Shooting HD @ 24P Varicam…Are there still NTSC & PAL versions?

[Tom Matthies]

OK, the question may be worded a bit strangely, ,but here’s the problem.
I have a client that wants to shoot some industrial footage in HD. My local client is in a town a few miles from here, but the parent company of his business is in Sweden. The Swedish company is calling the shots here but they are impossible to get a hold of for whatever reason. My local client requested shooting in HD. I asked him what format or flavor (Varicam, HDCam, HDV, Etc?) he preferred. He didn’t know…just HD. “HD is HD, right?” he asked.
After asking a few more questions, I find that what they actually want is to shoot in 24P to reduce the hassles of standards conversion between the US version and the Swedish versions of the video. The 24P in the US version would be converted to 60i. In the overseas version, it would be converted to 50i for production.
We are going to shoot this at 24P (720) with a Panasonic Varicam. My question, and pardon the ignorance of it, can I take the camera original tapes and make 60i Digibeta versions (NTSC) and then ship the tapes overseas to the parent company and the use those same tapes fo make the 50i (PAL) versions without the intermediate step of traditional standards conversion?
In otherwords, is there an NTSC version of 720/24P and a PAL version of 720/24P or is 24P the same format regardless of where it is used, differing only in the machines used to play back the tape? Can we use the same camera original tapes to strike both versions of the footage depending on the machines used to make the dubs. Make sense? The dubs (clones) are to be made to Digibeta via SDI connections and then used for production on both sides of the Atlantic. FWIW, I am going to stick with the Varicam for 24P rather than going the DVX-100a route, which probably word work as well.
Any advice from the Heard? BTW…we shoot this Monday! Yikes!
Thanks,
Tom