hacking cameras
 

hi again,

i was just wondering if it is appropriate to discuss methods of 'tricking' your camera into doing things that it might not be supposed to do here at this forum?

because:
i'm moving to europe: how do you get a ntsc vx2000 to record video (in camera mode) in PAL?
pretty easy to do in vcr mode.

there must be a way.

cheers,
brian

I'm interested to hear how you can change the format in VCR mode.

PAL cameras like the PD150 can playback, but not convert NTSC tapes (not sure about the other way round).

Some decks like the DSR11 can play & record both. Here's a thread on the subject:

http://discussions.2-pop.com/forums/fcp_pal.cgi?read=1473

You 're going to have to invest in a new camera if you want to shoot PAL.

i don't mean converting anything.

get a minidv tape with pal content on it.
play it on camera (camera switches to pal mode automaticaly)...play or pause tape whilst booting computer (mac(firewire loads in pal mode)). that way you can capture and edit to tape in pal mode. reboot to go back to ntsc.

Well it must be converting somewhere if you get a signal out via firewire that you can capture. You would also need to change your NLE settings all to PAL first too, surely.

I don´t think that is possible, because even with the playback you do not get real PAL, only PAL 60. Which means a PAL running at 60 Hz (because NTSC is at 60 Hz) and not 50 Hz as it would be correctly. Also the resolution stays the same, the NTSC is sort of magnified to fit the higher PAL resolution.

This "quirky" method works fine on VCRs for NTSC playback on PAL TVs. Because the TVs have no problem accepting a 60 Hz cycle. But it is impossible to make a copy of a NTSC tape that is running on an NTSC capable PAL VCR. You get an ugly mess of noise or (if you are lucky and your VCR is very forgiving to different frequencies) a black and white picture that ist running up and down your TV... This function is only for playback.

There are multifromat VCRs that really record various formats (PAL, SECAM, NTSC...) but even the consumer products cost around $2000.

As for cameras.. I don´t know, I never heard of a multiformat camera (are the HDTV cameras universal?). But it would be interesting to know what the differences are between a PAL and a NTSC camera. Do they have the same CCD? Or does the PAL one use one with more Pixels on it? Is a 60min NTSC tape physically longer than a PAL one? I guess so, 5 more frames per second add up to quite a bit more information to be stored on that tape. So, is it also thinner to fit into the housing? Does PAL have thicker tapes, in other words, more durable tapes?

Jeez, I have owned my XL1 for so long now and still hardly know it. I think I should talk to her more often.. :-))

Cheers, Peter

hacking cameras
 

okay, once again, i'm not talking about converting.
you do have to change your NLE settings of course.

the way i understand it. vx2000s pal/ntsc and pd150s all have the exact same insides. (much cheaper to mass produce the same thing) the roms would be programed slightly different depending on which version it is being sold as.

when my camera is working in pal mode, i would need a pal monitor in order to see what is going on. the lcd pullout screen probably switches to 50hz...i'm not sure though...i'll check.

i tried to convert some pal to ntsc with media cleaner and it worked pretty well. i did the blend deinterlace thing. i used flat&stray noise reduction. the resolution and colours were fine, the motion was smooth but moving things tended to have a bit more motion blur.

pal uses 4:2:0 colour sampling and ntsc uses 4:1:1. i think that's what i heard but i'm not really sure what those numbers mean. i think that it is hue and saturation and stuff like that but i'm not sure.