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Multicamera setup: 50i hacked or 25p HBR?
  • fatpigfatpig
    Hi guys, I just wanted to ask some of you maybe more experienced than myself.
    I am currently in pre-production of a multicamera live music shoot.
    For those of you who maybe already tried this-
    I will bring my GH2 and my HV30 (which also does 25p) to a shoot with already about 3-4 interlaced cameras there.
    GH2 of course will be main cam.

    The 30min limit will be a problem in the 3-hour long concert, but i can restart the cam. no biggie.
    From your experience, would you rather have hacked 50i or unhacked 25p in this live-event to intercut?
    target is DVD.

    Thanks, folks!
  • 2 Replies sorted by
  • balazerbalazer
    25p and 25i look quite different. Both are fine for DVD, so it really depends on which look you prefer. Cutting between 25p and 25i will be jarring, so I'd suggest you pick one. If you are intent on using all of your cameras and you target 25p, that means shooting progressive on the GH2 and HV30 and de-interlacing from the interlaced cameras. If you target 25i, set your HV30 and GH2 to shoot at 50 Hz. Are your interlaced cameras HD or SD? How important is it to you to have an HD version also? How much footage will you use from the interlaced cameras?

    If your interlaced cameras are HD, then personally I would target 480/25p. That means shooting 1080/25p or 720/50p on the GH2, and 25p on the HV30. All of those will downconvert to 480/25p very well, and give a nice, sharp picture that will look good when the DVD is upscaled for playback on an HDTV. I think hacked 720/50p is a better choice than 1080/25p HBR, because you'll avoid the 30-minute time limit and be able to shoot at higher bit rates. Having one long recording is going to simplify your life a lot when it comes to editing. You'll need to de-interlace from the interlaced cameras. Working this way you can get a good 720/25p version also.

    If your interlaced cameras are SD and you want to use more than a little bit of footage from them, then I think you should target 480/25i. On the GH2, shooting 720/50p will give the best 480/25i downconversion. On the HV30, shoot 1080i.

    If all of your cameras are HD and you want the most consistent look in HD across all of them, shoot 1080i. It will downconvert fine to 480i or 480/25p.
  • s_maurices_maurice
    Ive done a few of these now with various cams from GH2, GH1, Sony Z5 all the way down to old Sony dv tape SD handycams.
    IMO, Shoot progressive with anything that will, all the other interlaced cams convert to progressive before editing ( use a Yadiff deinterlace if you can)
    Drop it all into a 1080p comp, edit, export a 1080p master, down size with Virtual dub or TMPGenc ( something with a Lanczos resize tool) to 1024x576, then compress that to PAL 720x576 MPeg2.
    Tried a few different ways now this seems to work the best.
    Here is one I did recently

    good luck.
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