Dance concert in progressive?
 

Hi all - I only shoot a couple of concerts a year and in the past i've always shot them SD but this year I won't have that option as a couple of the cams I'll be shooting only shoot in HD. (JVCHM700's - the other cameras JVC101E's which will shoot standard def)

The only common format to all 4 cameras is 720P25 - I'm wondering if this will work with how fast dance concerts can move or whether I'll see too much progressive "stutter" - I'm assuming that if I do it this way I'll shoot 720P25 with 1/50th shutter.

My other option would be to shoot the two older cameras in SD and shoot the newer cams in 1080i50 and downconvert in post.

The other question is just simply how to then get the best results downconverting to SD-DVD? I use Avid and ProCoder and have CS3, BorisRED etc... so plenty of options.

Can you shoot in 720p50?

This format downconverts the best to DVD and the motion is great.

I use Edius and select Mpeg output from the HD timeline with a conversion to DVD resolution.

Unfortunately only the newer cams shoot 720P50 or I would have gone that route for sure. There is a 576P50 mode (extended def) on the 101E's but then I'd be dealing with different raster sizes.

The shutter is not the issue, the slower framerate that causes the stutter.

Sounds like your best bet is to shoot interlaced.

Can you do a test before? Use some HD interlaced material and produce a DVD from the footage?

I did some testing recently and the HD interlaced stuff looked really good (no jaggies) on DVD. But the source material was full raster which I think makes a big difference in the downconvert process.