1080 vs. 720 video in version 4 or 5

[texasmaverick]

Are the bigger 1080 files harder to work with or slower than 720? I have a Panasonic camera that takes 720 video and VideoStudio 4 seems to handle them pretty well.

I might be getting a Canon that can do 1080 for my upcoming honeymoon. Since DVDs go back down to 480i or whatever, does shooting in 1080 really add anything quality-wise when converting to back down to 480 DVD?

I don't have a blu-ray maker on my machine, but maybe someday so don't know if should shoot videos in 1080 or 720. So should I shoot 1080 just in case? Are the files a lot bigger?

[teknisyan]

The better the quality of a video the higher the file size, so if you shoot at 1080 then the file size will mostlikely be large. Regarding the output and creating DVD using the 1080 files, the quality will certainly be better than using an lower resolution files, but if you compare if to the 720 files, to the untrained eye, both will just be the same... just make sure that you set the bitrate to 8000 during the disc creation.

[aljimenez]

Are the bigger 1080 files harder to work with or slower than 720? I have a Panasonic camera that takes 720 video and VideoStudio 4 seems to handle them pretty well.

I might be getting a Canon that can do 1080 for my upcoming honeymoon. Since DVDs go back down to 480i or whatever, does shooting in 1080 really add anything quality-wise when converting to back down to 480 DVD?

I don't have a blu-ray maker on my machine, but maybe someday so don't know if should shoot videos in 1080 or 720. So should I shoot 1080 just in case? Are the files a lot bigger?

1080 vs 720 is one consideration. Another is frames per second. the higher the frames per second the more fluid the videos are and then you have slow motion possibilities with higher frames per second. NTSC is typically 30fps, PAL 25. Some cameras can do 60fps. Another consideration is interlaced vs progressive, with progressive giving higher quality. Having done videos for many years, the higher the quality I have captured my memories, the happier I am. Don't judge that you plan on using DVD's now, nor the size of files, but judge that in 10 years you will have more capable devices and you might want to make current videos look good then... Al

[Ken Berry]

Regarding Al's comment about frames per second, 720p video typically is filmed at 50/60 frames per second (PAL/NTSC). Before the advent of 1920 x 1080 camcorders which can film at the same framerate, 1280 x 720p video could in many situations provide a more fluid and notionally better quality than 1920 x 1080i filmed at half the frame rate and using interleaved video. Indeed, 1280 x 720p has been for some time the standard for high def TV broadcasts. So it is definitely not to be sneezed at. Moreover, versions of Video Studio from at least VS12 onwards, and I think even perhaps VS11+, could also handle and produce it. They had more difficulty with what was called AVCHD Lite, and that was 1280 x 720p but filmed at a non-interleaved 30 frames per second. More recent versions of VS can handle both, and X5 can also edit and produce AVCHD 50/60 fps at 1920 x 1080, where X4 and X3 required a rather more convoluted process to produce video with that framerate.