I wasn't happy with the quality of the video I was getting from my old editing software. Much like my laptop, it was majorly outdated. The rendered video was lower quality than the original raw video so I upgraded to the latest version of Pinnacle which seems to have solved that issue. Now my question is what format should I render in? In the .mts format, it gives me the options of HD 1080i, HDV2 1080i and HD 1080 60p. I personally can't see a difference on my old laptop screen, is there an advantage to one format over the other??
Render however you need to in order to maximize the quality, then run it through Handbrake with a lower bitrate. You'll get excellent quality with the lowest bitrates possible.
Just my opinion, but avoid interlaced at all costs. Depending on the media player it takes manual intervention to play properly (VLC), probably makes the processor run like crazy, and probably forces a higher bitrate to maintain acceptable image quality.
mts is not really a useful internet distribution codec. It's what your camera produces. By default, most cameras outputting mts are generating 1080i footage. If you are creating an edited master, then it's always best to render out to exactly the same format at the source footage. In this case, that would be 1080i, probably at about 9-11 mbps. (depends on the camera) If you are rendering right from the editor timeline to an internet-friendly format, then your output target should be an mp4 file extension and the h.264 codec at 1080p.
Note that older computers without a decent graphics chip containing a dedicated mp4 decoder are probably going to struggle on full 1080 resolution. You might want to consider outputting 720p for your final product. The file will be a lot smaller and it will play on a lot more devices. You'll want to play with the bit rate a little. 1080 probably won't look all that great below 4mbps and it really takes closer to 6-8mbps to look really good. 720, otoh, can look good at 2-3mbps, especially if you know how to tweak the encoder settings. Ultimately though, the quality is going to be very dependent on the brand of codec and encoding engine you are using. Pinnacle probably has good stuff inside, but it's hard to beat Handbrake
Cool, thank you all for taking time to reply. I will try using the mp4 output next time I play with it. The entire program runs slow on my computer so I have to wait till I have a good bit of time and a high tolerance for frustration to mess with it. Here's some more clips I made last night in the 1080i format.
Love you, too
