Video Resolution - 1440x1080 HD 30 fps or 1280x720 HD 60f

[shetuck]

My dad got this cheapo AIPTEK HD video camera. He wants me to film an international family reunion that's happening over a two week period overseas.

Not sure whether to use the 1440x1080 (HD1080p 30fps) setting or the 1280x720 (60fps) for videos.

I'd like to be able to watch/edit the videos on a normal laptop and then burn DVDs that can get watched on pretty much any new/old DVD player and TV.

Everything I've read on the net sounds like a bunch of gobbledygook (to me)...

Any suggestions?

 

[Mac]

Well with my little knowledge with HD resolutions etc....Is that HD1080p is the highest resolution you can use which is at 30 frames per second. If you use this setting it looks like you will get better quality pictures with less of a smooth picture. If you use the 1280x720, 60 frames per second but just a smaller resolution, you will still get good quality video but will get a much smoother picture at 60 frames.

If I remember correctly, movies in the movie theatre are shot at 24fps or so.

 

[sandgk]

shetuck -

On PC - viewing of 1080p - Yes, Viewing of 720p - Yes

On DVD - Viewing of 1080p / 720p - not possible unless played on a BluRay or HD-DVD Disc and player.
(Most regular DVD players are configured to take a lower 480 or similar resolution - standard DVD - and upconvert that to 720p or higher should playback on an HDTV be needed).

If you want to play your material on a variety of TVs you may want to do this --

Record at preferred resolution (1080p or 720p)

Save media at full resolution.

Convert from highest resolution to lower resolution for making the DVDs - portable media.

Now the only issue becomes the resolution / FPS to use - I'd balance time as a higher requirement than FPS / 1080p / 720p. So whichever combo gives you the longest recording time, use that.

 

[shetuck]

Well with my little knowledge with HD resolutions etc....Is that HD1080p is the highest resolution you can use which is at 30 frames per second. If you use this setting it looks like you will get better quality pictures with less of a smooth picture. If you use the 1280x720, 60 frames per second but just a smaller resolution, you will still get good quality video but will get a much smoother picture at 60 frames.

If I remember correctly, movies in the movie theatre are shot at 24fps or so.

Yeah... the tests I've done with the 1080p at 30 fps are very crisp, but not as smooth. I just attributed that to the fact that I don't have a super processor / high end graphic card in my notebook.

So then I switched down to the 1280x720 at 60 fps and the video is very smooth. The thing is that I'm not sure if this lower resolution / higher frame rate would translate as nicely/cleanly over to a DVD.

I'm assuming that the 1080p would look pretty amazing on my HD TV, but I know that most of the people I'd be sending copies of the video to don't have HD TV... some even still have old analog TVs (hooked up to a DVD player through a little D/A converter box).

There's also a 740x480 60 fps (D1?) setting, but I'm not sure how good that would look on a TV. Guess I'll have to give it a try...

 

[shetuck]

shetuck -

On PC - viewing of 1080p - Yes, Viewing of 720p - Yes

On DVD - Viewing of 1080p / 720p - not possible unless played on a BluRay or HD-DVD Disc and player.

Okay. Gotcha. I get it now.

(Most regular DVD players are configured to take a lower 480 or similar resolution - standard DVD - and upconvert that to 720p or higher should playback on an HDTV be needed).

Wow... didn't know most regular DVD players run at 480. Sounds like 480 is a very reasonable "native" resolution to use, then, right?

If you want to play your material on a variety of TVs you may want to do this --

Record at preferred resolution (1080p or 720p)

Save media at full resolution.

Convert from highest resolution to lower resolution for making the DVDs - portable media.

Now the only issue becomes the resolution / FPS to use - I'd balance time as a higher requirement than FPS / 1080p / 720p. So whichever combo gives you the longest recording time, use that.

Yeah... space might end up being an issue. I'm recording on a pair of 4GB memory cards. A 12 minute clip I recorded at 1080p took up about 660 MB. I'm gonna be recording on-the-fly (I'll be in Istanbul, Turkey). My (piece-of-sh*t) Lenovo laptop only has about 20GB of spare hard drive space. So my plan was to record clips and basically dump them onto my hard drive at the end of the day, burn them on CDs/DVDs at the end of the day and start over the next day. I've never burned DVDs, so I'll have to play around with that too, because I can't have a 12 minute clip on a single CD.

So, since now that you've enlightened me that DVDs basically use 480 resolution native, I'm thinking about using the 740x480 60 fps setting on the camera (no HD, but D1) which will give me really good smoothness, not take up a huge amount of space, work fairly well on even basic DVD players, and not take up a huge amount of space on my laptop or require dozens (or maybe hundreds) or CDs for maybe 50 hours +/- of footage.

For special clips I can switch up to the 1280x720 HD at 60 fps - smoothness, slightly bigger files, HD native (for those DVD players and TVs that can handle it).

My bottom-line take-away is that the 1080p is overkill for me in this case.