25f, 50i, my brain hurts!
 

What is the "best" way to record? 25f or 50i ? Do I get more detail with one or the other, is one better that the other where movement's involved?
I intend to use my brand-new-just-out-of-the-box XH for "documentary" work. Mainly interviews and a few general views, edited in SD in Premiere and outputted to DVD for viewing in SD. My missis will use it for arty-farty stuff which is projected onto large surfaces (and I've noticed a couple of "interlacy" problems in the past with some of her projections).

I'm really, really sorry to ask, what must be the most common question in all forums but it's doing my head in. I thought I had it sussed (50i) and then woke up with a complate brain-delete-modus and in a few hours am getting on a plane to go on a three week trip (with my virgin Canon and a box of ten tapes).

I have had people scream "de-interlace" at me on a previous forum (not visited since discovering this place as I like hearing from people who actually use their cameras instead of teenagers who only play with computers) and I'm thinking... why not just shoot 25f in the first place?

Excuse me, just going online to get some Prozac...

I'm in NTSCland so I have 24f and 60i instead of 25f/50i, but I suspect it's the same issue. I prefer shooting in 24f because all I do goes to DVD and web and with progressive footage you don't have the interlace artifacts. On the other hand, I came to video from a film background, so shooting 24 fps is not an issue for me (ie., I've always avoided the fast pans that can cause strobing). Some people have trouble with it. If you're leaving with a brand new XH A1 you've never used before, better get some seriously strong coffee and spend plenty of quality time with the manual and shooting some tests and getting a thorough understanding of the camera before your first shoot.

You'll get wildly varying opinions, unfortunately - not a single collective respopnse.

The only way is to experiment. Shoot in both modes, see how it works for you.

Good advice as always, Bill.

Study the manual thoroughly and use the camera to try out what it looks and feels like in action. I'll just add my own usual bit - download the PAL manual on PDF. Later on, when you have a pretty good idea what's going on, it's much easier to find obscure bits quickly using the "find" function in Adobe Reader.

I carry the paper manual everywhere with the camera, but also have the PDF version handy on my laptop for emergencies.

The link posted elsewhwere on dvinfo is here http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/641388-post6.html

For footage that I intend to slow down by 50%, I shoot in 50i and import it into a progressive timeline.
Other than that, I always shoot 25f.

I only ever shoot 25f and 50i for 99% of my work.The other 1% I generally shoot either 50i or 25f,depending on the situation.

;0)

That's a good point about downloading the manual. I did that, and it's easier to find things with the search mode.