Doug Jensen from Vortex Media keeps making the point that shooting 1080 30p and converting it to 1080 60i in post for blu-ray delivery is preferable to shooting 1080 60i. He has made the point in another thread that 1080 30p converted to 1080 60i looks better than video shot at 1080 60i. See the following link: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/sony-xdca...080-24p-2.html and read post # 17.

Okay, in my opinion there's more to the 60i vs 30P debate than meets the eye.

1. When you're editing a project (with video, graphics, etc...) in 60i the motion will look smoother than 30P. For example, try doing a lower third text crawl in 30p. It looks terrible. Do the same thing in 60i and it looks perfectly smooth.

2. While I agree with Doug Jensen 99% of the time (I just ordered another one of his videos) I'm not sure I agree with his statement that it's a simple process to convert 30p to 60i. Maybe it's because I use a lot of graphics with sharp edges, but converting from p to i normally gives me jagged edges. You could probably get away with this if you're just converting your footage (no graphics).

This is a good discussion. :)

Since I am a hobbyist I don't do a lot of graphics except for titles for which I use Ulead Cool 3D Studio (yeah, I know it is rather "basic") and output 32 bit avi's as graphic overlays for my title shots. Since I am rendering from the timeline to a blu-ray legal format would that necessarily give me the jagged edges that you associate with 30p (in the final product) since the entire timeline (including the avi overlays) are being rendered to 60i at the same time?

Are you saying that on a 30p timeline you are seeing jagged edges with graphics both before and after rendering to a blu-ray format?

Viewing graphics (and video) in a 30P timeline looks great. It's when you try and convert it to a interlaced format (720i, etc...)that you have problems with jagged edges (aliasing)

It's easy to test. See for yourself. Maybe you'll figure something out that I haven't yet. :)

My preference is to shoot 25p whether it be 720 or 1080. I like the way it looks and can convert to most formats without scratching my head too much! Maybe I've watched too many films :)

Although on the EX1, 1080i is about twice as sensitive to light as 1080p30 or 720pXX. So, you don't have to shoot wide open for soft video or bump the gain for grainier video.

720p25 gains a stop over 1080p, I'd be guessing that the two (1080i and 720p25) are pretty close in terms of sensitivity.

Quoting Adam Wilt

Sensitivity

To measure sensitivity, I set the exposure of an 18% gray card at 50% on the waveform monitor with the camera in its default Standard Gamma 3. I metered the card with a Gossen Starlite and incident light with a Spectra Pro IV, and varied the ISO settings until the shutter speeds and apertures matched the camera (both meters agreed within 1/10 stop). I determined the sensitivity of the camera to be:
• ISO 400 in 1080p modes
• ISO 800 in 1080i modes (just as you’d expect: with dual-row summation, you get twice the sensitivity), and
• ISO 500 in 720p modes.
Apparently Sony is picking up some gain during downsampling to 720p, analogous to what happens in dual-row summation.

Not that I'm doubting his figures, but I'd figure at a stop between 720p and 1080p. It doesn't 'feel' such a minor difference.

Frame rates and interlaced/progressive are important issues, but I would put more emphasis on other aspects which directly affect the image. An important variable is the gamma curve and how you employ it, as has been discussed elsewhere on this forum. This link is to a very nice description of what is what, but in the general application rather then to the EX1/3 specifically; the information applies. ProVideo Coalition.com: Stunning Good Looks by Art Adams | Cinematography

I agree. The look of interlaced versus progressive footage isn't a big deal, especially when you compare 1080 60i to 720 60p.

But down the line, it can become a big problem if you are shooting interlaced and converting to progressive (for the web for example). The edges on text and graphics will look terrible with this type of conversion.

We just did a action sport film in the Nissan Outdoor Games in Chamonix. We decided to shoot 720 50P and it looked great in my opinion. Not video look, but not film look either, just really slick looking footage.
This way we easily dropped in overcranked 60fps footage that matched perfectly.

Before we have shot 1080 i and 25p when doing actionsports, btu the slo-mo have always stood out, and often you don´t manage to get smooth looking action in 25p.
I´d love to be able to shoot 1080 50P though.