Forums / General Discussion / HD discussion

I have the Canon HV20. I just got it in May. I like it a lot. I can't go back to 4:3 video now. I only notice any quality difference b/w the footage when I watch it on an HDTV, but HD is the future.

What is true HD?

Good question. There are so many "HD" cameras coming out now that the term HD is so loosely used to pretty much describe a technology not its quality but everyone assumes, HD is HD is HD. Right? Meaning I have this $400 Panasonic Lumix L2 that shoots 16:9 so it is HD. Or I have Canon XLH1 with black giant removable lens, it must be HD. Right? Yes. No? No. Yes?

"If the intent of the video is for web/computer monitors how can you reap the benefits of shooting in this format?"
Color for one is easier to fiddle with. Since there is much more information recorded, your editing program has more detail, more numbers to crunch. So you have more bandwidth, in a sense, to mess with. HD also plays well with big projections, printing to film, HD DVD - Blu-Ray, h.264, all that shit plus is insanely overkill for the web. But it looks badass. Where as with SD footage, you have less bandwidth, thus less detail, thus not good for blowing up for projection but is fine for web, television, DVD. It's like, if you ever shot a photo with a camera phone and tried to print it or mess with fixing the colors. It'll look like ass. Where as if you shot with a moderately better camera like a Canon Digital Elph - you get more detail.

All this depends on the camera/flavor of HD as well. Sony/JVC/Canon use the "HDV" format which uses MPEG 2 compression (same compression developed for Standard Def DVD's) so consumers can record to readily available miniDV cassettes or mini DVD. Panasonic uses the AVCHD that uses the very efficient H.264 compression scheme (a compression developed for HD content) for their consumer models and DVCPRO HD for pro-sumer models (HVX200 or Varicam). The difference being one is more pro than the other. Proficient. MPEG 2 is an older technology although used for some HD broadcasting, is meant for SD tech. H.264 was meant for new digital media like the web, hi-def television, ipod, vimeo, etc. MPEG2 knows only so much and it can't go beyond that. H.264 knows everything that came before and expands on that knowledge.

But who cares about that shit really? Should be what it looks like to the user right? You drop an ass load of money, now go shoot something. If it looks good to you and/or your client - audience, that's all that matters. But yeah, if you wanna kick it up a notch, HD gives you more flexibility for sure, especially that tape is going away and tapeless recording becomes the new workflow.

I guess that's how I see it.

wow Ian I just learned a lot. Thanks!

Interesting that H.264 was developed with HD in mind. And I totally dig the "more numbers to crunch" idea in post. The more info the footage contains the more you can get away with!

Also very much agree that you gotta go with what looks good. The artist I'm working with now is pretty thorough in wanting to explore all the options before deciding on a method. These questions do eventually become almost existential in nature though. Helps to try it every which way though to get the PREFERRED results. Who's to say what's better?

HD may seem like overkill for the web, but if you shoot a video on HD and a video with a cheap consumer SD camera, even though you shrink them down to a small size, you will still be able to see that the HD is higher quality.

vimeo.com/334712

does this seem a little choppy to anyone else? I don't think the framerate converted to 30fps when it was converted to flash.

Sorry for posting this in two threads, but hopefully someone takes notice. :)

The HD on/off in the new player:

what does that do, because I've toggled it a few times and it doesn't seem to have done anything. I would assume it shifts from a HD stream to a standard def stream for people with poor connections?

I'm not an immediate fan of the new HD stuff... it's pushing the envelope just a touch earlier than it should. The new HD stuff won't play correctly on my work PC (choppy picture) and is slow enough to load that I can't stream the video outright. Also, it's a bit overkill for most Internet videos.

I'm not saying I don't appreciate the effort, and hey, we all know that this is where Internet video is going, so I'm glad to see Vimeo jumping out to an early lead... I just sort of miss the way it used to be.

True HD is kind of a misnomer.

All it takes to be "HD" is to fit the resolution of either 720p/i @ 24,25,30,50,60 fps, or 1080p/i at the same fps.

As for compression - all HD content you will almost ever see is being compressed. The only way to have uncompressed HD is to record straight to a RAID array, which requires about 6-8 hard disks in a RAID 0 array to maintain the speed to record it. The format that Hollywood uses as a tape backup for HD content - the one they stick in the vault to keep as a master tape, is usually a D-5, which off the top of my head I believe has a 3.8x compression matrix applied to it.

One of the big differences between the prosumer formats out there are the color ratios. In the SD world, DigiBeta is considered to be really really nice - that's a 4:2:2 color space format. The HVX200 records in DVCPRO HD, which is also a 4:2:2 color space. HDV is a 4:2:0 color space - as long as you aren't doing any color correction or keying in post you'd never really notice any difference. Especially as the Baseline profile for h264 encodes in a 4:2:0 color space.

Now, if you encode in the High profile for h.264, that's a 4:2:2 color space. But I don't know if vimeo supports that (i.e. if they pass the encoded video through or they re-encode after upload, in which case it's probably being encoded as the Baseline profile).

The bottom line of the whole thing is that yes, what you see on your computer screen is almost the same quality as watching 720p footage on your HDTV, though the compression may be a bit heavier than on a TV (but not by much - by about 2-3x, but with a much much nicer codec) -- also, the method used for scaling isn't as good as the hardware solution built into your TV, so if you want the best experience I suggest you turn that off. I for one love that someone out there is finally doing HD online video. I just hope Vimeo's servers can keep up with the demand being the only show in town is going to put on them.