Edius Project settings for Canon XHA1

[avlab1]

Best or the right project settings for HDV from Canon XHA1 should it be:

1440 x 1080 59.94i or 14440 x 1080 29.97p?

(Capture and Playback I mean)


Thanks
Alex

[avlab1]

Any A1 user here?...

[Bluetongue]

Alex
The best setting for the camera and project are
1440 x 1080i, the Progressive (FSP) function on the camera is too jittery for me on movement but excellent results in Interlaced format
Hope that helps
Regards Barry

[kiril]

Alex
The best setting for the camera and project are
1440 x 1080i, the Progressive (FSP) function on the camera is too jittery for me on movement but excellent results in Interlaced format
Hope that helps
Regards Barry

Same here. I tried the progressive with A1, just to find that it is unusable on pans, etc.
Anyone managed to get good results with progressive mode on A1?

[jaegersing]

Same here. I tried the progressive with A1, just to find that it is unusable on pans, etc.
Anyone managed to get good results with progressive mode on A1?

I have a PAL version XH-A1 and use 25F mode for just about everything. Exceptions are fast action stuff or if I know in advance that I will want to apply slo-mo to the footage.

I always set the shutter speed to 1/50s which is very important. Any faster produces choppiness or stuttering when the camera or subject moves quickly. It's also important not to pan too fast because this also does not give smooth results. However, panning to follow the subject usually works fine. the background may stutter but it's not too important because the subject is the main focus and it should be smooth since it is moving with the camera.

Shooting interlaced is definitely easier, but I prefer the look of progressive so use it when possible. Sometimes I cheat a bit and shoot interlaced, then deinterlace in Edius using the Old Film filter. You lose a bit of vertical resolution but it still looks good to me. Anyway the camera must be doing something similar in frame mode because it's not a true progressive sensor in the A1.

Richard

[flickapolitan]

are you happy with the a1, is it the champ of hdv cams as is claimed

[kiril]

are you happy with the a1, is it the champ of hdv cams as is claimed

I do not own one, but use it frequently.
I am not. Despite the written above I find progressive mode not usable.
And, frankly speaking, with the much cheaper HG10 (well, with the current disadvantages of AVCHD) I get at least the same picture quality.
With external mixer and mikes, I get very good sound too.
(A1 is good about sound).
If I need to compare frankly 60i between A1 and HG10... I cannot find anything so much better in A1 to justify the price. Unless you want to hold a bigger piece.
HG10 has the same problems in Progressive as A1. I am tired trying to make it look ok (converters, shooting manner, etc.). You are not supposed to think how you shoot because of camcorder's limitations - rather the camcorder must fit into your expectations.

So, A1 has a lot of buttons, menus, etc., but the overall quality is not higher than that of a high-end 'consumer' HD, IMHO, of course.

Well, optics, of course are better, I forgot this :) But when I look at the result on the screen at the end... I cannot tell - WOW, this is A1 - see HOW good it is! :)

Kiril.

[jaegersing]

The A1 is very good and I like it very much. I agree with a lot of what kiril says though. I have an HV30 as well as an XH-A1 and find that the HV30 image can be very good, almost comparable with the A1. But the HV30 really needs good lighting conditions to perform well. Once the light levels drop, or you get high contrast scenes, there are not many things you can adjust on the HV30 to control what is recorded. It also requires a bit of effort to prevent it applying gain unnecessarily, and the lack of a built-in ND filter is a bit of a pain when shooting on a bright day.

Overall, I would much rather shoot with the A1, because I am more confident that I should be able to get good results with it every time. The HV30 is great for travelling though, and for shooting in places where large cameras attract a lot of attention or are not allowed.

Richard

[Khoi Pham]

I do not own one, but use it frequently.
I am not. Despite the written above I find progressive mode not usable.
And, frankly speaking, with the much cheaper HG10 (well, with the current disadvantages of AVCHD) I get at least the same picture quality.
With external mixer and mikes, I get very good sound too.
(A1 is good about sound).
If I need to compare frankly 60i between A1 and HG10... I cannot find anything so much better in A1 to justify the price. Unless you want to hold a bigger piece.
HG10 has the same problems in Progressive as A1. I am tired trying to make it look ok (converters, shooting manner, etc.). You are not supposed to think how you shoot because of camcorder's limitations - rather the camcorder must fit into your expectations.

So, A1 has a lot of buttons, menus, etc., but the overall quality is not higher than that of a high-end 'consumer' HD, IMHO, of course.

Well, optics, of course are better, I forgot this :) But when I look at the result on the screen at the end... I cannot tell - WOW, this is A1 - see HOW good it is! :)


Kiril.

The HG10 might have as good picture as A1 under good light but no way under low light or high contrast situation because of smaller chip and it only has 1 instead of 3, and it don't even have manual focus, how can a professional use a camera without manual focus? what a joke, the reason you think the A1 is not much better is because you don't use it to its full potential, there are tons of adjustment in the camera that you probably never goes into, it is ridiculous to say that a the quality is not higher than that of a highend consumer.
BTW progressive mode required different shooting technique, you have to shoot like film, follow 7 seconds panning rule, film camera lens has less depth of fields makine studder looks like much less when you pan and follow object, shooting in 24P required totally different technique and knowledge than your average Joe just grabbing a 60i camera and start shooting, the Canon 24P is true progressive, it is not useless if you know how to use it.

[kiril]

The HG10 might have as good picture as A1 under good light but no way under low light or high contrast situation because of smaller chip and it only has 1 instead of 3, and it don't even have manual focus, how can a professional use a camera without manual focus? what a joke, the reason you think the A1 is not much better is because you don't use it to its full potential, there are tons of adjustment in the camera that you probably never goes into, it is ridiculous to say that a the quality is not higher than that of a highend consumer.
BTW progressive mode required different shooting technique, you have to shoot like film, follow 7 seconds panning rule, film camera lens has less depth of fields makine studder looks like much less when you pan and follow object, shooting in 24P required totally different technique and knowledge than your average Joe just grabbing a 60i camera and start shooting, the Canon 24P is true progressive, it is not useless if you know how to use it.

May be I do not use it to its full potential, agreed.
Yes, I mostly shoot day light.

I disagree about progressive, however - even if you are careful with camera movements, you cannot control always what happens in front of it.
And I did try shutter speed modes and various other things to try to have a smoother image.
24P is intended to be closer to 'film' look. This is may be true when looking into a static frame. But when movement is involved I (Ok, me only) think that using interlaced gives better results and smoother picture. Combined with some effects in Edius I get better picture than what I was capable to achieve ever with A1's progressive.
Yesterday I took some shots from a dancing show, changing between 24P and 60i. Well, to me 60i gives better results...

[Khoi Pham]

May be I do not use it to its full potential, agreed.
Yes, I mostly shoot day light.

I disagree about progressive, however - even if you are careful with camera movements, you cannot control always what happens in front of it.
And I did try shutter speed modes and various other things to try to have a smoother image.
24P is intended to be closer to 'film' look. This is may be true when looking into a static frame. But when movement is involved I (Ok, me only) think that using interlaced gives better results and smoother picture. Combined with some effects in Edius I get better picture than what I was capable to achieve ever with A1's progressive.
Yesterday I took some shots from a dancing show, changing between 24P and 60i. Well, to me 60i gives better results...

That is why film is 24P, film is all control, everything is a set up, so if you don't have any control of what you are shooting, why shoot 24P?, that is not what it design for.

[avlab1]

I don't get it

Same here. I tried the progressive with A1, just to find that it is unusable on pans, etc.
Anyone managed to get good results with progressive mode on A1?

Thanks for your respond,
The reason I ask is not exactly a quality thing but RT performance, I don't get that much of real time out of Edius with the A1 footage. Just an overlap (crossfade) of two V tracks with some filters like for CC and it starts stuttering. Sometimes it not even starts play when I hit the spacebar. To be honest I change PC from a single processor 2.13 to a Quad 2.66 and I see no difference. (My PC is a HP Quad core 2.66, 4G Ram, two new 7200 Sata drives) I've read about others with near the same or even less power doing well in HDV, I don't get it. I can understand it if it were a QT file or maybe an uncompressed fle but can't understand why with Canopus HQ?

I normally shoot in HDV 60i, I capture via OCHI HDV using Canopus HQ codec 1440x1080 59.94i Where could the problem be? What could be the reason I don't get real time in my system?

Getting to export a 1 hour file is a nightmare, last time up to 8 hours! and to find out there was an error in it...
So any ideas before I loose my hair? I really appreciate it.

Alex

[kiril]

I don't think that the problem you have is related to A1 specifically.
I use hardware less powerful than yours and have no such problems - material captured from A1 (with the settings you mention) or converted from AVCHD - all works near RT. Well, not for complex effects and transitions - these need to be rendered, but it is pretty fast.
Check your OS settings. Configure your Antivirus s/w not to scan the disks/folders you store video on. Check for processes that might be taking CPU.
Have a look here:

http://stevestechguide.com/ultimate-windows-xp-optimization-tweak-guide/

Well, export is slow, yes. Last thing I did with 4.61 was 16 minutes and took me 90 minutes to export to WMV, Mpeg is even slower.

[pjsssss]

Thanks for your respond,
The reason I ask is not exactly a quality thing but RT performance, I don't get that much of real time out of Edius with the A1 footage. Just an overlap (crossfade) of two V tracks with some filters like for CC and it starts stuttering. Sometimes it not even starts play when I hit the spacebar. To be honest I change PC from a single processor 2.13 to a Quad 2.66 and I see no difference. (My PC is a HP Quad core 2.66, 4G Ram, two new 7200 Sata drives) I've read about others with near the same or even less power doing well in HDV, I don't get it. I can understand it if it were a QT file or maybe an uncompressed fle but can't understand why with Canopus HQ?

I normally shoot in HDV 60i, I capture via OCHI HDV using Canopus HQ codec 1440x1080 59.94i Where could the problem be? What could be the reason I don't get real time in my system?

Getting to export a 1 hour file is a nightmare, last time up to 8 hours! and to find out there was an error in it...
So any ideas before I loose my hair? I really appreciate it.

Alex

What is your project settings?