What settings will give me the best picture when rendered at 720p?

[ItsJustAGuy]

Hey guys,

I have recently bought a Kodak Playtouch. It shoots in:

720p 30fps
720p 60fps
1080 30fps

I'm filming a video for youtube but i'm just wondering which option would be the best? I want the highest quality option of my video in youtube to be 720p so I'm gonna render my footage as 720p.

I'm confused about which frame rate to go for. 30fps or 60fps. I would think 60fps would make the picture better but I just want an opinion from people with more knowledge! I'm scared that if I shoot with a certain setting that the picture might be jumpy / choppy.

Also, what if I shot my footage in 1080p but rendered the footage for youtube at 720p? Would the picture be better than shooting in 720p?

Thanks everyone,
Matt

[edDV]

Hey guys,

I have recently bought a Kodak Playtouch. It shoots in:

720p 30fps
720p 60fps
1080 30fps

I'm filming a video for youtube but i'm just wondering which option would be the best? I want the highest quality option of my video in youtube to be 720p so I'm gonna render my footage as 720p.

I'm confused about which frame rate to go for. 30fps or 60fps. I would think 60fps would make the picture better but I just want an opinion from people with more knowledge! I'm scared that if I shoot with a certain setting that the picture might be jumpy / choppy.

Also, what if I shot my footage in 1080p but rendered the footage for youtube at 720p? Would the picture be better than shooting in 720p?

Thanks everyone,
Matt

720p/60 fps will look smoothest on an HDTV or computer display but YouTube converts everything to 30 fps. For YouTube, you get no benefit from 60 fps.

[budwzr]

Since the Playsport uses SD memory, so you can always swap out the card when it gets full, there's no downside to shooting 720p60 all the time.

If you get some great action footage, you'll regret not doing it. I keep my playsport "loaded and cocked" at all times and always set to 720p60. You never know when you'll get that great shot.

[ItsJustAGuy]

Hey guys thanks for the replies! They really help! Just one more question...

So it's okay for me to just shoot in 720p at 60fps all the time, even if I render my video for youtube at 30fps? It won't affect the video quality with having footage shot at 60fps and rendering at 30fps will it?

Thanks guys,
Matt.

[budwzr]

After YT converts it, it will be as if you shot at 30, but the high motion parts will be somewhat smoother.

My general rule is to always work at a higher resolution than my final output, then I have "wiggle" room for crop/zoom/pan/ and all the lower resolutions like iPhones, etc.

My project timeline is always 720p60. I don't use or need "full HD" output, neither do most people.

[intracube]

So it's okay for me to just shoot in 720p at 60fps all the time, even if I render my video for youtube at 30fps? It won't affect the video quality with having footage shot at 60fps and rendering at 30fps will it?

I couldn't find out what bit-rates the camera uses at the various resolutions/frame-rates. If the same bit-rate is used for '720p 30fps' and '720p 60fps', there might be an improvement in picture quality using 720p 30fps as each frame would be allocated a higher number of bits.

Having said that, and differences in quality are likely to be small compared to the drop in quality after uploading to Youtube.

Try recording some short clips with rapid movement at both frame-rates and see if you can see a difference in blockiness/detail. In addition, the 30fps clip will look stuttery compared to 60fps when viewed on a screen capable of 60fps, but any advantage of 60fps will be lost after uploading to Youtube.

An advantage of filming 60fps is the ability to slow the footage to half speed and get a decent slow-mo effect. Random Youtube example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xn4NMqucQRg

[ItsJustAGuy]

hey guys thanks for the replies!


budwzr:

My general rule is to always work at a higher resolution than my final output, then I have "wiggle" room for crop/zoom/pan/ and all the lower resolutions like iPhones, etc.

I'm definitely rendering my footage for youtube at 720p so do you think it would be better filming everything at 1080p 30fps so I can crop/zoom or whatever if i need to without losing 720p resolution? Because if I filmed at 720p and decided to crop/zoom, I would lose resolution wouldn't I?

intracube:

there might be an improvement in picture quality using 720p 30fps as each frame would be allocated a higher number of bits.

Did you mean that there might be an improvement in picture quality using 720p 60fps? Not 30fps. Sorry if i'm wrong!

intracute:

An advantage of filming 60fps is the ability to slow the footage to half speed and get a decent slow-mo effect.

Yeah, totally! I might need to slow the footage down a bit in one place so this is why I'm confused which to go for! 1080p 30ps (rendered down to 720p. Leaves resolution for me to zoom/crop), 720p 30fps, 720p 60fps for smoother movement!

Do you think the best option would be to film everything in 720p 60fps so I capture everything smoothly and the bits where I want to zoom without losing resolution in 1080p?

Thanks!

[budwzr]

You have to shoot some footage and play with it and see for yourself. Go ahead and jump out of the nest and flap, otherwise it's all theoretical.

[ItsJustAGuy]

Yeah okay budwzr I'll do that! Much better to go out and film and see

thanks for your help!

[edDV]

You have to shoot some footage and play with it and see for yourself. Go ahead and jump out of the nest and flap, otherwise it's all theoretical.

I agree. The results may well vary for a particular camera. Most cases, 1080p/30 will be over compressed.

[intracube]

intracube:

there might be an improvement in picture quality using 720p 30fps as each frame would be allocated a higher number of bits.

Did you mean that there might be an improvement in picture quality using 720p 60fps? Not 30fps.

No, the opposite. If the bit-rate is fixed at 10 megabits per second, for example:
at 30fps - 10,485,760 / 30 = 349,525
at 60fps - 10,485,760 / 60 = 174,762
so when recording at 30fps, each frame has twice the number of bits allocated to it, and could potentially be of a higher quality. In practice, the numbers won't work out exactly like that - the only way to know is to shoot some footage and compare the quality.