Struggling with Panasonic HDC-SD5

[khan.cross]

Hello guys,

would appreciate your recommendations.

Bought a used Cam which is 1080 FullHD but I have problems getting good quality out of it. As this camera was very expensive when it was new I am sure this cam should make good quality.
For me very important is the fluid not the resolution.

I found a web site about a test of this cam and the guy there made tests and it is good visible the difference between 25i and 50i. Actually he wrote he used software to do this but my tries with same software did not make any difference.

Here are the videos from the test page:
http://eirikso2.com/Panasonic_HDC-SD5/Panasonic_HDC-SD5_Test2_720x400-25p.mp4
21mb

http://eirikso2.com/Panasonic_HDC-SD5/Panasonic_HDC-SD5_Test2_1024x576-50p.mp4
50mb

Here is my video directly downloaded from the cam without editing or doing anything:
http://www.motostyle.org/videotest/00062.MTS
6mb
The video was recorded in 1440HN (high definition normal quality 25i). The cam only has one higher mode 1980HG 25i.


To the specialists:
Please be so kind and download my video. Try to get more fluid and in case more quality. Then show me the new edited videos. For me 640 or 720 width is enough. Also let me know how you retrieve more fluid and quality.

I am really exited to see the results.
Thanks
Khan

[nwo]

I am sure this cam should make good quality.
For me very important is the fluid not the resolution.

Look ok to me, but with HD you really need to use a tripod to get a good recoding.

[mL999]

I have the same model camera. Your work looks as if the camera is OK but develop your technique. Avoid shooting directly into the sun, move slowly to give the camera time to adjust itself etc.,etc. Study the setting options and try them out (the manual is available on the internet). I recommend getting a trial version of the Sony Vegas Studio editor. It is not difficult , in spite of what some people say, and you can learn to get the best from the cameras high definition. (I use a card reader to copy the video files into the computer : much easier the 'capture' proceedure. The , so called, 'Joby Gorillapod (SLR) ' is a firm support which can be used almost anywhere)
best wishes mike

[khan.cross]

I have the same model camera. Your work looks as if the camera is OK but develop your technique. Avoid shooting directly into the sun, move slowly to give the camera time to adjust itself etc.,etc. Study the setting options and try them out (the manual is available on the internet). I recommend getting a trial version of the Sony Vegas Studio editor. It is not difficult , in spite of what some people say, and you can learn to get the best from the cameras high definition. (I use a card reader to copy the video files into the computer : much easier the 'capture' proceedure. The , so called, 'Joby Gorillapod (SLR) ' is a firm support which can be used almost anywhere)
best wishes mike

mike can you tell me how you set the options to retrieve best quality out of the cam?
also post a sample clip, wish to see the difference.


but anyway the problem is how to get 50i. above I posted 2 videos 25 and 50i and the 50i has better fluid and I wonder how this is possible with this cam.

[poisondeathray]

50i and 25i mean the same thing, 50 fields per second, or 25 frames per second. These are just different marketing terms for the same thing

50p and 25p mean different things, 50 frames per second , and 25 frames per second

50p will look a lot smoother and fluid than 25p (because of 50 motion samples vs. 25 motion samples per second)

I think what you are asking is how to double rate deinterlace i.e. 50i (which your camera shoots) => 50p instead of 25p

You would only deinterlace if your end format requires it (eg. for internet or progressive displays), because deinterlacing reduces quality. If this was for blu-ray or avchd disc for example, you should leave it interlaced.

[khan.cross]

ok but still there is the main open thing if you look to the both compare videos. one says it is 25 and the other 50fps. the cam records 25fps and the video 25fps looks same like my recorded videos. but the 50fps video looks really liquid/fluid without breaks in moves.

right now I made one video edit all recorded with this cam and resized to 480x320. length is 8:20 minutes and the file size is something what 45mb in .flv format.
if you look to the quality it is really bad against the original recordings but the file size is still very big.

if you look to the test clip 25fps it is higher in resolution and quality but smaller in file size.
(Panasonic_HDC-SD5_Test2_720×400-25p.mp4 (21 MB)

here is the youtube video, looks really bad in quality

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAqhI69ust4

[poisondeathray]

youtube re-encodes everything at a low bitrate, so you cannot rely on that for judging quality

even if you upload a high quality video , it will reduce the quality and it will look bad

you cannot compare that test clip to the youtube video for that reason. If you uploaded that testclip to youtube in SD, it would look nearly as bad. They also don't support 50fps, you would only be able to use 25fps

you haven't mentioned what software you were using or have tried (settings or compression) , or even what you're trying to do in terms of a target (i.e. is this solely for web viewing, if so do you have your own site, because sites like youtube will reduce the quality farther when they re-encode)

here is your testclip , one at 50p (bob deinterlaced or double rate), one is 25p (single rate deinterlaced). No other adjustments made (like color correction) except for deinterlacing, and resizing. The main difference bewteen the 2 is only the smoothness of the motion

[nwo]

ok but still there is the main open thing if you look to the both compare videos. one says it is 25 and the other 50fps. the cam records 25fps and the video 25fps looks same like my recorded videos. but the 50fps video looks really liquid/fluid without breaks in moves.

Are you recoding in Digital Cinema Mode which is 25p (24p), it automatically adjusts filming speed to 1/48 and captures at 24p frames but the image jerks when moved or panned.

[khan.cross]

you haven't mentioned what software you were using or have tried (settings or compression) , or even what you're trying to do in terms of a target (i.e. is this solely for web viewing, if so do you have your own site, because sites like youtube will reduce the quality farther when they re-encode)

here is your testclip , one at 50p (bob deinterlaced or double rate), one is 25p (single rate deinterlaced). No other adjustments made (like color correction) except for deinterlacing, and resizing. The main difference bewteen the 2 is only the smoothness of the motion

I compared your both videos and found 50p bit better.
but can you please explain what you have done to it to get smoother motion? appreciate if you tell step by step.

My software to edit and cut videos is sony vegas pro 9. but most times I use ultra video splitter to shrink and compress the videos.

I want to use the videos in my own website. have a flash video player integrated uses .flv videos. so I have to convert it always.

[poisondeathray]

I used avisynth to deinterlace and resize. It may be difficult to learn at first

http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/Main_Page
http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/Main_Page#New_to_AviSynth_-_start_here

There are many choices of deinterlacers, I chose a fast, lower quality deinterlacer (yadif), because when you resize to SD, it won't be a huge difference in percieved quality. At HD, there are significant differences. The higher quality deinterlacers are very very slow (CPU intensive)

This is what I used for the 50p version

Load_Stdcall_Plugin("C:\Program Files\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\yadif.dll")
DirectShowSource("PATH\00062.MTS")
Yadif(order=1,mode=1)
LanczosResize(704,400)

.flv is a container, and can hold different kinds of compression; you never mentioned what you were using. h.264 probably provides the best quality/compression ratio. Most flash players can play other container formats, such as .mp4. It might not be necessary to use .flv

Re-encoding it several times will only reduce the quality each time. Instead, you should convert it once, directly to the final format. If you cannot do this, then use a lossless intermediate out of vegas (e.g. uncompressed, or lagarith, or huffyuv) , to avoid generation loss

On the shooting side, it was already mentioned, but use tripods and stabilizing rigs like steadicam. Stabilizing the shot will reduce bitrate requirements when you encode. Lots of shaky motion will "eat up" bitrate.

50p usually isn't supported by most flash sites, but if you are hosting your own, you can do whatever you want. (50p has 2x fps , but also 2x the number of frames, so it requires more bitrate = larger file size)

[fairytale00]

Great thread, i know more about from it .

[khan.cross]

would it be possible to get quality out of this cam nearly like this? look how smooth and fluid the cam records:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_MKUy-P8ss

[poisondeathray]

would it be possible to get quality out of this cam nearly like this? look how smooth and fluid the cam records:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_MKUy-P8ss

The picture quality actually is quite low - the details are all smeared out, even at 720p version (it's been re-encoded by youtube). It's been graded and oversaturated

The motion is just slo-mo with speeding ramping (slowing up, speeding down, pausing). This is very easy to do in vegas , or any NLE like premiere pro, or after effects , but it looks like he shot a much higher fps for the middle sequence than what you camera is capable of.

If you want a simple 50% slow mo, just play the 50fps as 25fps

eg. here is yours, played at 50% speed (50fps played as 25fps)

But in order to get super smooth slo-mo you need a better camera (shoot a higher fps). Even the NTSC version is better (60i vs. 50i, which could be bob-deinterlaced to 60p). On a 24p timeline that would be 40% speed (The PAL version would be 50p on a 25p timeline, and only 50% speed). Drastic speed changes in post aren't as good because you either blend frames (blurry), or duplicate frames (choppy) , or interpolate new frames(artifacts) to simulate as if you were shooting a higher fps.

[khan.cross]

looks not bad poisondeathray!

let me repeat shortly:
first you took my video and increased the fps from 25 to 50 with AVISYNTH right?
then you used a video program like vegas to slomo it correct?

btw: I connected the cam to a hdtv with a hdtv cable. and the video quality looks much much better!!

[poisondeathray]

yes, if you wanted slo-mo, just bob-deinterlace to 50fps, then encode it as 25fps. In that example above, I didn't use vegas, I just changed the fps in another program (YAMB), but you should really encode it as 25fps, because some programs don't acknowledge the flag change by YAMB

Load_Stdcall_Plugin("C:\Program Files\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\yadif.dll")
DirectShowSource("PATH\00062.MTS")
Yadif(order=1,mode=1) #or any bobber
LanczosResize(704,400)
AssumeFPS(25)

I only did a linear speed change in that example (it was a constant 50% speed)

If you want to do varying speed changes, this can be done in any editor. (I mean slowing down, speeding up, pausing, etc...)

Large changes in slo mo require shooting a higher fps for clear, smooth pictures. You can only do nice 50% slo mo on a 25p timeline, because you only shoot 50i (which can be deinterlaced to 50p). Any slower than 50% requires frame interpolation, blending, or duplication of frames, all which are not very good (either artifacts, blurry, or blurry & choppy). If you shot 1000fps, you could get 40x slow mo

The cam should look better on HDTV , because you are playing at full resolution. These re-encoded examples are low res, low bitrate.

[khan.cross]

Sorry I was away a bit so I could not answer earlier.
I struggeled around with the cam and first I found a good way to convert the original MTS videos to any other format like MP4 or AVI H.264 codec. The program called Aunsoft MTS converter, it really produces great quality and good deinterlacing.

Now I am not sure in one thing. If a camera creates 25fps is it possible to convert it to 50fps with same speed but more fluid video sequences?

Here I have seen the guy converted the original 25fps video to 50fps and it looks really smoother:

http://eirikso.com/2008/01/02/test-clips-from-panasonic-hdc-sd5/