Panasonic HDC-HS700 & HDC-TM700 1080p60 cams - Page 81

I thought you h to SNAP it in? I want to be able to put my condenser mike on the accessory shoe and every video I saw shows it as an accessory you snap in???

Xtreme, there is a setting that keeps the lens at infinity. Lots of things in the instruction manual. I believe it's one of the scene modes.

An interesting test might be this, for those with a fine tm700. Do like I did and just turn it on and let it warm up for an hour. Doesn't even have to be recording. After it is warm and the fan is on, close the lcd and cover the mic. Yes I realize you'd never do this, not my intent. But I can say that mine sounds perfectly fine, even after warm and the fan running. Close the lcd and then cover the mic....and it sounds exactly like that in the tornado video. This is why I sorta think mine is actually fine. Water just covered it and maybe the lcd blew shut. It seems there is no issue other than that one part of it getting wet/covered and I sorta am presuming that the lcd must have blown shut then too(given how much difference I can hear just closing the lcd otherwise).

Thanks for that info! I actually read most of that damn thing. Will look for that I guess. Maybe landscape mode. I probably just skipped over the scene modes not caring about them.

I bought some OFFICIAL PANASONIC batteries and want to get a second charger for them. Every charger I see says it will NOT charge the official Panasonic batteries. Do I need a PANASONIC CHARGER or can I get an after market one and which one??

Thanks...

I see, thanks for the info. You should dig up that thread where a user did what you wanted to do. I think they tested the TM700 with the Rode SVM and the Azden SMX-10 external mics and after looking at the freq in an audio program, decided that the internal mic was the way to go. Rather interesting findings actually. Actually, here it is: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...tm700+external

Add on: By the way, just re-recorded your tornado clip and analyzed the audio. Found your fan noise started at 1,150 KHz and then up'ed to 1,250 KHz as it whined up. For the record, all quiet environment fan noise freq were in the 800-1000 Hz range. So in an extreme environment, fan freq went up. Now that I think about it, it could be that the LCD was closed indeed? Or maybe the wind storm was stressing the fan motor and it was compensating to keep up? Or as you mentioned, the mic could be covered with rain at that moment. Just a few guesses. After isolation and removal, I was able to hear your entire clip without the fan noise and what ever freq were in the 1,250 KHz range. Adobe Soundbooth is an amazing piece of software.


Thanks for uploading those! They would be very valuable. Also, the -6dB + AGC on sounds like a better way to go than the -9dB. Just a hunch since you are not cutting off as much input signal. Great tip! Let's see if any of the users with the fan noise issue can get some relief with this tip!

Well if that's the case, then you may have a typical unit with very little noise. This is why I post what I do, it takes very little to create 'AVS hysteria'. I can't tell you how many times I've seen it for issues that turned out to be non-issues.

If I were you i'd test your unit thoroughly. If all is OK, then fine. If not swap it out.

How would you do -6db PLUS AGC?? AGC usually overrides manual gain settings.

for those with the fan noise that they say they can here.. does a good condenser mic SOLVE the issue? I have one I have been using on my SD1 and I am going to use it on my 700 when it arrives.. when a condenser do I leave it on AGC or should I change the setting to something else?

has anyone used a Audio-Technica PRO 24-CM with the 700? how does it work? is it short enough not to be seen in the lens?

Thanks..

Thanks for both of those! Very useful. Figures, I believe that Azden is what I have on the way here. Might have to just get one of those muff things for it for wind noise. I've never used an external mic so had no idea what to even expect on wind, just figured they'd do better than the internal deal. Evidently not. At least without an added muff on there. Buy one new thing, plan on buying 10 other new things lol. Like gotta upgrade premiere pro 1.5 now or get something else. Deal with the mic thing. Next my year old computer won't be up to the task lol. External hard drives now. Then gotta get a blu ray burner. Least I already have tmpgenc 4.0 express to make the files for blu ray. Unless I upgrade to premiere pro CS5 and it actually out performs tmpgenc now.

That's great to hear on the soundbooth thing. Looks like that will be another thing to get lol. Unless they have that ability in CS5 itself. Either way it is amazing to me that something can isolate and remove that!

A combo of several things probably helped that be as loud as it is there. I think the first is I bet that lcd did close by then. I clearly remember getting sick of trying to hold it back open then. And before then not only did all that rain get in on the mic and cover that up(you can hear it almost gurgling before that, on the longer clip) but that rain was also obviously going in where the fan was(whether that hole draws or blows, the wind was certainly forcing the rain in there too). And by then yeah the camera was surely as warm as it is going to get. So covered mic with water, covered fan with water, lcd door probably going closed, and warm cam. It really did seem automatic how the camera bumped up the fan speed upon door closure today.

Anyway thanks for all the useful info on here. I've learned a lot today on all this.

One thing's for sure, a tape-based cam would have died an ugly death during that storm!

I could have sworn I'd read somewhere that this camera does 1080i, 720p and 720i. Care to enlighten me on what HA, HG, HX & HE actually mean? Because the instruction manual only says they have varying image quality.

The main HD modes are 1080 60p, 1080 60i and 1080 24p within 60i in which you need something like NeoScene to fix.

It's the HMC40 which has 720p modes as well as a native 1080 24p mode.

I hear you about one purchase can lead to all kinds of upgrades!

Soundbooth is separate from CS5 unfortunately.

The feeling is mutual. Thanks for sharing, your experiences definitely shed some good light in the fan noise issue. I hope you don't have to torment your TM700 anymore with all the rain water! It can't last like that can it?

So you can use tmpgenc 4.0 express to make a Blu-Ray disc then? Does it re-sample to 30p or 24p? I am still trying to figure all this out. Since most 1080P TVs are progressive, I wonder if the TV itself converts all input signals to 60P then?

The HS700 like the HS300 has the accessory shoe on top of the camera. the TM700 like the TM300 has the accessory shoe on a separate shoe adapter, which is inserted into a special adapter holder at the right side of the camera.

What you've read was wrong. Also, there is no 720i, it just does not exist. HA, HG, HX & HE are Panasonic's abbreviations for different bitrates from 6 Mbit/s to 17 Mbit/s.

I'm not sure what you mean by that. Production Premium CS5 includes Premiere, Encore, Photo Shop, Aftereffects and yes it includes Soundbooth as well as other programs that I didn't mention. That impressive package will cost you $1,700 unless you can get the student version which can cost as low as $360 depending on the school.

Thanks for the added info. The original question was whether Soundbooth was included with CS5. I just assumed CS5 = Adobe Premiere CS5. But yes, Soundbooth is included with The Master Suite and Production Premium.

So may I ask will there be any difference if I was to purchase Production Premium and add a few other programs like Dreamweaver and Acrobat Pro. Will there be any difference compared to purchasing the Master Suite? I don't need Indesign, all the Flash stuff, Fireworks or Contribute. Just wanted to make sure I am not going to be missing anything. I am pretty sure Production
Premiumalso has Adobe Dynamic Link. Any ideas?

Since this camera can only shoot natively at 24p and 60p, when you export from 60p to 30p doesn't the result look like you've shot the footage at a much higher shutter speed?

If you shot at 30p and displayed at 30p, the motion blur would look natural. But if you shot at 60p and converted to 30p, the motion blur between frames would be too small, and the motion looks "staccato."

Does anyone notice this with their 60p ---> 30p videos? Some of footage I've seen with motion looks this way.

That is a good point. I have not been able to track down any specifics yet. All the "wow" videos from Vimeo are the raw MTS files. It would be great if someone could upload an MP4 that has been post processed that is going from 60p to 30p. Or someone get that 60p to 60i? Not even sure if that is possible or can the camera do this on the fly during export?

The "700" cannot shoot natively in 24p. In shoots in regular 60i, 24p-over-60i and 60p.

It stutters more because of lower image rate.

Nope. Motion blur is exactly the same. There is no blur between the frames, there is blur in the frames. This blur depends entirely from shutter speed, which does not change when you simply drop half of frames. In this particular case "staccato" comes from lower image rate. Motion blur at 1/30 does not look natural, it is excessive. Motion blur at 1/60 looks more natural, and this is the shutter speed that you use for 30p, 60i and 60p. If you want to slow 60p down instead of dropping every other frame you might want to use 1/120 instead.

All videos you watch on YouTube or Vimeo and on most other sites are at most 30p. So, instead of downloading a raw file just watch it online and compare.

I have some clips up on YouTube that speak to this. I am lucky enough to have Sony Vegas Pro 9 which handles 1080p/60 editing without fuss. The difficulty with 1080p/60 material is not so much the editing, because there are at least a FEW options. Rather, the difficulty is that there is no content delivery method. By that I mean there is no hardware-independent method of getting native footage to your audience. Blu-ray specs do not include 1080p/60 or even 1080p/30 at 28Mbps.

So, what if you want to share your footage with people? Well, currently the two best options for web delivery are YouTube and Vimeo. Vimeo resamples every upload, native or not, to 24 FPS. The step from 60p to 24p or even 30p to 24p is suboptimal in my opinion, therefore I have started using YouTube which encodes to 30p, and if you submit a file that is already in that framerate, no resampling is done! Vimeo resamples even if you submit a 24p file.

Anyway, here is my workflow for the samples you see on YouTube:

1. Import raw MTS files from memory card to PC
2. Open native MTS files in Sony Vegas Pro 9.0e
3. Disable resample and motion blur in Sony Vegas project settings
4. Perform any editing tasks
5. Export to 1080p/30 using Main Concept codec at 14Mbps (mp4 file)
6. Upload to YouTube

I uploaded two examples, one at 1080p/60 and let YouTube resample to 1080p/30 - this conversion was good, but not as good as when I uploaded a 1080p/30 file that underwent no framerate resample at YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmBcGfj18bo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9EVR_Yek2A

I thought this was another Panasonic oddity as well. Yet, the manual mode allows these mic setup parameters to be set independently of each other. In my tests, I noted that AGC actually has more of an effect on the front channel, so it's good for dialog, although the effect is subtle.

Thanks for the good info. This all makes much more sense now. So if Youtube is the best method to share 60p video from the TM700, then the final video should be exported at the Youtube default setting (at least for today's Youtube) = 1080p/30. Got it. I wonder if Premiere Pro CS5's preset for Youtube is this? Interesting.

I am surprised at how much jaggedness is apparent in the roof of the blue bird feeder in both Youtube videos you shared. At full screen, it is very apparent. Even at the extended width and not full screen, it is still there! I guess we just have to wait until there is a better way to share edited footage! What about 1080p/60 that a computer can output to a large HDTV?

I think that was a result of the sharpening filter I was trying out in Vegas. YouTube's encoder doesn't like that filter.

You're right. The more I think about it, I don't know what I was thinking.


The videos I saw must have been at fast shutter speeds.

Thanks for the clarification!

Hi guys!

Thanks for a lengthy and informative thread.

Since the issue of fan noise is still a very much active topic in here, and that one of the main suggestions is lowering the mic input sensitivity to -9dB, it could be worth reminding that this really doesn't solve or even improve anything.

This value is only ment be changed when one expects to record audio that could potentially cause distorsion and clipping due to high sound pressure levels at the default setting. When you change the sensitivity you are just altering the reference level, and you would get the exact same result by just lowering the volume on your computer or TV on playback. And vice versa, set the camera to -9dB and raise the volume on your playback device by the same amount and your back to square one. It does nothing to fix the issue.

Quite the contrary if one is picky, "normal" amplitude audio such as dialogue will be recorded with a lower (=worse) signal to noise ratio @-9dB, resulting in a potentially noisier recording (practical difference is probably negligible though).

As a side note, I own a SD700 and have no issues with the fan whatsoever.

Cheers,
Erik

Not really, unless you're pushing it. You wouldn't normally try to use a 1/30th sec. shutter speed at 1080/60p OR 1080/30p. But you can, for the latter, if you like. But it's still more typical to use a faster speed... I mean, the TM700 supports up to 1/8000th sec. The only visible difference between 60p and a 30p downconvert would be for 30p video shot below 1/60th sec.


The critical thing to keep in mind: frame rate only limits the bottom end of shutter speed. Unless I'm going below 1/60th sec, there's no difference.


30p ALWAYS looks less fluid than 60p, regardless of the shutter speed. And sure, if you want motion blur, use a slower shutter speed. But that's applicable to both 60p and 30p.

If your video editing software hard good interpolation, you might try interpolating frames rather than dropping them, in the frame rate conversion, to deliver the motion-blur effect. But if the video were shot at a high speed, this might look weirder still.