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Moving To China! NTSC or PAL camera?
Howdy all!
I anticipate a move to Beijing this fall for at least 6 months to a year, which is complicating a decision on the purchase of a new camera. I’m basically set on the Sony PMW-EX1 because of its features and price point but I’m debating the formats. I expect to come back in a year or two, so I still want to be able to shoot NTSC when I return. I read a few threads here which indicated NTSC to PAL conversion is fairly easy with Canopus’ Procoder.
Anyone have thoughts on this?
Chris Dolan
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4 Replies
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BTW: I forgot to mention I’m using Premiere Pro, hence my post in this forum. To my knowlege, exporting an NTSC project to PAL in PPro isn’t advisable.
Chris Dolan
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If you record anything that is artificially lit, and you record in NTSC, you willget a “beat pattern” as NTSC and the American HD formats are based on 60Hz electricity, while China uses 50Hz. You see this a lot when someone shoots with an NTSC camera in Europe.
I have been asked a number of times in other forums about “frame averaging” or other effects to get rid of this annoying beat pattern.
Now, if all you are doing is shooting out-of-doors under sunlight, you’re good to go in any format. But something tells me that you won’t be doing that. And that is why I advise you to purchase a PAL camera.
I do realize you want to use it when you get back, but you may be able to either use eBay or some other service to get a lot of your money out of your PAL camera (which may be hard to find in the US) so that you can purchase an NTSC rig for here.
What if there were no hypothetical questions?
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Thanks for the reply Mark.
I found out over in the Sony XDCAM forum that the camera I’m buying actually shoots both PAL and NTSC.
Chris Dolan
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You will want to be sure to switch it to PAL mode while overseas — especially for artificial light. If the material you shoot in PAL is useful for your work here, then you’ll be all set with a little conversion from 25 FPS to 29.97 here. People will wonder if you shot on film.
But you will not ever have the light beating against your camera’s frame rate. And that is the best part.
What if there were no hypothetical questions?
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