clip specifics

I've been reading where alot of you say it's best to upload clips to pond5 straight from the camera to avoid problems and loss of quality. Well I don't do that, lol. I always process my video in some way, whether it's a simple auto levels or ten psychadelic plasma inversion filters. I also do lots of 3D animation. That being the case, I have a major question. I realize the main form of broadcast HDTV is 1080i, but that is bound to change eventually, right? So should I be rendering in 1080i or 1080p? Will my present 1080i clips become obselete when the providers switch to 1080p? I'm tempted to render every clip in every imaginable format:

1. 1080p 29.97fps
2. 1080p 23.98fps
3. 1080i 29.97fps
4. 1080i 23.98fps
5. 720p 29.97fps
6. 720p 23.98fps
(anybody ever hear of 720i?)
7. 480p 29.97fps
8. 480p 23.98fps
(i realize the broadcast standard is 480i, but screw that, it's
outdated)

(plus, interlaced field order doubles the number of interlaced render possibilities)

That's at least eight renders per clip if I want to cover my bases completey. Which is of course impracticle and nearly impossible with my schedule. It seems every time I render, I feel like the first potential buyer of the clip will pass on it because I didn't choose the right frame rate or field order that they needed for their project. This drives me crazy sometimes when I'm trying to choose my render settings. By the way, does anybody know the interlaced field order of mainstream broadcast HDTV?

P.S. I realize you shouldn't normally change frame rates, but I've invested in retiming software that really works and I'll be damned if I'm gonna waste it.

Don't hold your breath. 1080P is long way away from becoming a reality because of bandwidth problems. Upload you clips in 1080i . Tv 's that say 1080p are actually 1080i with upconversions chips that output 1080p.

There isn't any interlaced HDTV their all progressive through upconversion.

If you need or want a better explanation go to Wikipedia and search interlace vs progressive.

I would submit your clips as 1080p60 (ie 29.97), as that is the most information to work with and the most future-proof. That way, when people downsize or convert them, they'll get the best results.

Shedli, I'm extremely confused. In another thread, you and phantomewo both said that deinterlacing is bad. I always deinterlace my stuff after whatever other processing I've done to it. EVERY one of my clips gets processed in After Effects some way or another, so the original footage is always changed. Therefore I don't see any problem with deinterlacing at render time. Plus the footage looks way better on all my test screens when it's progressive. Get back to me on this, please, I'm apprehensive about rendering anything now.

Sorry, I thought you were talking about computer generated stuff. If it's originally camera-shot material, and was shot interlaced, you should leave it interlaced, and at its native resolution, even if you are doing some post-processing.

But doesn't that defeat it's "future-proofness"? lol

if someone wants to convert it they will. I don't think the interlaced turns them off...
It is a waste to submit 20x of the same clip if all you are doing is a software re-encode that someone can do from the original source.

De-interlacing degrades the clip quality by removing half of the fields. If you're not monitoring on a proper broadcast monitor, or using something like the http://www.matrox.com/video/en/products/mxo/, you won't really see this, and interlaced footage will look worse to you. But the point is, leaving it interlaced maintains the quality for people working on interlaced productions. If they are doing a progressive project, they can always deinterlace on their end, but you can't re-interlaced de-interlaced footage -- it's a one way street :)

In short, when in doubt, leave it in its native format.

That makes sense. But doesn't that also mean I should render 3D animation interlaced? Going by what you just said, a person working on an interlaced project can't use my progressive animation because it can't be interlaced. Am I confused or what? LOL

No, if you're rendering out motion graphics, it's generally a good idea to make everything progressive. Quality loss occurs when you shoot interlaced and then de-interlace, but if you can generate your footage as progressive to begin with it's preferable.

Hope that clarifies.... For more info on interlacing, here's the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlaced.