Video recording formats on a Sony RX100

[Dave2ic]

I have a Sony RX100 in a PAL region and the available video recording formats are as follows:

AVCHD:
1920x1080 / 50p 28 Mbps (PS)
1920x1080 / 50i 24 Mbps (FX)
1920x1080 / 50i 17 Mbps (FH)

MP4
1440x1080 / 25p 12 Mbps

I'm just wondering what the most suitable format for me to record in for general family video.

1920x1080/50p creates huge files, and there is no 25p option AVCHD - only 50i. The 50i curiously enough shows as a 25fps video on my PC - is that because the 50i is actually referring to the number of fields (or half-frames) per second that are combined into 25 frames per second? Whereas in the case of 50p, that's referring to 50 full frames per second?

In any case, the interlaced 50i video looks bad on a PC because of the interlacing artifacts, and the 50p video is a bit of an overkill for family videos. I don't know why there is no 25p AVCHD option - that would seem to be ideal for me.

It may be more sensible to simply use MP4, but the non-square pixels make video played back on a computer look squashed up. I have to tell my media player (VLC) to display the video in 16:9 every time I play a video which is a nuisance.

So my choices are:

1. AVCHD 50p - huge files
2. AVCHD 50i - interlacing artifacts
3. MP4 - non-square pixels

Just as I'm typing this I'm starting to think even though 50p seems like overkill, it's still not as big as the Mini DV AVI files I would capture from my camcorder a decade or so ago. So I guess it's not excessive videoing exclusively in 50p even for family videos. Storage capacities increase and prices come down all the time, so in a few years the files sizes will seem a lot more modest and I'll quite probably be glad I did capture everything in the highest quality.

I'd just be interested in any advise on what video format would be best to use in my situation.

[turk690]

... it's still not as big as the Mini DV AVI files I would capture from my camcorder a decade or so ago.

Whatever HD format that Sony is capable of you will ultimately use is not IMHO the biggest problem here. The bottleneck will be the PC you will use to edit, encode, etc, if it's the one whose specs I see on your profile. AVCHD files are not as big as DV AVI files because higher levels of more sophisticated compression on higher resolutions went into creating them, and they require the requisite beefier computer power just to play them back, and more if you will edit & transcode them. For a minimum, get something along the lines of a computer with a Z77-chipset mainboard, an i7-3xxx processor, 8GB of memory or more, a graphics card with an nVidia GeForce 5xx/6xx chipset with 1GB video memory, a 1TB HDD for OS & programs, another 1TB HDD for captured & edited AVCHD and other media files, & an appropriate OS (Win7Pro or Ult). These are not optional if you want to deal with AVCHD & MP4 files & others of its ilk, they are mandatory.

[Dave2ic]

Whatever HD format that Sony is capable of you will ultimately use is not IMHO the biggest problem here. The bottleneck will be the PC you will use to edit, encode, etc, if it's the one whose specs I see on your profile.

Sorry - that profile information is old. My current PC is a Core2 Duo 3 GHz with 8GB RAM, which still isn't up to the spec you recommend for AVCHD.

Do you think I'd be best just videoing using MP4 then? The quality is fine for family videos - it's just a bit of a nuisance with the non-square pixels. Anything I do with them on a PC will require changing the aspect ratio.