New HPX170 owner here. I have read Barry's book from cover to cover familarizing myself with the cam and shot a few test scenes. I am trying to dial it in for a Waterfalls documentary SD-DVD that I will be working on for the next year. I need some help on settings as I come from a DV format only background. I have experimented with 720/30pn in film cam mode with shutter on at 1/60 shutter speed as well as frame rate of 60 for slow-motion. Also experimented with some scene files. Does anyone have any experience with a similar project and would like to share some advice?

Thanks,

Mark - If you have no plans to use the footage in HD format, I would recommend that you record in DVCPRO 50. This codes to DVD very easily and the quality is excellent. I just recently made several DVDs from performances which I recorded in DVCPRO 50 at 720p 60 fps - the color was fabulous and every frame was sharp on individual examination. Converting from HD to SD is a problem, and I have yet to see any conversion that looks as good as the DVCPRO 50 to DVD. Good luck on your project.

Mark D.,
Thanks for your response. I am a little confused. You recommend shooting in DVCPRO50 format at 720p. The 720p option does not exist in the DVCPRO50 format because it is SD. The options range from 480i/60i down to 480i/24pa. What am I missing here?

Thanks

Mark W, you are right. 720p is only for HD. For SD, there is no such thing as 720p. So, Mark D. must have made a mistake here. DVCPRO50 is SD. I can't recommend anything for SD - because I am from the PAL world ... you need people who are more familiar with NTSC to tell you what the best setting for DVCPRO50 at NTSC SD.

So sorry, Mark. You and TingSern are correct. DVCPRO 50 is a SD codec and there is no 720p. I shoot most of my material in HD at 720p 60 fps, and that fell in there by mistake. I do, however, still strongly recommend you use DVCPRO 50 for a DVD project - it works very well and gives much better color than any other DV mode, and again, HD is not that easy to convert to good-looking SD.