Hello everyone,

I'm heading out on a 3 week shooting time, and the HMC40 and higher than consumer-tech video is new to me, including my HMC40. I shoot nearly all high speed action footage, and these next few weeks will be mostly shot with great sunlight a the dunes, desert, rock crawling, etc. I typically like to incorporate slow motion into my edited video, so my initial thought is to shoot in 720/60p. Is this the correct thinking? Or, should I be shooting in 1080/60i? I've been told that if shooting for slow motion, use a shutter speed of 1/120 in 720/60p, and 1/60 pretty much no matter what in 1080/60i. To me, based on my experience with my D300 still camera, those shutter speeds are only helpful if I'm wanting to blur the image slightly, or the wheels/tires spinning when panning, but is this different for a camcorder?

Then, my next question is what format to export using Adobe Premier CS4 for use primarily for youtube? I want the best format possible for the cleanest, best looking video on Youtube. Is there a format that YouTube won't compress, such as if I export using f4v or flv, for example? And, if so or not, what codec, bitrate, size, etc would you recommend for optimal playback on youtube?

Secondly, given the above, I'll also want to put this footage on DVD for my customers to use a sale/marketing pieces. Will this play a role as to what format to be shooting in, or do I just pick the best format for the web, then just output it the way it needs to be for the DVD after outputting the footage for the web?

Thanks in advance for the help...

Chris

Here's some testimonial videos I put up on Youtube from my Glamis, CA dune trip.

YouTube - MCX-USA RZR Turbo Kit Customer Testimonial - Greg (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qyc89IN82pE)

YouTube - MCX-USA RZR-S Turbo Kit Customer Testimonial - Cliff (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-aUlOnS7T4)

YouTube - MCX-USA RZR-S Turbo Kit Customer Testimonial - Doug (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkzfX98VHFc)

YouTube - MCX-USA Prowler XTZ 1000 Turbo Kit Customer Testimonial - Jose (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZULzwt_ZHso)

YouTube - MCX-USA RZR Turbo Kit Customer Testimonial - Gary (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTJukeFxu5w)

YouTube - MCX-USA RZR-S Turbo Kit Customer Testimonial - Brenda (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPvrXO5Degg)

All of this whipped together as one video for the SEMA show that just ended...all rough cuts, very little editing done to make them look more professional. I'm very impressed with the camera, and I've found that my matthews tripod when shooting today is a huge help. I'm shooting out in UT today and the next two days, and using the tripod makes all the difference in the world for quality shots. I played it through component out as 1080i, even though I shot it in 720/60p, and it looked outstanding on the television today. Unbelievable actually. The exposure was spot on, colors at +1 chroma look great. So far, I'm very pleased with the camera.

Chris

Youtube recompresses your video, no matter what you send them. It's image quality of the footage you upload that counts, not the format of it (as long as it is a format they accept, of course). Unless you have an incredibly high speed connection to the internet though (or just want to upload a very short clip), you probably want to use the most efficient codec (image quality per bit) you can.

Use H264 at a bitrate of over 5Mbps and the resulting Youtube video should be as good as if you uploaded uncompressed video, assuming you use a good encoder at reasonable settings. The difference in quality, between the H264 encoding and a (much higher bitrate) uncompressed version, will be absolutely and utterly dwarfed by the quality hit that Youtube's recompression will put on your video. (I don't know how well Premiere does H264 compression though.)

Gotcha...so far the MainConcept H.264 codec within Premiere CS4 is working pretty good at 6 mbps, best I can tell. I don't think there's any reason to go higher for the purposes of Youtube.

Chris

YouTube - HCR Racing UTV and Side by Side Long Travel Kits in Action (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLV3ABx2jDA)

This was shot with the HMC40 in PH720/60P using the Panasonic .7x Wide Angle Lens and no nd filters all shot on a Matthews M25 Tripod. Sound was captured using the rode videomic with dead cat.

Chris

Here's a video I just completed:

YouTube - HCR Racing Long Travel Kits Compared to Stock (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4utezpM6s8)

It was filmed using the HMC40 in PH720/60p with the following setup:

- Panasonic Wide Angle .7x Lens
- No ND Filters
- Rode Videomic with Dead Cat for Sound
- Matthews M25 Tripod
- OIS On
- Slow Motion is 25% of normal speed
- Edited with Adobe Premier CS4 on a Macbook Pro 17"
- Outputted using Mainconcept H.264 Youtube HD preset, but changed the fps to 59.94 from 24 fps.
- +1 Chroma

Any pointers, comments, or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Chris

Hey guys

Here's a quick vid I put together of my bachelor party weekend, mainly just to show you guys what 1080/24p looks like out of the camera. I shot it entirely in auto, and it picked a 1/50th shutter speed I believe most of the time. Keep in mind it's a home video, not edited much at all. :)

YouTube - Brimstone Recreation UTV & Side by Side Rentals - Dec. 4-6th, 2009 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO-sg5UTzPQ)

Chris

Excellent stuff Chris. Seeing as how most of this footage is similar to what I'd be using my camera for this gives me a lot of faith for this camera. I'm looking more forward to picking one up by the day.

It works great in good light...definitely great for what I shoot.

Chris