7d recording format Ntsc to pal help...
- Thread starter thome
- Start date
there is no such thing as PAL or NTSC in hd, there is only a different frame rate 24/25/30 , all resolutions are the same 1280x720 or 1920x1080
depends the final support, you need to shoot at the right framerate.(bluray=24 DVD=same framerate as the one in use in your country)
depends the final support, you need to shoot at the right framerate.(bluray=24 DVD=same framerate as the one in use in your country)
As you've probably noticed im new to HD hehe.thnx alot
so if i shoot 1080/25p will i get the same results as barry's conclusion on 1080/24p?
@nosys70 - How is there no pal or ntsc in HD? The dslr 24fps you refer to is also an NTSC flavour of 24fps (23.976fps), not true, film camera 24fps.
@thome - Shoot 1080p 25fps with a shutter speed of 50 if you're in a PAL country. Shoot 24fps only if you intend a cinema release.
@thome - Shoot 1080p 25fps with a shutter speed of 50 if you're in a PAL country. Shoot 24fps only if you intend a cinema release.
SuperEgo Saxton
Active member
cinema standard is 24fps. [22 for Hong Kong fight scenes I'm told']. Why would frame rates change between countries? ruining the feel of something...
Electricity:
Pal land has 220v which runs at 50hz
Ntsc land has 110v and runs at 60hz
So shooting in or for Pal land you will get 50 interlaced frames ( 25 half frames) but now a days we want that film look so we got 25p (whole frames)
There is visually no difference in 25p and 24p !
Back in the day we would shoot short docs in pal at 50i at a shutter speed of 1/50th to get a film "motion" look ! Convert this material to NTSC 60i and it looked less like video.
They did this on the show 24 aswell.
I read somewhere that Avatar was shot mostly at 48fps. Would love to try that out !
Pal land has 220v which runs at 50hz
Ntsc land has 110v and runs at 60hz
So shooting in or for Pal land you will get 50 interlaced frames ( 25 half frames) but now a days we want that film look so we got 25p (whole frames)
There is visually no difference in 25p and 24p !
Back in the day we would shoot short docs in pal at 50i at a shutter speed of 1/50th to get a film "motion" look ! Convert this material to NTSC 60i and it looked less like video.
They did this on the show 24 aswell.
I read somewhere that Avatar was shot mostly at 48fps. Would love to try that out !
@saxton - the 24fps on your 60D and the 24fps of a film camera are VERY different things. I refer you to this - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24p
What makes a frame of canon video appear filmlike is the fact that both fields (a video frame being composed of 2 fields) are the same, and this is known as a 'progressive' look. A frame of video that has different information in each field is known as interlaced, and has that classic 'video' look that most of us strive to avoid. Film look (progressive) and video look (interlaced) have nothing to do with frame rate.
For most of us, the final viewing destination of our work is a tv screen (whether it's a commercial or programme that's broadcast or a home made dvd). It's to allow for as much viewing flexibility as possible that most tv/drama work is shot at a frame rate suitable for that country's tv system. It also allows you to shoot using lights that run off that country's electrical mains frequency without getting flickering on playback. Only if you are making a film that has a theatrical release (i.e. a feature) would you want to shoot 24fps.
What makes a frame of canon video appear filmlike is the fact that both fields (a video frame being composed of 2 fields) are the same, and this is known as a 'progressive' look. A frame of video that has different information in each field is known as interlaced, and has that classic 'video' look that most of us strive to avoid. Film look (progressive) and video look (interlaced) have nothing to do with frame rate.
For most of us, the final viewing destination of our work is a tv screen (whether it's a commercial or programme that's broadcast or a home made dvd). It's to allow for as much viewing flexibility as possible that most tv/drama work is shot at a frame rate suitable for that country's tv system. It also allows you to shoot using lights that run off that country's electrical mains frequency without getting flickering on playback. Only if you are making a film that has a theatrical release (i.e. a feature) would you want to shoot 24fps.
SuperEgo Saxton
Active member
Interesting bill, cheers for that link 
PAL and NTSC are a way to encode color in to a composite video signal (plus the famous 7.5 IRE + the vertical line count). Since the digital era, most people refering to PAL or NTSC , means frame rate AND resolution in SD (480 line versus 576 ) and 25 versus 30 frames/sec. Now we shoot in HD, the resolution is the same for everybody, stays only the framerate difference.
if you are a wise guy and don't want to go thru painful conversion, you need to match the national standard, the media compatibility and the intended artistic effect. Most people in HD shoot in 24p for cinematic, but there is no such thing as 24p DVD (still the most common media) and there is no TV chanel on 24p either, it is converter either in 25/30p or 50i/60i, so you need a conversion, then 25 or 30 (or 50i and 60i is better and straightforward) , if you shoot for bluray (still a uncommon distrib. format for amateur) , the choice is better/larger, but unfortunately there is no 25 in bluray only 24p, 50i and 60i so it is a problem for european shooters. For sure you can shoot any framerate and deal afterward on post with painful conversion if you want.(called pull down or pull up that plays with frame cloning/blending with more or less success)
adding the fact that 24p give some stuttering effect on fast pan/fast motion that many people find disturbing and as told above, using a framerate non matched with light frequency (particularly fluo tubes) gives a disturbing blinking effect.
but stop speaking about PAL or NTSC that is not relevant to digital video until you feed a TV set with a composite signal, that today is a thing of past.
People are also sometime wrongly reffering to PAL and NTSC instead DVD zone (mainly 1 for USA , 2 for europe) or bluray zone (A for USA, B for europe). in europe we have unlocked DVD player since a long time, so playing a zone 1 DVD is not a problem, but in USA it is still pretty locked.
Logically, zone 1 DVD are "NTSC" since they contain mpeg2 coded for USA, so 720x480 and 60i , while zone 2 is 720x576 at 50i. for sure you can publish a "zone 2" DVD that use a "PAL" setting but it would be a strange beast.
Note that usually amateur's DVD have no zone, since zoning a DVD is a pretty useless thing.
So to be clear, some people still labels their DVD with the PAL or NTSC reference to indicate the encoding format (
that is a wrong habit, but make things clearer even for simple users).
This is important only for people using players and TV set that are not multistandard (like most CRT TV set).
Fortunately this kind of equipement is disappearing, most flat LCD or plasma screen can handle any signal you can feed into them.
The same for bluray, but here unfortunately, you will hardly find multizone players able to both zone A and B, so you are pretty forced to provide a different disk depending you want it to play in USA or Europe, unless if you publish, like DVD, a non-zoned disk. In that case you do not need to specify anything since TV set and bluray players will handle any format smoothly and automatically.
again , zone A is expected to be 1920x1080 at 60i and zone B 1920x1080 at 50i, but the bluray specs accept 17 variation (including SD and HD) the next most common being 1280x720 progressive.
If you want to be universal, 24p is the best choice since it will play in zone A and B, but you need to shoot 24p because going to 24p down from 30p or 60i is a bit problematic (pictures to be skipped or blended), while going to 24p from 25p or 50i is a bit easier if you are a lucky european shooter. but again you can skip this useless conversion step by just shooting 24p at first.
You can also notice, that camera usually encode at same bandwith without regard to framerate, so the common 17 or 24Mb/sec usually found in H264 camera is shared for 24/25 or 30 picture per second (should it be progressive or interlaced). So it can be expected that the lowest framerate would encode better than the highest.
Another remark is about the fact that mpeg encoding systems are "progressive" friendly, since the common method for compressing with mpeg2 or mpeg4 is to take a square bit of picture (for example a 4x4 pixel square).
It looks pretty obvious that a progressive picture would then encode/decode more naturally than an interlaced one where picture is made of 2 fields (for example, adjacent line pixels in a progressive picture have more chance to be same color and then to be better encoded than pixel taken on odd or even line at a different time in an interlaced picture).
if you are a wise guy and don't want to go thru painful conversion, you need to match the national standard, the media compatibility and the intended artistic effect. Most people in HD shoot in 24p for cinematic, but there is no such thing as 24p DVD (still the most common media) and there is no TV chanel on 24p either, it is converter either in 25/30p or 50i/60i, so you need a conversion, then 25 or 30 (or 50i and 60i is better and straightforward) , if you shoot for bluray (still a uncommon distrib. format for amateur) , the choice is better/larger, but unfortunately there is no 25 in bluray only 24p, 50i and 60i so it is a problem for european shooters. For sure you can shoot any framerate and deal afterward on post with painful conversion if you want.(called pull down or pull up that plays with frame cloning/blending with more or less success)
adding the fact that 24p give some stuttering effect on fast pan/fast motion that many people find disturbing and as told above, using a framerate non matched with light frequency (particularly fluo tubes) gives a disturbing blinking effect.
but stop speaking about PAL or NTSC that is not relevant to digital video until you feed a TV set with a composite signal, that today is a thing of past.
People are also sometime wrongly reffering to PAL and NTSC instead DVD zone (mainly 1 for USA , 2 for europe) or bluray zone (A for USA, B for europe). in europe we have unlocked DVD player since a long time, so playing a zone 1 DVD is not a problem, but in USA it is still pretty locked.
Logically, zone 1 DVD are "NTSC" since they contain mpeg2 coded for USA, so 720x480 and 60i , while zone 2 is 720x576 at 50i. for sure you can publish a "zone 2" DVD that use a "PAL" setting but it would be a strange beast.
Note that usually amateur's DVD have no zone, since zoning a DVD is a pretty useless thing.
So to be clear, some people still labels their DVD with the PAL or NTSC reference to indicate the encoding format (
that is a wrong habit, but make things clearer even for simple users).
This is important only for people using players and TV set that are not multistandard (like most CRT TV set).
Fortunately this kind of equipement is disappearing, most flat LCD or plasma screen can handle any signal you can feed into them.
The same for bluray, but here unfortunately, you will hardly find multizone players able to both zone A and B, so you are pretty forced to provide a different disk depending you want it to play in USA or Europe, unless if you publish, like DVD, a non-zoned disk. In that case you do not need to specify anything since TV set and bluray players will handle any format smoothly and automatically.
again , zone A is expected to be 1920x1080 at 60i and zone B 1920x1080 at 50i, but the bluray specs accept 17 variation (including SD and HD) the next most common being 1280x720 progressive.
If you want to be universal, 24p is the best choice since it will play in zone A and B, but you need to shoot 24p because going to 24p down from 30p or 60i is a bit problematic (pictures to be skipped or blended), while going to 24p from 25p or 50i is a bit easier if you are a lucky european shooter. but again you can skip this useless conversion step by just shooting 24p at first.
You can also notice, that camera usually encode at same bandwith without regard to framerate, so the common 17 or 24Mb/sec usually found in H264 camera is shared for 24/25 or 30 picture per second (should it be progressive or interlaced). So it can be expected that the lowest framerate would encode better than the highest.
Another remark is about the fact that mpeg encoding systems are "progressive" friendly, since the common method for compressing with mpeg2 or mpeg4 is to take a square bit of picture (for example a 4x4 pixel square).
It looks pretty obvious that a progressive picture would then encode/decode more naturally than an interlaced one where picture is made of 2 fields (for example, adjacent line pixels in a progressive picture have more chance to be same color and then to be better encoded than pixel taken on odd or even line at a different time in an interlaced picture).
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@nosys - I work in a post production house in the broadcast sector. PAL and NTSC are very much a part of my world, and I expect that to continue for the forseeable future. Your workflow, I assume, is a file-based one that isn't influenced by a wide variety of delivery formats. Your assertation that PAL and NTSC are irrelevant until you feed a tv set with a composite signal is one that I really can't be bothered gracing with an argument, but more than that, I object to the tone you adopt. So if you can, let's try and keep things friendly, shall we?
facts :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAL
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTSC
In no way you will find any needs to reference to PAL or NTSC if you use modern video equipement, DV, HDV, HD, DSLR, mpeg2, mpeg4, digital files on card or tape or disk, a video cable like SDI, HD-SDI or HDMI or components
the only time where you will encounter that is when you connect your camera on a tv set using a composite cable or
if you still use betamax, VHS, hi8 , u-matic media.
In europe, you will hardly find any country still distributing video in an analog format, and i think USA is pretty well going on switching to digital TV also.
Yes, like almost 95% of people, you can still use that obsolete reference PAL and NTSC to differentiate video formats,
but it is wrong and that does not help for new (current) format like 24p (is it PAL or NTSC ? ) or HD resolution.
and yes, you are right, saying 24p is a also non-sens (or let say unfortunate shortcut) since it is not really 24p (usually).
it is more or less 23.976 frame (while some people cut it to 23.97), but some silly engineer (like the ones at canon) sometime used real (and useless) 24p in some of their video device (like the DSLR).
And the same for 30p that is really 29.97.
and to add to confusion, real 24p can be found (when the workflow was including good old film camera).
And my fault, yes, it seems 24p ( or 23.976 ?) DVD are possible. while i haven't seen any encoder proposing that framerate.
It is a proof that using fuzzy language (even when everybody seems to agree to the meaning) is dangerous.
please quote me where you find a "tone" that disturbs you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAL
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTSC
In no way you will find any needs to reference to PAL or NTSC if you use modern video equipement, DV, HDV, HD, DSLR, mpeg2, mpeg4, digital files on card or tape or disk, a video cable like SDI, HD-SDI or HDMI or components
the only time where you will encounter that is when you connect your camera on a tv set using a composite cable or
if you still use betamax, VHS, hi8 , u-matic media.
In europe, you will hardly find any country still distributing video in an analog format, and i think USA is pretty well going on switching to digital TV also.
Yes, like almost 95% of people, you can still use that obsolete reference PAL and NTSC to differentiate video formats,
but it is wrong and that does not help for new (current) format like 24p (is it PAL or NTSC ? ) or HD resolution.
and yes, you are right, saying 24p is a also non-sens (or let say unfortunate shortcut) since it is not really 24p (usually).
it is more or less 23.976 frame (while some people cut it to 23.97), but some silly engineer (like the ones at canon) sometime used real (and useless) 24p in some of their video device (like the DSLR).
And the same for 30p that is really 29.97.
and to add to confusion, real 24p can be found (when the workflow was including good old film camera).
And my fault, yes, it seems 24p ( or 23.976 ?) DVD are possible. while i haven't seen any encoder proposing that framerate.
It is a proof that using fuzzy language (even when everybody seems to agree to the meaning) is dangerous.
please quote me where you find a "tone" that disturbs you.
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