Thanks for the long winded reply.

Now I understand what you are going through. I hope everything turns out ok for you.

I think you and Dan know better about the bit rate. What you are saying makes sense, otherwise a 60 min. tape would sometimes be a 65 min. tape or a 50 min. tape. Then, I wonder what the business is about the different cbr in your test. There is a big difference. Does the footage from the NTSC unit look significantly worse than other footage. Maybe, if you feel like it, you could shoot the same subject matter you shot with the NTSC FS-4, onto tape and compare how they look.

Cheers

Daniel,
When I receive the unit I will do more acurate tests.

David

FWIW Focus definitely make an NTSC and a PAL unit. I believe they do this to try and restrict cross border trading, and/or to charge more for PAL units. For example on B&H's website there is $US400 differential between identical PAL and NTSC units. I don't believe it's hardware related as a simple firmware update will allow existing units to take all HDV rates, therefore timecode could not be the issue as all the existing HDV cameras shoot at both 25/30 or 50/60Hz. .

I wrote to Focus to request they change this policy, but I'm not holding my breath.

Focus returned the SAME unit to me and refunded the postage costs. It is now a PAL unit so they CAN be converted. I bet the cost of coversion would be less than the $400 difference in price.

David

Thanks for the update David.

I can't say that this realization makes me feel very good about Focuses general policies in this matter.