Settings in UK
 

What settings are you using in the UK ? PAL, NTSC, 30P, 24P, 25P, etc ?

pal 50p inthe uk

Set the country to 'PAL Area', then use whichever of the available video formats suits your project best.

Generally PAL is your best choice. However, if your doing clips for the web then NTSC or PAL will be fine. Most DVD players today will also play NTSC format DVDs. I have just completed a DVD project in NTSC and it looks fine.

Just be aware that most DVD players in the US will not play PAL...

The reason for me asking is that from the footage I saw on Doug Jensen's DVD the HQ1080 30p setting looked the best, but this was in NTSC only. PAL was 25P and didn't look as good IMHO. Is any conversion necessary if I settled on using that format?

One of the most important reason to use "PAL area" when shooting in EU is that it offers shutter speeds and framerates that will not interfere with various kind of artificial lighting, operating at 50 Hz.

Using 24p, 30p or 60i in a 50 Hz land can lead to serious problems in the picture!

Thanks Piotr but as I'm only interested in shooting wildife and countryside, seascape, etc it's not really an issue for me. I was more concerned about viewing on TV or web.

Note that the EX does NOT shoot PAL (or NTSC) - the settings are "PAL area" or "NTSC area" - note the word "area". PAL and NTSC are terms that only apply to Standard Definition TV. It would be less confusing to talk about "50Hz areas" and "60Hz areas".

That's what the differences are - frame rates based on either 50 or 60Hz. Where PAL/NTSC may be relevant is if you downconvert to SD, 60Hz HD will more naturally downconvert to NTSC, 50Hz HD to PAL. Unless you know a substantial market for your work will be in an NTSC area, if you live in the UK it's best to stick to 50Hz based framerates.

If you want to distribute your footage in NA exclusively and there is any artificial lighting involved, this is a quote from a thread I started when I returned from Chile:
"The best results seem to be to shoot with flicker reduction on and set to 60Hz and the shutter at 50Hz. All of this while shooting at NTSC 1080 30P, my preferred shooting format. I detect no flicker with these settings."

If you don't care to distribute the footage for NA television consumption, then just set the camera to PAL area as suggested.

Interesting; have you shot long enough with these settings to make sure it would NEVER give the flickering interference?

While we're at it, did you try 24p with 50 Hz lighting, as well? If so, would you care to share your results regarding flicker; also:

- what kind of artificial lighting did you test it?
- what frequency of flicker reduction worked best with 24p, 1/48th shutter?

My original thread is here:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/sony-xdca...highlight=50hz

I had a few long shots during interviews that lasted 40 minutes and no flicker.

But no, I did not try anything other than 1080 30p as I was under the gun with a TV show shoot. I didn't stop moving and shooting for 12 hrs straight. I lost 4 hrs of footage because I didn't have a chance to review it on a big screen. Even though setting to flicker reduction of 50 seemed to help while looking through the view finder, it did not eliminate it in the real footage.

The lighting was anything from mercury vapor, incandescent, and florescent. It was my first shoot in a 50Hz world and I was somewhat embarrassed to admit to the producer that we had some very substandard footage as a result of this. I did get the footage we needed in the end however.

I have always wondered what would happen if I take a US camera and film in the UK or other PAL country. If it is intended for a US audience I guess you still need to set the camera to 50Hz or as you said you get flickering video

I have just produced a SD-DVD aimed at the American market (I'm based in the UK) and decided to shoot Ex1 & HDCAM PAL because of possible interview lighting issues. I had the completed programme converted to NTSC on a top end broadcast Snell & Wilcox Alchemist. Suprisingly the cost of transfer was not that high and the results compared to normal NTSC broadcast output are stunning.

As that won't really affect me I'll run some tests when I get all my kit together. It looks like I can convert in Vegas Pro.