1080i vs 720P

[Jason McKelvey]

I've been trying to find information on the web on the future of HD. I'm curious as to how 1080i will survive when a vast majority of home display products are native progressive... namely plasmas, LCDs, and DLPs. Along with the announcement that Sony will stop manufacturing of CRT monitors in favor of LCDs makes me wonder why anyone would invest in interlaced technology. At this point, our church is getting ready to purchase our first HD camera for our overflow room delivery, and other churches have said they wished they had bought 720P cameras because the 1080i camera they have causes interlaced artifacts. As we get ready to put in multiple HD cameras in our church for broadcast, it forces us to think about investing in a format that will have staying power. My gut tells me that Progressive technology will prevail. Of coarse 1080P would be the best, but it's rare at this point, and the cost of storage would be huge, plus who has the bandwidth to broadcast it? So, I think 720P will win. 720P aquisition, uncompressed editing, 720P delivery via HD broadcasting matched pixel to pixel to a home with a progressive display vs a bunch of scaling using interlaced... I don't know. Any thoughts? Don't confuse this with cinema, I'm talking made-for-TV here.

 

Jason

[Brian Wells]

My big brother faces a similar scenario here in Amarillo. They're building a new sanctuary "in the round". It's a design which offers maximum seating capacity for the lowest denominator yet creates enormous technical considerations.. For example, the worship leader here moves around the stage quite a bit... With eight cameras plus a jib following the movement, focusing on any camera could be a real chore as the distances with lenses already at telephoto could vary greatly as the guy moves from one side of the stage to the other.. Does that make any sense?

 

The solution may be in Fujinon's box lenses which have a tracking focus capability that is purported to be quite accurate. So far as camera systems, I don't know if a decision has been reached. The technical merits of both systems (1080i60, 720p60) have been discussed by minds much broader than mine and both systems are currently in use today.

 

I think the 720p60 is "good enough" and coincidentally consumes the same bandwidth as 1080i60 in a recorded or broadcast stream because of the difference between full frames vs. fields.. The term "1080p" (SFAIK) refers to 1080p30, which is really 30PsFps recorded within a 1080i60 package, in which case, it, too, consumes identical bandwidth on all levels as both 720p60 and 1080i60.. So, it's really a matter of where the "HD" is, either in resolution (i) or full frames (p), in a manner of words. 1080p30 is sort of the better of both worlds but still leaves something to be desired as 30 motion samples a second is really pushing it for live events, imho, but great for feature production.

 

Could recommend a great television systems engineer/designer if your church is looking for a good guy to help sort of some of the technical stuff and no, it's not me. His name is C.R. Caillouet.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Brian

Edited June 7, 2005 by Brian Wells

[David Mullen ASC]

Some people have actually complained that progressive-scan looks too much like film and not enough like a live video show, like for broadcast of the MTV Awards, when they switched to 24P (although I guess using 60P for shooting & playback would get rid of that 24P look...)

 

HD sporting events too are generally shot in 1080/60i, because they are meant to look "live" plus fast-moving sports looks less strobey compared to 24P.

 

So I actually don't see 1080/60i going away for awhile, not for non-film applications like live sporting and music events.

 

By the way, the other day I caught this cooking show on TV Food Network called "Everyday Italian", hosted by Giada De Laurentiis. For a moment, I thought it looked odd, like it was shot in Super-16. Then I realized that it was probably a 24P shoot, which is rare for a cooking show. Just felt different, instead of a live video cooking show, it felt like a film commercial was running. It almost felt like it was something from the past rather than something happening right then.

 

So I would choose between 720P and 1080i more on the basis of whether I wanted a film look from capturing progressive scan or not.

[Tim J Durham]

By the way, the other day I caught this cooking show on TV Food Network called "Everyday Italian", hosted by Giada De Laurentiis.  For a moment, I thought it looked odd, like it was shot in Super-16.  Then I realized that it was probably a 24P shoot, which is rare for a cooking show.  Just felt different, instead of a live video cooking show, it felt like a film commercial was running. It almost felt like it was something from the past rather than something happening right then.

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think that's the best looking show on the Food Network.

 

As for the original post,

<i>

At this point, our church is getting ready to purchase our first HD camera for our overflow room delivery, and other churches have said they wished they had bought 720P cameras because the 1080i camera they have causes interlaced artifacts. As we get ready to put in multiple HD cameras in our church for broadcast, it forces us to think about investing in a format that will have staying power.</i>

 

Am I the only one who has a problem with CHURCHES, living off the tax-free largess of the government trough, funded by tax-payers like me (who have no say in said use of tax dollars) purchasing multiple $200K camera packages when thousands (if not millions) of people in this country are eating out of dumpsters?

 

Seems feeding some of those people would be a more Christian use of that money. You can spread the good news with a PD-150 for Gods sake.

 

Sorry for the rant but that's a damn disgrace.

[Jason McKelvey]

Also check out Nigela Bites, it's shot 24P (or maybe 25P) as well, very similar look.

 

Brian, if that church is looking for cameras right now, have them check out Thomson Grass Valley cameras. They have a focus assist circuit that puts a crawl (like tiny ants) around objects in focus. I saw it at NAB and it is amazing. We are considering the LDK6000s, which shoot 24P but do the 3:2 pulldown in the camera, so the switcher and decks so a standard 60P signal. GVG cameras cost a little more, but our church is looking at them because we like that cinematic look like you see on MTV productions and concerts. We are trying to stay relevant to the masses, who are now very technically savey and won't watch 2 seconds of poor quality. Why watch a preacher when you can watch ER? We would shoot our entire show 720 HD, 24P 16:9 if we had the cameras right now.

 

David, a friend of mine who works on sports trucks a lot said that sports trucks are leaning toward 720P because of interlaced motion artifacts in 1080i, not to mention slow-mo looks great in 720P. I guess the answers will come in time.

 

TimJBD

If you have questions you would like to discuss, my email is JasonM@calvaryftl.org

 

Jason

[David Mullen ASC]

David, a friend of mine who works on sports trucks a lot said that sports trucks are leaning toward 720P because of interlaced motion artifacts in 1080i, not to mention slow-mo looks great in 720P.  I guess the answers will come in time.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Depends on the frame rate at 720P -- are you talking about 24P, 25P, 30P, 60P?

 

24P-through-30P has a film look, but sports does not necessary benefit from that because of the strobing of fast motion from such a low sampling rate. As for interlaced-scan artifacts, we're already used to seeing interlaced-scan for live events so I'm not sure what they are referring to -- it's nothing new. "Artifacts" only appear when you try and convert interlaced-scan to progressive-scan.

 

So there are artifacts from progressive-scan as well -- motion artifacts like strobing from fast motion at low frame rates like 24, 25, and 30. 24 fps film has always suffered from that.

 

They could shoot sports at 720/60P, getting all the benefits of progressive-scan plus the benefits of a high sampling rate like 60i -- but that sort of limits your slow-motion capability, plus you might need more light if you also want to use a shutter.

 

Anyway, I really doubt you'll see a change in shooting sports to 24P. People like the clarity and "live" quality of 1080/60i for sporting events; you'd have to shoot at 720/60P to get a similar look.

[Jason McKelvey]

Oh, yeah, it's 60P for sports... I was just talking about 720P in general. For slow-mo a shutter is always used. How many times have you seen the freeze at the end of a replay that jiggles back and forth between fields? I'm beginning to understand why sports is going progressive. I don't know why, but there is an observable worsening of interfield blurring with 1080i HD that was less noticeable in SD interlaced. Read "The Guide to Digital Television" by Michael Silbergleid. It's old, but still a good read and he talks about this phenominon. Also, because 1080i is interlaced, you only see half the resolution at a given moment, so isn't that morelike 540 lines every 1/60 of second vs. 720 lines progressive?

 

J

[Brian Wells]

Also, because 1080i is interlaced, you only see half the resolution at a given moment, so isn't that morelike 540 lines every 1/60 of second vs. 720 lines progressive?

Some call it 540P, but that's a misnomer because only horizontal lines are affected, not vertical.

Since vertical lines remain unaffected it's still "about the same".

 

540x1920 every 1/60th of a second

720x1280 every 1/60th of a second

 

Brian

[Tenolian Bell]

Just read an article in The New York Times Magazine.

 

It was speaking about the growing fear in on camera talent of the coming of HD broadcast.

 

The article reflected on facial blemishes and wrinkles that previously could not be seen, being very noticeable in HD.

 

I would imagine this mostly comes from 1080 60i, which as far as I've seen in the harshest and most unforgiving of all the HD formats.

 

The article discussed on air news anchors going in to look at getting some early preventative plastic surgery, to head off facial lines. The article also pointed out people who are older and have gotten more drastic cosmetic surgery, that HD actually highlights any inconsistencies in lines and shapes in the face. So that drastic cosmetic surgery may not help but may even make it worse.

 

I'm not surprised by that. Being in Hollywood, I've seen many people who you can tell with the naked eye have obviously had cosmetic surgery. You look at them and think to yourself "is that what you really wanted to look like?"

 

So I imagine that will be amplified in a studio with bright lights and the crispness of 1080 60i.