Topic: SD on Bluray

[yousef]

I own a very decent SD camcorder plus a HD one that performs pretty poorly in low (or even pretty average) light. This has meant that I'm tending towards the SD cam for home videos and gig footage.

As I understand it, standard DVD resolution works out at about 2GB per hour of footage, whereas the raw footage from the SD cam is about 13GB per hour. My question is: what benefits would I see if rather than compressing to MPEG-2 for DVD I burned the uncompressed (or less compressed) footage to Bluray?

Would the results be smoother or crisper or more detailed or would the difference be so slight as to make it a pointless exercise? Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

[stantheman1976]

MPEG-2 footage for DVD doesn't work out to any specific size per hour.  It all depends on the bitrate you use.  The max bitrate you can use for DVD without risk is about 9.8MBps, including whatever audio codec you choose.  You can fit approximately 1 hour with LPCM audio at that rate.  The video would be 8MBps and the audio 1.4.  At this bitrate using any decent encoder the compressed footage should still look like the original to any normal person.  When you go over the 1 hour mark you have to start going down with your bitrate and decide whether to use AC3 audio or LPCM.  DVD footage has to be MPEG-2 compression.  That is standard. 

SD footage on MiniDV tape is compressed at 25MBps which when transferred over firewire works out to 13GB per hour.  You can burn this to Blu-Ray as data but it will not play the video as a normal Blu-Ray.  Blu-Ray does allow a couple different compressions schemes and much higher bitrate so it's more flexible than DVD but you still have to compress the video into a different format than your raw video to get it to play on a normal Blu-Ray player.

[yousef]

Ah - thanks for that.

Guess it's more excuse to spring for a better HD cam...

[beatkilla]

What cameras are you using SD and HD?

[yousef]

SD = Canon XM1
HD= Panasonic TM10

[beatkilla]

I was looking thru the bhphoto source books for the specs on your cameras and i found the xm2 but not xm1 i beleive thats a 3 chip cam.Is the panasonic new?i dont see it but if its not a 3 chip similar to the canon than it wont compete. I have sony cx 500 small handycam that is 1 chip and is excellent in lowlight.id sell all your cameras and save for something newer.

[yousef]

I was looking thru the bhphoto source books for the specs on your cameras and i found the xm2 but not xm1 i beleive thats a 3 chip cam.Is the panasonic new?i dont see it but if its not a 3 chip similar to the canon than it wont compete. I have sony cx 500 small handycam that is 1 chip and is excellent in lowlight.id sell all your cameras and save for something newer.

The Canon is a three-chip cam and I'm loathe to sell it given the low-light capabilities of most midrange (and even some rather expensive) HD cams. The Panasonic was an impulse buy because it was a great price (less than GBP150 for a reconditioned model) and it's perfect for family stuff - dead light, great quality footage outdoors and effectively disposible - if I dropped it and killed it, it wouldn't be too great a loss.

I'd really like to pick up one of the 3-chip Panasonic HDC TM-700 cams but they're a little too expensive for me at the moment. Hoping to get a Sanyo Xacti HD2000 in the interim though - seems to have the best low-light performance in its class and can be had for good prices secondhand.

I've had a look at your Sony and it seems very nice, especially in terms of low-light performance but looks to be a non-UK model at present. I do like the idea of 32GB of onboard storage though - I'm sure there must be a European equivilent... Thanks for the advice.

[tailschao]

I was looking thru the bhphoto source books for the specs on your cameras and i found the xm2 but not xm1 i beleive thats a 3 chip cam.Is the panasonic new?i dont see it but if its not a 3 chip similar to the canon than it wont compete. I have sony cx 500 small handycam that is 1 chip and is excellent in lowlight.id sell all your cameras and save for something newer.

The Canon is a three-chip cam and I'm loathe to sell it given the low-light capabilities of most midrange (and even some rather expensive) HD cams. The Panasonic was an impulse buy because it was a great price (less than GBP150 for a reconditioned model) and it's perfect for family stuff - dead light, great quality footage outdoors and effectively disposible - if I dropped it and killed it, it wouldn't be too great a loss.

I'd really like to pick up one of the 3-chip Panasonic HDC TM-700 cams but they're a little too expensive for me at the moment. Hoping to get a Sanyo Xacti HD2000 in the interim though - seems to have the best low-light performance in its class and can be had for good prices secondhand.

I've had a look at your Sony and it seems very nice, especially in terms of low-light performance but looks to be a non-UK model at present. I do like the idea of 32GB of onboard storage though - I'm sure there must be a European equivilent... Thanks for the advice.

FWIW, the newly released Canon HF G10 has probably the best low light performance of the current crop of camcorders. Canon have finally gone back to the single, low resolution sensor concept and judging from reviews I've read, it shows. Single low-res chip, of course, provides better low light because the sensor is larger and therefore the pixels are larger, allowing higher light gathering ability.

Don't get me wrong, it's expensive as all hell, but, I'm just saying.

[Brian E.]

I recommend Canon as well.  Here is video in an outdoor space (Zoo) from 40 feet back or so - with the HF200, which is a couple years old now.  I've since upgraded to the HFS200.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LowmjxoLPuA

[yousef]

Thanks for the recommendations. Canon definitely looks like a serious contender. Serious cash too, though...

[robeti]

I would advice you to buy a panasonic.
I have used several panasonics (gs19, gs27, gs120) and canon (mvx40) as well.

Canon is good. Panasonic is better.

Get a hdc-sd600 for the video. They are really cheap at the moment and have the same lens/video quality as the more expensive panasonic HD cams.
Record audio seperately. Although the hdc sd600 records audio quite nice, it's lossy.