1080/50p mts to 720/50p mp4 or 1080/25p

hi, shoot video with my HDC-SDT750 in 1080/50p @ 28Mbps.

camera also shoots in 4 other modes, one being HA-1080/25p @ 17Mbps

now, my dilema is that there doesnt appear to be much support for playback of 1080/50p m2ts or mp4 files, especially from hdd media players, or even thru the onboard media players in modern HD tv's.

i convert the 1080/50p mts to 1080/50p mp4 @ RF20 constant quality, resulting in a bitrate around 9Mbps to 10Mbps depending on what i shoot.

i also convert down to 720/50p mp4 @ QF20 as well, resulting in a bitrate around 5Mbps.

firstly, when converting to 720/50p mp4, should i change my RF quality to around 15 to 18, or is there really no benifit in this, and just leave it at 20 (lower RF setting gives higher file size and higher bitrate) but file size is not a problem, i have lots of hdd storage space, and prefer quality over file size.

secondly, i understand that 1080/50p is not bluray spec, but 720/50p is.

now am i better off shooting in 1080/50p so i have the best possible source file (just in case better playback support is available for it in the future) and converting this to 720/50p at a decent RF quality, or am i better shooting in 1080/25p @ 17Mbps (if it is bluray spec) and not convert down to 720/25p at all.

i dont intend putting these files to bluray, they are watched either direct thru the HD tv using a usb portable hdd, or played via a hdd media player.

i know 1080/50p offers much smoother video, and i would like to continue shooting in 1080/50p for future playback support.

cheers

edit: use handbrake to convert, and have been testing XMedia Recode as well, but its cutting tool isnt very frame accurate when selecting the start and end cut points.

even tsMuxer and Solveigmm dont seem to be too accurate either, gets very annoying sometimes.

25 fps is jerky and flickery. Shoot a high contrast, smooth, panning shot. Then watch it. You're eyes will explode. See the clip in this post:

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/305001-Current-HD-standard-is-a-FAIL?p=1872228&view...=1#post1872228

I'd recommend you stick with shooting (and archiving) 1080p50, then making a 720p50 or 1080i25 video for Blu-ray.

hi m8, yeah i was reading some other forum posts where, because of the possible future support for 1080/50p media playback, its best to shoot footage in 1080/50p which i have been doing, because i want to retain the original source files, regardless of the playback medium i use.

it just surprises me that there still is no hdd media player support, nor does it appear any HD tv supports it with their internal media players either.

for me to playback my 1080/50p m2ts or mp4 files on my tv, i need to use a reasonable spec htpc or small notebook, which i am currently looking to buy one of these little intel boxes for my media playing.

http://www.techbuy.com.au/p/211405/SYSTEMS_BAREBONE_SYSTEMS_-_INTEL/Intel/BOXDC3217IYE.asp

i just need to buy a 64gb mSATA card, 4gb or ram and a wifi card, and use my USB powered portable laptop hard drives attached with my media stored on it.

my current 720/50p mp4 files @ RF20 are very nice on playback, but is it of any real benefit to up the RF quality to say 18 or even go to 15 (i have encoded test m2ts files at 20, 18, 15 and 10 and 10 is definately out because i am getting a file size not that much less in size to the original m2ts file.

just looking for as good as i can get in 720/50p output.

im thinking maybe go to RF18 tops, and leave my 1080/50p mp4 outputs at RF20.

cheers

btw i am going out today and will do some filming with all 5 modes on my cam to play them back and see what the other 4 1080/25p modes are really like, compared to the 1080/50p mode as i have never filmed in the other 25p modes yet.

i am told they are actually pretty poor given the nice quality of this cam.

cheers

You'll have to decide for yourself what CRF value is adequate for you. I can tell you the first place you start seeing problems with x264 is in dark grainy areas. Even at CRF=15 you may see some posterization.

Watch the samples in this post, full screen, in a darkened room:
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/345427-Handbrake-Should-i-leave-it-on?p=2156674&vie...=1#post2156674

You can use the aq-strength setting to allocate more bitrate to that dark grain but the result is higher bitrates.

hi m8, thx for the help, have now wiped all my 1080/50p mp4 conversions, and am going to re-convert all my source files to 720/50p mp4 at RF18 because it really does offer me the best playback option, even onto a big full HD tv.

i usually output one mp4 with Auto Passthru audio (AC3 6ch/48khz/384br) and another using AAC ffmpeg (stereo/48khz/394br) but i noticed some people actually encoding 2 audio tracks into the mp4 file, and was curious, before i start, is this ok to do, and any pro's/cons to doing this.

also, which of the audio tracks would be played back on different devices.

cheers

http://i1309.photobucket.com/albums/s625/glenpinn/untitled1_zps533b6492.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jagabo

I'd recommend you stick with shooting (and archiving) 1080p50, then making a 720p50 or 1080i25 video for Blu-ray.

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i have never attempted to do 720p/50 or 1080i/25 for bluray, what is the best method of doing this.

AC3 was officially added to the MP4 spec a few years ago but a lot of software and players still don't handle it.