For this I filmed a resolution chart on my computer screen from a distance, using Quantum 50-100 settings which use quality settings that are already over the line for 2fps be it AVCHD or MJPEG. I loaded the MOV files into AVIDemux and extracted 100% lossless snapshots to compare the various modes. Shot on M Movie Mode, aperture and shutter speed were both fixed.

Note: I'm only showing the relevant 100% screen captures but all the files generated in this test (and I tested both HD and VGA modes) weight in at 38.5MB and can be d/l here: http://www.mediafire.com/?u2h8ycc2c6vmj0a

Unless marked as AVCHD all other files are MJPEG.

Myth 1 - MJPEG 1080p is MJPEG 720p up-scaled.

Result: Plausible.

It's too close to call, really! Even though there is evidence of a very very small resolution advantage to 1080p, it is hardly noticeable and it could be a consequence of the input-output workflow of 720 being done in a smaller resolution.

Evidence: (look at the second image, I can't delete the first which is similar)

The average resolution for a full frame lens is around 45-50lp/mm and a great m43 lens is around 77-82lp/mm. The resolution charts shows the lenses at around 2000 - 2600 lines resolution maximum in still photos. Using a full frame lens in m43 sensor is worse because the sensor magnify the center area so the lp/mm will be half compared to same lens in a FF camera, a focal reducer can help a lot.

So the still lenses can work good up to 4k resolution, sometimes lower resolution than 4k video, and maybe for 8k video there will be the need of new special lenses, high price.

Considering that the indie people can buy only low price lenses, so work with 8k video will not make sense. 4k video is the maximum resolution for our photo/still lenses, no matter they are m43, aps-c or ff lenses.

Example: the 12-35 lens at f4 is around 77lp/mm in the image center, the GH4 sensor in 4k is 8.1mm height, doing the maths this lens will resolve around 1250 lines in GH4 4k video.

The new full frame Sigma Art 20mm 1.4 can do around 47lp/mm, so it will resolve around 770 lines in GH4 4k video. With a focal reducer this can increase to around 1080 lines. Most good Full Frame lenses are around a 50lp/mm maximum, and this is stoped down to f5.6

In a full frame camera, considering the sensor 36 x 20,25mm, this same sigma lens can resolve around 1900 lines.

The RGB bayer pattern decreases the camera resolution a little bit, around 1,33x less than the pixel count, so a 2160p video will deliver a maximum 1620 lines. The GH2 is 1080p and is around 810 lines.

Lens resolution is a good reason for Panasonic release new cameras with the multi aspect sensor, a bigger sensor can use more image area form the lens and record higher resolution, more lp/mm. The GH4 sensor is 8.1mm height, 1250 lines with the 12-35 lens. The multiaspect sensor with 3840x2160 pixels for video would be 10,09mm height, and could record 1560 lines from the same lens.

All these maths shows that 4k video is the sweet spot resolution for a video camera and for the lenses we can buy, and all these maths are in image center, in corners the lenses resolution is worst.

Sometimes I even got superblocking going there even uploading such huge files. I exported from After Effects and Premiere and even Vegas, and results are gorgeus on my computer and so on but I can still can't get to have the 360p resolution that I have seen around youtube for some famous music videos. For example Gangnamstyle at 360p looks rather nice.

My videos with issues:

Check out that super blocking at second 16. Notice how the title graphic looks great. May it be some wrong I-frame P B Frame setting? this one uploaded at 70mbps.

Check out throughout this whole clip how from 360p to 480p the change is massive

This videos on a 24inch screen are absolute sharp and added filmish grain too.

How can I manage to have youtube render my video the best possible at the 360p option? I guess changing some format settings to match youtube's or something may do the trick?

Vevo stuff:

Notice how at 360p the quality is rather ok. Do Vevo people get more bitrate or something? Upload uncompressed?

I find this rather important, it means the first sight viewers have of the piece. Even more important for me when I know 90% of the public enjoys it at 360p :(

Thanks for reading

Resolution: Cut down on alcohol consumption.

Why: I'm 43 years old, I have slowed down the drinking in the last few years - I don't have it in me to party like it's 1999 anymore. A few weeks ago a buddy of mine was in town and we went on a gin & tonic rampage. I woke up the next day with a huge gash on my arm and empty beer cans and Mcdonalds wrappers everywhere and no recollection of the previous night. I guess that's better than waking up next to a dead body or a 60 year old hooker but still.

How: I'd be kidding myself to think I could go cold turkey, as that always ends up in a binge. I want to limit my intake to 1-2 glasses of wine or beer a week, and no hard liquor.

We may still be years away from watching the sweet, sweet 33MP resolution video promised by Super Hi-Vision in our own homes, but over in Japan, NHK engineers are slowly working out the various kinks keeping it from us. Their latest development is this camera seen above on the left, capable of recording 8K in a camera head that is smaller and lighter than the previous unit (the new one weighs 4kg, about 1/5th the weight) shown on the right, and is more comparable to the size of a standard HDTV camera. According to the NHK the savings were achieved by developing a new single plate color imaging mechanism and eliminating the need for a prism to separate the colors beforehand, so it's small enough to be used with standard SLR camera lenses. Sure, it's not quite ready to go on your next vacation, but if you're in Japan you can get a peek at it (and that 145-inch 8K Panasonic plasma) at the broadcaster's open house later this month.

From www.engadget.com/2012/05/11/nhk-smaller-8k-super-hi-vision-camcorder/

With the advent of wifi dslr, mainly the D5300, I started to think about to get a smartphone to see the live view from the camera when I get one with wifi, so I started a fun research...and I found a cheap used old model with enough screen resolution... and I got it for a low price...

Problems started when I did some attempts to connect using the 3G network, as the seller promissed me it would do, but it just got connection in 2G, and then I found it was a model from other country and it would never work in 3G in my city... so I went back to the seller and got a discount... good deal!

But then this became a "happy problem". Why? Because this makes me realize lots of people are still using 2G connections around the world and youtube just enabled the 144p around 80kbps for mobile slow connections and also pc slow connections.

I saw some videos in 144p in youtube using the 2G smartphone, and it was fun... I just remember the old days when internet was analog fixed phone lines with 24Kbps speed and online videos was just a dream.

(hey you, the three halloween batmen flying around... go away!!! Let me type... LOL ps.: did you run away from an atari emulator? Mouse over you!!!)

The 144p videos are just enough in the smartphone screen to understand and get involved with the video, to imerse in the history telling... and the fun thing: no need to worry about shallow dof...240p and 144p is so small to show shallow dof...

Oh God, if online videos are your goal, yes you must care about dynamic range, resolution, shallow dof, and so on, but this 144p thing just makes me realize the old school lesson: good script and good sound: that's what really matters!!!...

There are researchs on internet (you just need to google it) that shows the average internet speed for computers around the world is 5Mbps (this is enough for youtube 1080p streaming or 720p vimeo streaming, vimeo demands more bit rate than youtube). But 5Mbps are the average speed for big cities, most people outside the big cities are still using 1Mbps or 1,5Mbps for PC connections, just enough for 360p online streaming, and here, the 3G mobile connections are 1Mbps, 500Kbps or 256Kbps, and the 2G mobile connections keeps in 30-200Kbps floating... 4G is coming, 3Gis spreading, but it takes time.

So again: there are lots of things which matters much more than the gear: good actors, good script, good misanscene... clothers, scenarios... and good script and sound. In some 144p videos from youtube I could feel the importance of good actors, because even in 144p videos bad actors are revealed and made me feel it was a so amateur production, not convincing, unpleasant to see.

I showed to a female model I worked with two videos in 6400 iso from T3i camera, one was original, other was denoised and with film grain. I asked her: did you found any difference in the image? which one was more beautiful for you? And she answered: Oh sorry I did not pay attention to this, I was watching the people talking... but as I can remember... I saw no difference... And then I started fo feel frustrated about my image quality pursuing behavior... Story telling... Why worry so much about gear? I can do the same thing with that old GX88U and PV5500 VHS combo from the early 80s...

After sometime using a smartphone I got pretty addicted to it. It is much more pleasant than a computer for internet surfing... and I believe it is better than a tablet also. I just can carry it around to any place, lightweight, and I can put it inside my pocket!!! I am very satisfied with 800x480 screen, but God... there are 1920x1080 screens in expensive smartphones! I think people who work with online videos must take into account the main device for online video viewing are smartphones and 640x360 (360p) in a 5 inch screen is the resolution and size to consider for aestetics.

i am a bit confused. I bought a "16:9 widescreen lens" glass and everything looks anamorphic, picture is stretched too. After playing around with the footage and VLC i recognised, that my footage with (i've used the Anamorphic LPowell Flowmotion Hack) 1920x810 looks stretched here an example:

A few days later i checkt on a "square note" paper and saw, that the image is streched. I endet up with 2.21:1 with 1920x868 resolution. Is that right or am i doing something wrong?

Thank you and best regards Emin

GH2 (Hacked): -Better Resolution -Higher ISO values -More native lenses -External Mic Jack -Swivel out LCD

NEX5N: -Better Low light Capability -Sensor has better crop factor -60p!( better Full HD slow motion potential) -Flatter Pictures Profiles

...and I sure I'm missing something for both, but it would be helpful if anyone could add anything else they know. I don't know which one has better AF/AF tracking for its lenses. Just thought that the Sony NEX 5N may, if hacked, have everything we have in the GH2, and more (of course with no mic jack). SOMEONE PLEASE HACK THE SONY NEX 5N, PLEASE!!!!

But whatever is happening, I'd have had to change browsers to see a YouTube version of @oscillian's Fantastic wedding video. - and even then, put up with the extra resolution (now minimum 360P instead of previous 240P, which was good for slow connections as well as low-cost).

Anyway, Google have done a few things to YouTube in the past few days, (including browser and Ad-Block incompatibility) which may have had something to do with it:

Google Unveils “Lightbox” Display Format, Pushes “Engagement” Metric

Advertising Week, Oct 2 2012

The company calls it “smart hover,” and says this type of expandable increases engagement by 6 to 8 times over click-to-expand ads. When the ad expands, it appears in the middle of the screen and dims the rest of the page behind it.

The pay-for-engagement model is similar to the “True View” video formats Google offers on YouTube and the Google Display Network (GDN). The company today released new metrics after analyzing 92 different ad campaigns and found that, on average, every $1 spent on YouTube resulted in $1.70 in sales. The company also said that ads on YouTube and the GDN drove a 36% increase in website visits and a 36% increase in brand searches."

http://marketingland.com/google-unveils-lightbox-display-format-pushes-engagement-metric-23186

http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/google-expands-its-ad-formats-lightbox-144119

Namely, I thought that GH2 native progressive files (24H or 24L) will solve all the problems with Broken Chroma upsampling which I experienced with GH1 "interlaced wrapped" progressive files. Now the situation is slightly improved. However, as I am really picky about the quality of my footage, I noticed that colour resolution of the clips, when imported into Sony Vegas and then exported by using loseless codec, is not retained. The colour (spatial) resolution becomes lower.

However, by importing the following Avisynth script

DirectShowSource("name_of_the_file.MTS")

ConvertToRGB

into VirtualDub and exporting by using the same codec, the colour resolution becomes much better. You can see 400% enlarged crop below (the first with Sony and the second with Avisynth-VirtualDub). Please, click on the first two pictures (left & central) to see enlarged view.

So, I still can't use direct way of editing my footage (direct import into Vegas) if the quality should remain on the highest level. So, the first step is to convert the footage, by using Avisynth-VirtualDub, into some codec (e.g. loseless or Morgan) which preserves entire colour information.

However, such workflow is possible with camera factory firmware/settings, but not if I use, for example, Sanity 5 patch/settings. When exporting Sanity 5 footage with Avisynth-VirtualDub workflow, I always get exported file which is more or less garbage (see the third picture) - the picture becomes worse and worse by time.

I know that majority of GH2 owners are probably satisfied with results on the left picture (note again that it's 400% enlarged detail). Unfortunately, I am not. :-(

Is there any other way to get high-quality footage from other lower-bitrate patch (I liked Sanity 5 due to a relatively low bitrate) by using Avisynth-VirtualDub workflow?