HD Video cam- Tape vs AVCHD?

[tp3813]

I have a question regarding high definition video.
In the past I used a Canon HV 10 which uses tape as media, and it produced very good results. Recently I decided, as AVCHD seems to be on the increase and would be easier than using tape, to buy a Panasonic HDC-SD60 camera, which uses SD cards for media using the AVCHD format.
However I was extremely disappointed with the results, after editing down to.wmv compared to the earlier footage taken by the Canon using tape, the AVCHD footage was nowhere near as good quality.
I increased the bit rate during further edits, which gave better results but still nowhere near as good as the tape based material I took before. On top of that due to the increased bit rate the files were also four times larger than the equivalent tape based material and even then despite the much larger size the AVCHD footage was not anywhere near as good as the tape based footage.

This has now put me off AVCHD and I am considering getting rid of the Panasonic and getting another tape based camera.

I am not sure whether the quality problem was caused by the cheaper camera as the Panasonic is a budget model and the Canon was rather more expensive or whether it's just the AVCHD format, which I believe is somewhat compressed even in original form?

Don't want to buy another expensive camera if AVCHD has a quality problem to begin with compared to tape.

[edDV]

easier than using tape

But SD media is 10x more expensive.

I increased the bit rate during further edits, which gave better results but still nowhere near as good as the tape based material I took before.

What source and destination bit rates are you using? 25Mb/s HDV is roughly equivalent to 17 Mb/s AVCHD. Editing can be more destructive to AVCHD depending on software being used. How are you editing and exporting?

I am not sure whether the quality problem was caused by the cheaper camera as the Panasonic is a budget model and the Canon was rather more expensive or whether it's just the AVCHD format, which I believe is somewhat compressed even in original form?

Depends on the recording mode.

[racer-x]

I have and use both Canon HV20 (HDV) and Canon HG20 (AVCHD) cameras. They are on equal footing I think. The hV20 records 25 Mb/s HDV and the HG20 records 24 Mb/s AVCHD.

The HV20 produces slightly sharper and more detailed footage, but records to tape and is less convenient with multiple shoots. It is easier to edit and can be "smart rendered" in Vegas

The HG20 is more convenient to use because it uses HDD or SD cards, but the footage is a little softer with less detail compared to the HV20. About 5-10% less by my observations. The trade-off is not enough to keep me from using the HG20 more often than the HV20.

[tp3813]

>What source and destination bit rates are you using?
>25Mb/s HDV is roughly equivalent to 17 Mb/s AVCHD.

Well, I used the highest setting on the Panasonic which I believe is 17 Mb/s


>Editing can be more destructive to AVCHD depending on software being> used.

Yes, it seems editing is a problem. When viewing the video on HD television straight from Panasonic camera it looked not bad but after editing it was pretty crap. Although what I would call acceptable it's nowhere near as good as the results using the tape based Canon camera.


>How are you editing and exporting?


I am using Sony Vegas Pro 9 and with tape based material used to edit down to .wmv using 2m setting which produced excellent results, same setting with AVCHD based, nowhere near as good.
Come to the conclusion I should probably have got a better camera with larger CMOS , Panasonic is a budget model and if one wants good quality guess there is no shortcut to spending more on a higher end camera.

[edDV]

Why wmv?

[tp3813]

> Why wmv?

well always got very good results with wmv, tried other formats too but they were about the same

[edDV]

> Why wmv?

well always got very good results with wmv, tried other formats too but they were about the same

WMV generally requires a deinterlace. For HD I prefer Blu-Ray spec MPeg2, VC-1 or h.264. If the source is 1080i interlace, I encode 1080i interlace output to Blu-Ray. I only deinterlace for web display.

[edDV]

I have and use both Canon HV20 (HDV) and Canon HG20 (AVCHD) cameras. They are on equal footing I think. The hV20 records 25 Mb/s HDV and the HG20 records 24 Mb/s AVCHD.

The HV20 produces slightly sharper and more detailed footage, but records to tape and is less convenient with multiple shoots. It is easier to edit and can be "smart rendered" in Vegas

This was the general review of HDV vs. early AVCHD camcorders. MPeg2 is a mature codec, AVCHD h.264 is a work in progress and codecs vary. Early codecs produced significant compression artifacts that compounded through recode. The problem with AVCHC camcorders is the hardware codec is fixed in time with that camcorder. There is no update provided for hardware. You need to buy a new camcorder.

[edDV]

>How are you editing and exporting?

I am using Sony Vegas Pro 9 and with tape based material used to edit down to .wmv using 2m setting which produced excellent results, same setting with AVCHD based, nowhere near as good.
Come to the conclusion I should probably have got a better camera with larger CMOS , Panasonic is a budget model and if one wants good quality guess there is no shortcut to spending more on a higher end camera.

"2m" as in 2 Mb/s? That is a significant step down from 24 Mb/s.

My Vegas Pro 10 defaults to 3 Mb/s for SD resolution wmv 11 for what that's worth.

For the HDV 1080i project template, Vegas Pro 10 wmv 11 encoding default is 8 Mb/s.

[yoda313]

The problem with AVCHC camcorders is the hardware codec is fixed in time with that camcorder. There is no update provided for hardware. You need to buy a new camcorder.

I don't mean to go too offtopic here but this is an interesting statement.

Are you saying it is physically impossible to update a firmware for a avchd camcorder? Or is it a decision made by the manufacturer to forgo upgrades and force a purchase of a new model with new features?

Is it fixed in terms of what the hardware will output and would have to be physically replaced with a new motherboard instead of flashing the firmware?

I know they would love to make you buy new stuff to get more features but is it a technological impossibility inherent to flash based cameras or is it a marketing ploy by companies for forced obsolecence in this market?

[edDV]

The problem with AVCHC camcorders is the hardware codec is fixed in time with that camcorder. There is no update provided for hardware. You need to buy a new camcorder.

I don't mean to go too offtopic here but this is an interesting statement.

Are you saying it is physically impossible to update a firmware for a avchd camcorder? Or is it a decision made by the manufacturer to forgo upgrades and force a purchase of a new model with new features?

Is it fixed in terms of what the hardware will output and would have to be physically replaced with a new motherboard instead of flashing the firmware?

I know they would love to make you buy new stuff to get more features but is it a technological impossibility inherent to flash based cameras or is it a marketing ploy by companies for forced obsolecence in this market?

H.264 codec chips are mostly fixed in hardware. Even if improvements could be made with firmware tweaks, consumer camcorder manufacturers rarely offer updates except to correct major problems. Pro cams receive more updates because word of mouth will reveal even small defects to the wide user community.

[yoda313]

@eddv - thanks for the notice.

[tp3813]

>"2m" as in 2 Mb/s? That is a significant step down from 24 Mb/s.

>My Vegas Pro 10 defaults to 3 Mb/s for SD resolution wmv 11 for what that's worth.

>For the HDV 1080i project template, Vegas Pro 10 wmv 11 encoding default is 8 Mb/s.
-------------------------------

Ah yes, bit silly of me, should have been a bit clearer there. I used that low 2 Mb/s setting as I did some clips for an Internet site, hence the .wmv choice, so had to keep file sizes low.
With the tape based Canon I got some pretty good results using HD as original source and got a 4 minute clip down to 70 MB at very good quality for its size. With the Panasonic AVCHD results were pretty poor, even when quadrupling bit rate.

So come to the conclusion you do need a quality camera, preferably tape based for that kind of thing. Can't find a Canon HV 10 anymore latest model seems to be HV 40, which is also tape based so hoping that will be able to produce similar quality or perhaps even better being a later model. Not cheap but if it gives as good results as the HV 10 I shall be happy to spend the extra.

[edDV]

You will find the HV20/30/40 camera section a great improvement over the HV10.

The HV30 and HV40 can shoot 1080p/30fps which should encode better to wmv.

And don't forget, in DV mode the HV series can stream live through Windows Media Encoder.

Also check out Adobe Flash Media Live Encoder
http://www.adobe.com/products/flashmediaserver/flashmediaencoder/

[racer-x]

You may also look into encoding h.264 for web. I use x264 VFW via Virtualdub and get great results with 1280x720p @ 3 Mb/s.

Here is a short clip shot with the Canon HG20 (AVCHD) camera at 60i, then deinterlaced down to 30p via field separation and resizing. It was encoded @ 3Mb/s and uploaded to YouTube. YouTube then recompressed to 1700 kb/s:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqMiiVHn2IA

[tp3813]

>You will find the HV20/30/40 camera section a great improvement over the HV10.

Really? well must be damn good cam then...also prefer the new shape. the HV10 was an awkward design...

although that clip racer-x did with the HG20 was good,think I will go back to tape with the HV 30 or 40.

Ah well looks like the old credit card is going to get a hammering then

anyway thanks to all you guys for the advice.

[edDV]

You will pay half what I paid.

[tp3813]

>You will pay half what I paid.

Yeah I know what you mean, paid nearly 1000 Euros for the HV10 when it came out.
Sadly came to a sticky end, caused by some dipshit airline employee who overzealously weighed all hand luggage and was forced to put it in the aircraft hold and didn't do the old thing much good being bounced around by baggage handlers, not known for their sensitivity.
After that had intermittent faults and then some little shit nicked it while I was on holiday in Tunisia, hope the HV30 or 40 or whatever final purchase will be, will have a happier ending

[edDV]

>You will pay half what I paid.

Yeah I know what you mean, paid nearly 1000 Euros for the HV10 when it came out.
Sadly came to a sticky end, caused by some dipshit airline employee who overzealously weighed all hand luggage and was forced to put it in the aircraft hold and didn't do the old thing much good being bounced around by baggage handlers, not known for their sensitivity.
After that had intermittent faults and then some little shit nicked it while I was on holiday in Tunisia, hope the HV30 or 40 or whatever final purchase will be, will have a happier ending

I paid ~$1200 for my HV20. You can get an HV20/30 for less than half that.

[racer-x]

I paid $1100 for my HV20 back in Feb, 2007. It was and still is a fantastic camera.........

The only problems with tape cape cameras are the occasional dropped frame. In an HDV camera, a dropped frame equates to a loss of 1/2 a sec. That can be a PIA at times. Memory based cameras are pretty much immured to that, but I still feel HDV is usually better quality than AVCHD.

I think the perfect consumer HD camera should shoot HDV, have a large image sensor like the Canon HV series, but should record to removable flash media instead of tape. This would also eliminate tape mechanical noise in the background.

That's my ideal consumer HD camera anyway..........

[edDV]

I paid $1100 for my HV20 back in Feb, 2007. It was and still is a fantastic camera.........

The only problems with tape cape cameras are the occasional dropped frame. In an HDV camera, a dropped frame equates to a loss of 1/2 a sec. That can be a PIA at times. Memory based cameras are pretty much immured to that, but I still feel HDV is usually better quality than AVCHD.

I think the perfect consumer HD camera should shoot HDV, have a large image sensor like the Canon HV series, but should record to removable flash media instead of tape. This would also eliminate tape mechanical noise in the background.

That's my ideal consumer HD camera anyway..........

AVCHD or HDV flash models still have the same 15 frame GOP structure* as tape so are equally vulnerable to an I frame corruption. DV cams have extensive error correction so it is a rare issue, usually associated with dirty heads. In the case of flash ram, drops can occur as the RAM becomes fragmented or as flash RAM ages.


*12 frames for "PAL"

[NJRoadfan]

I think the perfect consumer HD camera should shoot HDV, have a large image sensor like the Canon HV series, but should record to removable flash media instead of tape. This would also eliminate tape mechanical noise in the background.

That's my ideal consumer HD camera anyway..........

JVC did make a few flash/HD based cameras during 2007-08 that wrote HD quality MPEG-2 ".TOD" files.

[edDV]

I think the perfect consumer HD camera should shoot HDV, have a large image sensor like the Canon HV series, but should record to removable flash media instead of tape. This would also eliminate tape mechanical noise in the background.

That's my ideal consumer HD camera anyway..........

JVC did make a few flash/HD based cameras during 2007-08 that wrote HD quality MPEG-2 ".TOD" files.

The JVC GY-HM-100U records MPeg2 at or above HDV up to 1920x1080i/p 35 Mb/s in a variety of frame rates and stores to standard SD flash ram.. It uses 3x CCD sensors.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/597842-REG/JVC_GY_HM100U_GY_HM100U_ProHD_Camcorder.html

[2Bdecided]

AVCHD or HDV flash models still have the same 15 frame GOP structure* as tape so are equally vulnerable to an I frame corruption.

But tapes regularly (i.e. typically once per tape) corrupt the data. Flash memory and USB transfers only corrupt the data when the equipment is/becomes faulty. Copying files is also less flaky than capturing tapes - capturing tapes should and can be trouble free - but it can be a bit of a pain for some people.

Cheers,
David.

[edDV]

AVCHD or HDV flash models still have the same 15 frame GOP structure* as tape so are equally vulnerable to an I frame corruption.

But tapes regularly (i.e. typically once per tape) corrupt the data. Flash memory and USB transfers only corrupt the data when the equipment is/becomes faulty. Copying files is also less flaky than capturing tapes - capturing tapes should and can be trouble free - but it can be a bit of a pain for some people.

Cheers,
David.

DV tape to hard drive file capture is a data stream but so is consumer flash RAM camcorder USB2 capture. Pro camcorders have an OS in the camera that supports network error checked file copy. For consumer flash cams, better to capture from a flash ram adapter under OS control than over USB2.

Other issues with consumer flash RAM:

Many consumers are using Level 2 to Level 4 flash RAM which can drop frames at the higher VBR capture rates. Some camcorders inhibit recording when inferior RAM is detected but others report no errors until playback. Pro flash cams usually record CBR to avoid bit rate spikes.

Second, flash ram is subject to fragmentation and "wears" with use. The wear shows as inability to maintain full bit rate. Flash Ram defragmentation adds significantly to wear. Better to empty the RAM module (fully erase) rather than defragment.

That said, Level 6+ flash Ram offers more transfer rate headroom for VBR or wear and is getting cheaper.

[HoosierGuy]

All these formats are new to me. As I'm new to all this I'm amazed that tape still offers high quality recording. I thought tape was somethign from the 1980's and most of the 1990's and was surpased by hard drives and flash memory. It's interesting to read about.

[Edwardt53]

I recently purchased a Panasonic TM700 after reading all the positive reviews.

My question is after recording high definition video that looks great on your computer
and also looks great playing directly from you camcorder to your television. Have you been
able to burn a DVD that has that same clean crisp image? I know that blu-ray would maintain
higher quality. But have you had success burning DVDs that play on standard players without
getting soft rather than crisp images?

I edited some clips in Premiere Pro CS4 on my little MAC and exported it out to a quicktime .mov file.

I tried burning one yesterday ... the footage looks good until it is burned to DVD
when a obvious loss of sharpness is evident. It doesn't look terrible, but it is not near as good as the original footage.

Have you had to deal with this yet? And if so, do you have an answer for it yet?

Any suggestions appreciated.

[edDV]

...

I edited some clips in Premiere Pro CS4 on my little MAC and exported it out to a quicktime .mov file.

I tried burning one yesterday ... the footage looks good until it is burned to DVD
when a obvious loss of sharpness is evident. It doesn't look terrible, but it is not near as good as the original footage.

Have you had to deal with this yet? And if so, do you have an answer for it yet?

Any suggestions appreciated.

You need to tell us the specs used for your quicktime.mov file.

If you encode for a DVD playable on a DVD player you are reducing resolution from 1920x1080 to 720x480 so yes, it is a lot less sharp. If you deinterlace in the process 1080i to 480p you are adding additional loss.

You should consider playback on a media player or Blu-Ray player instead of a DVD player if you want to maintain full resolution.

[yoda313]

so yes, it is a lot less sharp.

This is 100% factual but it can be slightly misleading. You do lose quality and won't be hd that is true. But a downconverted dvd can look very good just not high definition quality.

Don't forget too if you use an upconverting dvd player or have your hdtv upconvert it can look very good if it upconverts dvds well. I have done many bluray to dvd conversions and they have looked very adequate but obviously not high def.

But eddv is also correct to mention using a media player to play the original files in their original resolutions or burning as a bluray disc to bluray recordable media.

A third option is to use avchd (high def video) on dvdr media IF the file size fits on a single layer or dual layer disc AND you have a playback device that works with avchd (most but not all bluray players will, the ps3 does and computers do assuming at least a dual core processor for smooth playback).