25p or 24p?
 

I've got a project that has to show in the UK. I'm planning on shooting 25p and just inserting the video into a PAL timeline. My client also wants an NTSC version of this piece. Should I shoot double, both 25p and 24p, or could I shoot 24p and use that in a PAL timeline and convert it?

Hi Carlos.

I reckon that shooting in 24p would be the way to go. 24p is easily convertible to NTSC frame rates and it is easily changed to PAL without noticing much difference (there is a little bit of speed-up, about 4%, which is negligible). I've changed my completed footage from 24p to 25p quite often (for PAL DVDs) and it works great.

To save on your workload, you can edit the whole project in a 24p timeline, then export the completed movie (twice) and later import each into Cinema Tools (changing the first one's frame rate to 25 and the other to 30 [29.97]). When Cinema Tools speeds it up to 25 fps it also compensates for the change in pitch of the audio. It's a great tool for this and, if you're not on the Mac platform, I'm sure there would be equivalent software for PC-based NLEs.

To play safe though, shoot a bit of test footage in 24p and see how you like it when sped up to 25p before you actually shoot the project.

thanks for the tip David, I'm on both platforms, FCP and CS3, so I'll give it a shot. I've never shot anything for PAL, so I was kinda after the second opinion. Thanks again.