, that the Vixias create a "progressive" image in-camera from a 60i recording. I think that's worth talking about.

correspondence with Canon technical support:

Dear Andy:

We appreciate your continued correspondence regarding the camcorders.

I apologize for not being more specific. The camcorder records at 60i
(60 interlaced fields) and converts the video to 30p (30 progressive
frames) in the camcorder.

""I apologize for not being more specific. The camcorder records at 60i
(60 interlaced fields) and converts the video to 30p (30 progressive
frames) in the camcorder"".

Hmmmmmm. I have to question this statement by Canon Support. I would not believe it until I talked to a Canon video engineer. No offense intended, just that Support fixes problems but do not necessarily have to know rocket science..

How and where do you view this 30p material in native form, as Canon Support insinuates ? The flicker would be horrendous unless viewed in a dark room at low display brightness. The equation relating large area flicker perception to brightness and repetition rate has not been cancelled or suspended, last I heard ...

Or, maybe they count on the user display (PC's and LCD, Plasma) upconverting it to 60p by doubling the repetition rate but now you start introducing artifacts ( no processing is free ...) .

No matter how you slice it, unless you want a very high end professional camcorder with multiple true frame rates (either/and interlaced or progressive ...which do exist) the consumer solution by the Canon Vixia for 30p is clever, artifact free and will not flicker when displayed in the intended interlaced displays or in upconverting ones (LCD, Plasmas). Plus, as already mentioned ad nauseam, you can extract very good stills from such video type.

I think it is time to stop pushing this rope.

I think it is time to stop pushing this rope.

Agreed. The Canons shoot in progressive mode. Period. Canon and Panasonic are very careful to describe the mode accurately. If it was frame mode, Canon would have called it exactly that. And that practice goes back over 10 years of producing camcorders that first shot frame and now shoot progressive.

Those of you who believe the HF200's 30p mode is self evidently progressive need read no further.

For anyone else, I believe I've thought up a test that offers a conclusive answer to the question. It occurred to me that interlaced fields should be identical to a progressive frame when you are shooting a motionless subject. That is, the odd and even fields will add together into the equivalent of a progressively-captured frame.

So, I reasoned, why not look at footage of a complex but motionless subject captured in both 30p and 60i modes and look for differences?

I put my Vixia on a tripod, turned off optical stabilization, and shot a short clip in interlaced and progressive modes of the same subject: some text in sunlight. In Vegas, I set deinterlacing to "none" and exported a frame from each clip in best/native resolution.

The result: in my experiment, the 60i mode produced a markedly sharper image than the 30p mode.

A possible explanation: if my camera is recording 60i fields and using them to manufacture a progressive frame (as my conversation with Canon suggests), it must be using some sort of deinterlacing method, which has no way of knowing that the 60i fields in this experiment are perfectly matched. Therefore, the deinterlacer is going to subtly alter and thereby degrade the 60i fields.

To my eye, it looks like the camera is using a lot of anti-aliasing in the 30p mode. It is soft overall compared to the 60i clip. Strangely, the 30p footage also has less contrast: it is flatter. I don't have an explanation for that, other than to guess that maybe the camera varied the exposure slightly between these identical clips.

I also decided to look at a 30p "frame" versus Vegas' interpolation of a 60i field. Here, the sharpness question is sort of a toss up, but I give the subjective nod to the 30p frame as it appears more pleasing to the eye overall. I did not compare the 30p frame with a better deinterlacer, like the Mike Crash plugin.

Note that this experiment might have different results for the 24p native mode that some of the newest Vixia cameras are offering. Canon says these record at 24p. I'd be interested to know what the result would be using one of these cameras.

For me, this rope had one surprise left in it. I hope this information proves at least a little useful to someone. That is all. :)

I believe the HF200's PF30 mode is scanned progressively, but stored interlaced, so I also believe that how Vegas is configured to read such footage is significant. I'm writing this post to pursue that issue rather than to try to prove/disprove the progressive scan issue, however, I believe they may be related. That is, if Vegas is not configured correctly for reading PF30 mode footage, then it may appear worse (i.e., less sharp) than 60i mode footage.

Your test is interesting. I can't duplicate it right now because my brother has my HF200 currently. However, I was able to conduct a partial test with existing footage I have shot in PF30 mode.

Vegas can be configured nine ways to read & process footage:
1) NN: field order: none (progressive scan) + deinterlace method: none
2) NB: field order: none (progressive scan) + deinterlace method: blend fields
3) NI: field order: none (progressive scan) + deinterlace method: interpolate fields
4) UN: field order: upper field first + deinterlace method: none
5) UB: field order: upper field first + deinterlace method: blend fields
6) UI: field order: upper field first + deinterlace method: interpolate fields
7) LN: field order: lower field first + deinterlace method: none
8) LB: field order: lower field first + deinterlace method: blend fields
9) LI: field order: lower field first + deinterlace method: interpolate fields

According to the general media info Vegas provides, all HF200 PF30 mode footage is stored upper field first.

This is what I observed after grabbing the same frame shot in PF30 mode and then enlarged by pixel replication, but with each of the nine ways of reading & processing it:
NN, UN, UB, UI, LN: identical to each other, sharpest image
NI: distinctly less sharp than NN, et. al.
LB, LI: identical to each other, less sharp than NI and "doubled" vertically
NB: by far the least sharp of all

These results were not entirely as I expected. Furthermore, the NB mode was softened not just in the vertical dimension, but also in the horizontal. That is, the blending was two-dimensional, giving a uniformly blurred image just as though the resolution was lower both vertically as well as horizontally.

(By the way, if you care to duplicate this test, you need to click the Apply button after changing either parameter (field order or deinterlace method), but the Apply button is only enabled after the field order is changed. So, you must change the field order every test.)

Anyway, to summarize: simply setting the field order to "None (progressive scan)" is NOT sufficient; the deinterlace method is VERY significant in this case. Alternatively, setting the field order to "Upper field first" renders the deinterlace method irrelevant, and all these combinations are fine. The field order should not be set to the "Lower field first" although if the deinterlace method is set to None then no harm is done.