Canon HF100/HV30 and iMovie using 720p

[CMD is me]

Anyone know if the Canon HF100 or HV30 record in true 720p or is it really interlaced?

Also how does iMovie handle 720p?

My projector is 720p native. I'm trying to decide between a Mac Mini or AppleTV for playback. Mini is less limiting, but read the hardware is pushing it for HD. The AppleTV is of course limited to 540p unless I want to drop the frame rate (which I don't).

 

[NRose8989]

Although I'm not sure if the video is interlaced or not ( i can't tell). i do have a Canon HF10 and when i shoot on either 24p or 30p, the video (when viewed through quick time) is smaller then when i watch a clip shot in 60i. heres where it gets confusing though, both the Canon HF10/100 and HV30 etc. regardless of shooting mode (either 24p, 30p, 60i) are written to film or SSD as 60i. so I'm assuming that when the footage is shot in a progressive mode, it
is written as interlaced footage but when viewed through quick time, its progressive.

 

[CMD is me]

That is confusing. It sounds like the Quicktime video may be 720, but if it is written as 60i then it'd be 720/60i rather than 720/30p?? If so, which doesn't sound right, then it'd be far better to shoot in 1080/60i and edit through iMovie at 540/30p... I'm sure a Canon tech would be laughing at my conclusions... boy standard def was simple!

 

[bigbossbmb]

Canon HDV cameras will not shoot 720p... they only shoot 1080i to tape. I don't know about their HDD cameras but I'd guess that it's similar.

JVC is the only company that makes HDV that shoots 720p.

 

[CMD is me]

Ah... so 30p is really 30fps/i and is just a slow shutter (better for low light), but not as strobe like as 24p on a consumer camera?

 

[bigbossbmb]

no.... everything is written to tape as 60i but when you capture the tape, it'll go back to 30p. 24p is written to 60i with a pulldown inserted. After capture, if you remove the pulldown (with Compressor if you get FCS), then you'll be able to edit 24p natively.

I don't know if FCE supports 30p actually.... you'll have to check on that.