NTSC and PAL on same SxS card

[Bob O’brien]

Duh! Sometimes having this great resource in Creative Cow makes you stop thinking for yourself: why don’t I just try it out for myself?!!

FWIW: PAL and NTSC can be recorded on the same SxS card (at least with the EX3).

Bob

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[Don Greening]

[Bob O’Brien] “If I change the EX3’s settings back and forth, can they be recorded on the same card? “

Yes, no problem there. I just did a little test for you, but on my EX1. The EX3 will be the same. Both clips played back fine from the same card one right after the other. The first clip was shot using PAL 1080i 50 and the other one was NTSC 1080i 60.

Keep in mind that you can’t just cycle back and forth from PAL to NTSC. You have to change the “country” setting as well before the different recording formats become available for each “area.” So this means that every single time you change shooting modes you’ll have to change back and forth between the “PAL” area and the “NTSC” area.

To save your sanity you might want to talk your client into allowing you to rent another EX and have them both shooting the same thing, one in NTSC mode and the other in PAL mode. Also be mindful that shooting PAL in an NTSC country may present an issue with possible lighting/power frequency mis-matches. Especially if you’re shooting with fluorescents. Just a heads up to be on the lookout for that, too.

– Don

[Craig Seeman]

Actually one of the differences between SxS and XDCAM Disc format is that you can shoot every single EX mode on the same SxS card. XDCAM Disc gets formated one way and that’s it (unless something has changed recently).

There’s a couple of other ways to approach PAL and NTSC. You could shoot at 24p and do pull down for NTSC and speed change for PAL. This is one of the reasons why 24p is sort of the “universal” frame rate. People shoot at that frame rate if they are aiming for international distribution.

You could also shoot NTSC (interlaced) and then take the long slow road to do a software conversion. Shooting 30p can make the conversion more “challenging” since having fields can help.

There’s the ultra cheap method which is shoot NTSC knowing that nearly all PAL DVD players can play NTSC (with some distortion) whereas NTSC DVD players can’t play PAL.

There’s also the teranex
https://www.teranex.com/products/mini
It’s about $2600 which is cheaper than another EX (it might be cheaper to rent or get a dub done too).
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/481055-REG/Teranex_MINI_SDSTD_MINI_SDSTD_SD_Standards_Linear.html

[Bob O’brien]

Thanks guys. Excellent points from both of you.

Have a great day.

Bob