What do you guys shoot in? 1080p? 1080i?

1080p all the time

1080i all the time

Guess we all are different ...even my slomos work well in 50i ... I tried 50P and really and honestly could not see any difference once it goes down to MPEG2 for a DVD.

In fact I accidentally shot a whole wedding in 50i at the lower bitrate (I think it's HA and 17 mbps) I use that for realty shoots as quality is not an issue and forgot to change it back for the wedding.

The DVD footage is just as good ... All my weddings have a delivery format of DVD ..If anyone is brave enough to convince me otherwise (by showing me side by side differences that I can visually see ) I'm happy to use 50P ..BUT I need to see something and not use 50P "because it is there"

Haven't seen anything to convince me yet and brides think the end result is awesome ... 50i is a safer option for me and I've always used it!

Chris

How come it's a 'safer' option for you? storage issue or?

I would have thought even if the differences aren't visible, say you were to colour grade or do some post production work to the footage, 50p could be pushed a little better than 50i ?? for that reason alone I always film in 50p.

Hi James

During my Panasonic era I shot a few weddings at 50P and found that I was getting pixelating on some area of the image ...I doubt whether the bride ever saw it but it tended to show up on cheek bones which was a bit scary. 50i has always worked well for me so I stick with it. I'm not sure but one might see a difference with the HD file but I have yet to see it. Maybe it's a cinematic thing using 50P?

As for colour grading ... I seldom need to! I don't want any fancy usual effects on my clips as I'm purely shooting in a doc style ...at best I might push saturation a bit but otherwise I don't need (or want) to do more than I have to and with matched cameras I really don't have to anyway.

Chris

I just changed to 1080i vs p and I noticed my footage didnt look as good but that could be because every wedding is different also the 1080p bit rate being higher may have had something to do with it. BTW I tried my idea of using a digital zoom so I could zoom my lens all the way out and shoot at 3.5 I couldnt see anything but I only tried it on a couple of shots during dancing at the reception.

1080p on all my cameras :)

1080p 150% of the time. I see no point in interlaced footage. It's terrible. Even for sd dvds I use 1080p then down convert to 29.97i.... sometimes even 24p.... why would you shoot in interlaced when you can have full frames 50 or 60 times a second?

So is there a BIG difference or just one you really need to look for? I mean I would do it just for the higher bit rate BUT cant it complicate things later depending on where your delivering?

Absolutely no reason to use interlaced. And yes, there is a difference.

i shoot 1080/60p.

but i convert after to 1080i for delivering Blu-Ray and DVD.

i prefer the smooth motion + few interlace artifacts vs. no artifacts but with motion blur/judder.

That only makes sense if your watching your interlaced footage on a interlaced system. 99% off all hd tvs are progressive meaning the tv will deinterlace the footage automatically. So why shoot In interlaced?

TV's will bob-deinterlace (most will do a motion-based "smart deinterlacing") 30i to 60p, not to 30p. so you will get a much smoother motion.

Hi Randy

There is a big difference if you are pixel peeping. I fact I shot yesterday's wedding at 1080 50P and the footage is really nice. However once down to DVD format the bride won't see any difference at all as she is looking at the dresses and her stunning husband!!

One reason that I sometimes use 50i is that the bitrate is lower and for civil ceremonies that means I don't have a split file as I can squeeze the clip of the ceremony into 17 mins were as 50P splits at 12 minutes ..However with the Sony software it just means you need to create a new full length file..no big deal of course.

All my weddings now have stedicam footage and it very advantageous to shoot that at double frame rate so I have also shot everything at 50P as it's pointless to have to change record formats in mid stream.

I still do my Realty Condition Reports at 50i and at 17mbps as quality is not important and I can then fit a 4 bedroom house shoot onto a 16GB card with no problems ...weddings 50P is a better bet with the 28 mbps bitrate

Chris

From what I see the only difference that effects me is the higher bit rate which does make a difference in darker scenes.

Hi Randy

It hard to compare one wedding to another. I have seen footage shot at 35mbps that looks like garbage and also much lower footage that looks brilliant. Exposure and lighting play a huge part as well. Even at 1080P a bad light situation will look crappy compared to a brilliantly lit scene shot at a lower rate. Look at GoPro footage shot at a low bitrate, it can look absolutely stunning if the light is right.

1080P is great for slomo and a higher bit rate means more digital information is collected so it correct to use it if it's practical but it's not going to make any difference in a bad scenario.

I think the bottom line here is if you have enough card space and want the best resolution then use the PS mode on the camera ... as already mentioned I use FH mode for some Realty shoots cos space is a more important issue than pristine footage. That's why the camera has different modes so use the mode that suits your shoot.

Chris

Well the 2 things that make me want to shoot in "i" are 1. I can get about 20 min more on a 32 gig card so I dont need to change cards mid wedding which is kinda big deal because im always afraid i'll lose or damage one in the field 2. My editing software "Edius" edits much smoother with 1080i than 1080p.

Hi Randy

That's my main reason too... For Realty shoots (I'm doing another this morning) I will change the camera to FH mode so instead of 80 minutes on a 16GB card I will get 128 minutes which makes sure all will fit on a single card. As said before, these are low budget shoots so I need to be fast!

You might have to ask Noa about Edius ..I only use Sony Vegas and to me it seems the same regardless of whether I shoot 50i or 50P (except with 50i I set Project properties to de-interlace the footage)

Chris

If you pan or zoom a lot live (which I don't for most subjects) then 50 or 60i is smoother than the 24/25/30P - of course the EA50 can shoot at 50 and 60P but should you?
I wouldn't unless I knew it was going to end up on an interlaced DVD - these days I prefer to shoot 24P and make progressive DVD's - most players handle this well.
I don't shoot weddings so I have no idea of the requirements...but I think the best quality would be just to use that zoom to reframe and follow subjects with panning to avoid judder.
If you must zoom and pan quickly then 50 or 60P is the go, provided you can match all your cameras :)