NTSC and PAL – Eating one’s cake!
 

So I’m living in NTSC land, Canada and now Mexico. I have an FX1, edit using Vegas 7, and watch the action on a Dell 2405FPW LCD 1920 by 1200 pixels. I don’t have a TV and don’t plan to buy one right now. So right away you can tell I’m not a professional!

I’m originally from New Zealand which is a PAL country. I visited again not so long ago and shot video using my FX1. Back in Mexico I converted the m2t file to the Cineform product, edited, and rendered out to DVD NTSC widescreen using the appropriate template in Vegas and of course I rendered out a Hi Def version m2t file for computer playback viewing on my 24inch Dell. The NTSC DVD version is for local distribution for viewing on a TV. I mailed a copy of the NTSC DVD to New Zealand and no problem playing on a DVD player connected to a nothing fancy regular New Zealand TV, but that may be an oddity, I have no idea!

So now I plan to visit New Zealand again for an extended visit and shoot much more video. It is likely in the future I will shoot more video in PAL country than NTSC land. Maybe I might sell output from my videography activities in New Zealand, at least I would like to have that option; fantasy lives on. I also plan to purchase another HDV camera, probably the new Sony HVR-V1 if it’s half as good as it appears right now. Some of what I do will benefit from two camera shooting. And the 20x lens will be a welcome addition to the production capability.

I know about the z1 option, NTSC/PAL switchable in the camera, but the smaller size and the way longer lens of the V1 have more value for me.

So what do I do? Keep the FX1, purchase the V1, and stay in NTSC for acquisition and use the different Vegas templates to produce PAL or NTSC for DVD production. Sell my FX1 and purchase two V1E’s (gulp). Forget the whole video thing and just count sheep!

While very few NTSC dvd players sold in the US will support Pal and very few tv's in the US will display pal, in Pal land sincde most of the devices are actually based on NTSC models, there are a lot that will infact play Ntsc. When you get to HD the whole ntsc/pal issue goes away are you are really only looking at various frame rates
Sharyn

I'm from New Zealand, originally, also!

When it was PAL and NTSC, I would have said shoot PAL for the extra vertical resolution. But now, as Sharyn says, the frame sizes are identical so its just the frame-rate to consider.

In my opinion, it is easier to get a better result converting from 29.97 to 25fps than the other way. Indeed you mention Cineform, and the lastest HDlink from them does a nice conversion on the fly - they apply pulldown to get to 23.98 and then respeed the footage up to 25fps progressive. Looks great!

One other tip: get yourself a small widescreen LCD TV to monitor with. The color will be more accurate than your computer monitor and, more importantly, you can feed in HDV, PAL and NTSC sources direct from cameras, and from your computer if you have a card with component out - the LCD technology will auto-switch between formats so that you can check interlacing, black levels etc.

I'd say stay NTSC, almost all dvd players here play NTSC dvds like you found out. The only problem you might have when shooting 60i in NZ is fluro lights flickering.

Joe

Agreed.

One slight twist on this question, though: if filming actuality in a PAL area for NTSC distribution, would it be better to shoot 25p then author a 24p DVD (accepting the audio speed shift)? There would be some scaling going on, but the quality can be very high these days. There wouldn't be any interpolated frames, only the 3:2 pulldown from the DVD player to bring it up to 29.97.

Well, that's the theory...

Thank you fellow Kiwis, old and new, near and afar, a clued in Alaskan and a theoretical twisted Pom who would also go the other way; all in the loveliest of ways and I thank you all for your kind help.

Regarding acquisition I shall follow your collective advice and stay in NTSC territory. I already followed your advice Graham, and upgraded to Vegas 7 in order to convert to PAL before editing should that be desirable, the results look very good, and I know I can render out of an edited Cineform whatever and get very good HDV, DVD PAL and or NTSC.

So I shall purchase another NTSC HDV camera and have my cake in New Zealand.

Could be worse!