Hello guys! Recently I experienced a strange thing on my camcorder. The camcorder was converted from NTSC to PAL in 2009 and it worked v well since then. Now the camera has reverted back to NTSC by its self. I have to say that it stayed about 6 months off. When I turned it on, It lost its settings and reverted to NTSC. I don't get it how is this possible. The cam was serviced in a proper Sony center in Vienna. any inf/help to get back to PAL would be welcomed.

Sounds suspiciously like it may be due to some sort of back-up battery......?

Either a small Lithium cell, or one which gets charged via the battery and keeps the memory when no battery?

So keeps the PAL settings stored in memory, and when that loses power the camera reverts to it's initial defaults?

Indeed, it is from the li-Ion battery. The camera stayed off for a long period of time and the main battery drain off, too. A Sony technician has confirm me that in this case the camera reverts to the factory settings, NTSC, my case. The PAL conversion was made only in sw. To prevent this, there is an electronic board that can be put inside the camera and also it has a menu page to select the format NTSC/PAL. This is permanent.