Powershot SX170, too much noise

[musicus]

I am getting a continual problem on my videos. Too much noise. 

This can be seen here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xODkPppDbcU

'Noise" might not be the most accurate word - but what I mean

is the "activity" that is ever-present. I see this even when I use

spotlight on other vids. I am mostly concerned with indoor videos

with moderate lighting. Any ideas on aperture, ISO settings, HD, etc?

Thanks.

[Waddizzle]

You need to add additional lighting.

[rs-eos]

There are three main things resulting in the poorer video quality:

The equipment itself; your camera has a small sensor.  As such, unless you have lots of good lighting, it won't lead to higher quality.  Though there will be a limit to what this camera can do.

The codec used to record the video.  Consumer cameras actually toss out lots of information and then tend to use very heavy compression.

The compression applied by YouTube.

Unfortunately, you're stuck with the codec (consumer equipment typically just has one type).  But, you can, as mentioned earlier, try to add more lighting.  I would also use a shutter as low as possible.  Typically you want the 180-degree rule.  And if your camera allows for it, I would recommend shooting at 24 fps (actually this will be 23.976, but that's a whole other discussion).  For the sake of this post, I'll write 24.  So shutter can be 1/48 second.  This will give you for light-gathering performance over using 30 fps with a shutter of 1/60.  Small, but still worthwhile.

For aperture, you'll want the widest possible and that typically means widest angle of the lens (least zoomed in).

Last restort is ISO; set that as low as possible.   Typically professional video equipment have native ISOs (e.g. 800), but I think for typical photo cameras that also capture video, lower ISO is better.

[rs-eos]

Got sidetracked a bit during my earlier reply...  Regarding shutter, while 180-degree rule is very common, you could also slow the shutter further in order to reduce ISO.  Note though that motion will appear different.   Anyhow, use 1/24 (1/25) shutter for 24 fps movies.   And 1/30 shutter for 30 fps movies.

[musicus]

I only used one camera so I don't know whether the 180 degree rule applies.

[Waddizzle]

It sounds like your issue only appears when you zoom into the frame using iMovie.  Sounds like an editing software issue.

[rs-eos]

My fault for mentioning it as the "180 degree rule".  Yea, that involves filming a typical scene of a conversation between two people.

Anyhow, I should have used "180 degree shutter angle".  That means to use a shutter that is one over double the frame rate.  So for 24 fps movies, you'd use 1/48 s (1/50 s) shutter.  And for 30 fps movies, you'd use 1/60 s shutter.

[rs-eos]

In terms of what I personally see in the videos...  I see noise, but also a decent amount of compression artifacts.   YouTube is definitely making things worse since you have a second-generation video.  The vast majority of video compression is lossy.  Meaning that everytime it is transfered to another system and re-saved, more information is lost leading to lower quality.

Consumer video equipment, as I mentioned earlier, end up using so many compromises in order to reduce heat and reduce file sizes when capturing video.   Most have smaller sensors as well, which even in outdoor shots, don't produce as clean of an image as when using equipment with larger sensors (specifically the size of individual photo sites).

Only you can be the judge of it the footage is good enough for your purposes.   Personally, I don't see anything really wrong with them.

Also note that if wanting ultimate quality, that can come in at a massive cost.  I was recently toying with the idea of getting the Canon EOS C70.  A massive step up in terms of video quality over my Vixia HF G50, but also around 10 times the price for a single-lens setup.

[musicus]

Thanks, I appreciate that.

[musicus]

Thank you, I appreciate your taking the time to respond. I think I need to be

sure that my using the word "noise" is correct. So I'm linking or attaching a

few examples of videos I took with my Powershot. I would like to know

whether any of these could be considered visually unacceptable ("noise?") by most 

viewers, in your opinion. I know they could all be sharper, of course. (Note: I only used

one camera so I don't know whether the 180 degree rule applies.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVvLQvW_YWw

This is zoomed not from Powershot but from iMovie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcZGBY45m9o

Notice the "activity" on the right side of the piano (lower

R corner of the frame)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xODkPppDbcU

Within the first few seconds notice the "activity" during the

zoom. Zoom was done with iMovie.

I will try to check out your three main suggestions regarding

frames per second, aperture and zooming, to see how to 

access this on the camera. Looking forward to your reply.

Thanks.