Question on AVCHD and Canon HF10/11
 

I am looking to purchase a Canon HF10/11 for my church. This additional camera will be used as a second view of the curch service. We already use the Canon HV30, although in SD mode, because a majority of our DVDs go to older people that don't have HD televisions. As I read about the HF10/11, I see the only format is AVCHD. Can this be used in the same video as the MPEG2 from the HV30 and get similar video quality? I use Sony Vegas to edit the footage.

The joy of Vegas is that you can put almost anything on a single timeline, just set the properties of the clips from each camera correctly.

I'd strongly recommend shooting everything in HDV on the HV30. You'll get the maximum resolution from the camera and you can still create SD footage by simply rendering out using an SD template.

Aside from being a higher quality archive than you need, the HD footage will give more creative possibilities in an SD project, you can pan across frames and even zoom without losing any apparent quality.

Will there be any aspect ratio differences? Do I need to change a setting in Vegas for that?

I don't remember if there is an aspect ration of 4X3 and a HD setting. I assumed that if I recorded in HD and created the DVD in SD, then everyone would look a little fatter?

there will be some difference in editing timing, HDV(HV30) is way lighter than AVCHD,
also HV30 picture quality is slightly better than HF10 25Mb/sec vs 17 on HF10, HF11 claims 24MB/sec, but i tried it and it's really no big difference between HF 10 and HF 11.
if you want to improve in picture quality and your delivery format is SD, go with GL2, you can pick one up on ebay around 1K, but if you want the same but to be future proof get HF S series, that camcorder is truly outstanding, I don't think there anything on the market that can out beat price/quality ratio of that camera.
and if you will decide to go AVCHD, get neoscene from cineform, makes AVCHD editing easy as HDV,
best,

There isn't a 4:3 HD resolution, so everything will be 16:9. You can easily crop that to 4:3 if needed. When you put your clips on the timeline, the preview will show you what different aspect ratios (right-click and the clip, properties) will have on your footage.

Is there a reason why you're producing 4:3 footage? I understand the need for SD, but why not 16:9 SD?

I'm not sure I fully understand your text, but the HF S10 and HF S100 can record at 24MB/s.

he meant hf10/11 not hf-s10
 

I believe the OP was referring to the older hf-10 and hf-11, not the HF-Sxx series.

In any case, the hf-11 has 24mbps.

In response to the OP, shoot the HV-30 in HDV, mix them with the HF-10/11 no problems with Sony Vegas. I see no problems with the output. I have shot with the hv-30, sony hc3, and hf-100 (w/c I now use) and see no problems in editing. I had to click the reduce interlace in my HC3 as it does not have 30p. I shoot the hv-30 and hf-100 in 30p.

Clearing up some confusion
 

HV-30 isn't AVCHD; it is HDV (shot on MiniDV tape). HF series (HF10, HF100, HF11, HF20, HF200) all shoot AVCHD on memory chips (built in, or SDHC cards).

There is a major difference between HDV and AVCHD. HDV uses MPEG-2 compression (almost 20-year old technology), whereas AVCHD uses MPEG-4, which is newer, better and much more efficient compression than MPEG-2. It is understood that AVCHD can produce same quality of image as HDV with half the bit rate. In addition, HDV captures at 1440x1080 maximum, while AVCHD captures at full 1920x1080 resolution.

HDV captures/encodes at 25 Mbps. AVCHD captures at 17Mbps (HF-10/100) or 24Mbps (all other newer models). Therefore, AVCHD at 24Mbps provides superior image quality encoding compared to HDV.

The end result depends on the model, CMOS sensor, optics and other factors. Tests have confirmed that HF series matches HDV models, and newer HF-S devices surpass the image quality of all HDV cameras.

4X3 or 16X9
 

Stuart,

I initially started this effort using an SD camera. When the HV30 was purchased, I just continued with SD. These DVDs are typically seen by senior citizens, terminally ill, and usually don't have an HD TV. Our church has installed cheap DVD players in some of the homes. So to this point, my only experience is using SD footage and a default template in Vegas. I am a little lost on the HD conversation.

Now they wanted a second camera to get a different view of the people during the church service. I record the initial footage on a Firestore, so I don't have to download from a tape each week (time saver). In that same philosphy, I wanted to record to Flash memory, so I could just take the flash card home to do my video editing.

So it sounds like I need to set the HV30 at HDV and the new camera will be recording in AVCHD. If I need to end up with a SD DVD, is there anything I need to do different to obtain the desired results? Since I now render to SD, can I use the same template?

Chris, the new AVCHD cameras don't have DV modes, regardless of the quality setting, they all shoot 16:9 footage. On the HV30, you can choose HDV, which is 16:9, DV Normal (4:3) or DV Wide (16:9 anamorphic).

Mixing 4:3 footage with 16:9 footage on a timeline is more complex because you need to decide whether the project will be:

a) 16:9, in which case you'd have to either zoom your 4:3 footage, losing resolution, or pillar box it, placing black bars either side, or:

b) a 4:3 project, in which case the sides would need to be cropped from the 16:9 footage to create 4:3 frames.

If, however, you shoot HDV or DV Wide on the HV30, everything will be 16:9 on the timeline, so although the resolution will change, you only need to worry about one aspect ratio during editing, and no cropping or zooming. HDV seems the logical choice since you gain in terms of quality and for storage purposes the file sizes aren't any larger than with DV.

When you render, you can use a standard widescreen DVD template, every DVD player - including the most inexpensive - will play the disc and either letterbox or pan/scan it. If you really do want a 4:3 production, then once you've finished editing your clips, save your project then nest it into another in Vegas, and pan/crop accordingly before rendering using a 4:3 DVD template.

You might find that you want to use pan/crop (and even track motion) on individual clips and that's fine, with HDV and AVCHD you've got ample resolution to play with if the end result is going to be SD.

My advice would just be to experiment, but to answer your initial question, no, there won't be any issues mixing footage from the two cameras on one time line, just a few more creative possibilities to consider!

Stuart,

Thanks for the explanation and recommendations. I will start my testing with this Sunday's service and use your ideas.

Thanks again,

Chris

First test complete
 

Stuart,

Well I did some testing, setting the HV30 to HDV and the HF200 (camera we got) to 1440X1080. I set it for SD wide. When I rendered the footage and made the DVD as SD. I got two horizontal black bars top and bottom of the standard TV screen. I am assuming that is what I should be expecting. When you wrote:

"When you render, you can use a standard widescreen DVD template, every DVD player - including the most inexpensive - will play the disc and either letterbox or pan/scan it. If you really do want a 4:3 production, then once you've finished editing your clips, save your project then nest it into another in Vegas, and pan/crop accordingly before rendering using a 4:3 DVD template."

I am assuming that the next step is to do this to "fill up" the standard TV screen. Correct?

That sounds about right, although I think you mean SP on the HF200, which is also 1440×1080.

If you use a 1440 project in Vegas, then the aspect ratio is 16:9, which of course is correct and it matches your footage. When you render, an SD 4:3 template will attempt to preserve the entire image area, so to retain the width you'll get those black bars top and bottom.

Personally I'd render to a 16:9 widescreen format and let the player decide what to do if someone has a 4:3 TV, but if you really want a 4:3 disc then...
Edit and save your project as above (which means your master is both HD and 1440), then open a new project in Vegas, find the first project file (extension .veg) and drag it onto the timeline. Right-click it, select "Properties" and make sure the PAR is correct, it should be 1.3333:1). Doing this "nests" the first project into a new one. Set the new project properties to NTSC DV (720×480).

What you'll then see in the preview window is a 4:3 image area with letterbox black bars. So here's the trick... Click the "Track Motion" button on the video track, then "zoom" the square so that the image fills your 4:3 frame. Because your nested project is HD, you can zoom without a noticeable loss of quality, even more so if you shoot in a progressive mode.

There are a few positive factors in doing things this way. 1) Notice that you can add key frames to the track motion and not only zoom, but move the frame from side-to-side. This essentially, is panning and scanning, like converting a movie to be shown on TV. If your subjects aren't in the centre of the frame, then you can move the frame to one side or another, and back again (set the keyframe motion to "smooth" by right-clicking on it to avoid jerky pans). 2) At no point is the nested Veg altered and you can still edit it individually.

Once done, you can render out using the SD 4:3 DVD template and you'll be all set. Sounds a bit complicated, but you'll soon get the hang of it and you'll always have those HDV masters, should you capture something amazing!

Thanks Stuart. I will be trying this tonight!