Ultimate Format Guide...

[DozerMayne]

I am an audio engineer(Tracking/Mixing/Mastering), getting into video production..
I use Premiere Pro CS5 and I am currently learning After Effects..
Anyway...
I have been scouring the internet...looking for the best guides on video formats...

I currently have 2 camcorders(mini DV tape)..and...
I am looking to purchase my first project HD video camcorder...
Will be under $600 for starting...

So I am trying to learn about all of the different types of HD camcorders, specs, recording formats.
Importing/Capturing formats and conversion....
Imaging chips used...
Types of compression formats...
1080i vs 1028p..
Temporal vs Spatial compression...
Pros and Cons on all of these various things..

I am not finding full in depth guides that get to the nitty gritty....

Any links to great guides, or links in this site would be awesome.

[edDV]

Use Amazon search for all the $30+ video engineering bibles then check Google Books. Many are there to be read for free.

Your questions are very broad. Similar to audio where there are formats for telephone up to recording studio.

It is easier here to respond to narrower questions related to a specific task.

[DozerMayne]

Thanks for the reply...
I have found a couple of great books.

As I have said, I will be purchasing a HD camcorder soon..
Under $600

I read that AVCHD uses Temporal compression, which is more work for your computer processing while editing in Premiere Pro CS5...

I guess since I am under the $600 camcorder range for now, I would like a recommendation for an HD camcorder in that price range. With a format that would work well with Premiere Pro CS5, with less headaches, if any.

One of the computers I have to modify is a Dell Inspiron I530-110B with a Core2 Quad Q6600 with 8Gigs RAM.
I will be upgrading the stock video card(320MB) to something under $200 for starters...
Will build a better system in the future....just using what I got for education right now...

[olyteddy]

I will be upgrading the stock video card(320MB) to something under $200 for starters...

Which will have little to no effect on editing speed or quality. Probably better to add a hard drive or two to it.

[edDV]

Thanks for the reply...
I have found a couple of great books.

As I have said, I will be purchasing a HD camcorder soon..
Under $600

I read that AVCHD uses Temporal compression, which is more work for your computer processing while editing in Premiere Pro CS5...

I guess since I am under the $600 camcorder range for now, I would like a recommendation for an HD camcorder in that price range. With a format that would work well with Premiere Pro CS5, with less headaches, if any.

One of the computers I have to modify is a Dell Inspiron I530-110B with a Core2 Quad Q6600 with 8Gigs RAM.
I will be upgrading the stock video card(320MB) to something under $200 for starters...
Will build a better system in the future....just using what I got for education right now...

All consumer HD formats (including broadcast) use MPeg temporal compression. Uncompressed 1080i/720p HD video requires 800-1400 Mb/s or more which would require a multi-hard disk RAID just to play one stream.

In the real world you should consider a display card with hardware MPeg2/h.264 decode support (e.g. NVidia "PureVideo HD" or ATI "AVIVO HD"). This allows you to play HD files without CPU load.

Editors like Premiere CS5 require a multi-core CPU to support search/scan/scrub on the timeline and to render edits for preview. Your machine is adequate but for AVCHD (h.264) an i7 would be better. HDV/XDCAM (MPeg2) perform adequately with a Core2 quad.

An alternate strategy for h.264 is use of a digital intermediate format like Cineform Neo. Cineform decompresses temporally compressed MPeg2/h.264 to intraframe compressed individual frames. This dramatically speeds editor performance at the cost of larger working files. Apple forces one to use a digital intermediate for HD source.

$600 isn't enough for a new HD camcorder. It may buy a used Sony or Canon HDV model. My personal favorite in that potential price range is the Canon HV 20/30/40. HDV is a tape format but note that quality tapes cost ~$2.50/hr where flash RAM media will cost 10-15x more.

An alternate to CS5 would be Premiere Elements or Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum. That would allow you to double your camcorder budget.

Avoid non-standard digital camera formats unless your research shows someone has gotten CS5 to edit it. You may need to learn AVISynth to convert to an acceptable format.

[DozerMayne]

Awesome post, thanks alot for the insight...
Alot of good info here..