The classic PAL doubts... HDV is NTSC or PAL? probably none...

Hi everyone,

I have to shoot a TV show here in LA and deliver it in PAL for Europe.

I think my best bet is Natress' filters.

But I still want to clarify a couple of things.

We are going to use a Sony HVR-Z1U. I got the camera 10 minutes ago, and after this posting I will dive into it, but I was told it shoots PAL and NTSC.

My question is:

Is HDV PAL or NTSC (one OR the other) or is HDV a format that is just something else?
Being something else, can HDV be exported (by Compressor?) to SD PAL , for instance?

If I work with HDV in my timeline, is the enconding to SD PAL Fullscreen a big hassle? What steps should I take? Do I have to crop before exporting? Is there a filter for this cropping/modification of aspect ration in FCP? How render intensive is that? Should I forget about it?

Guess I have a long night ahead...

Thanks guys !!!

Ok, just watched a DVD Guide for the HVR-Z1U that helped A LOT, the name?
"Hands On HDV - A complete guide to the HVR-Z1R and HDR-FX1"

So I just found out that with this camera I can, among other options, shoot in HDV and when outputting, output in PAL SD, with crop option! Pretty sweet, VERY VERY happy with that.
(Maybe that is a common feature in Prosumer HDV cameras , I just have been spending my time between objective-c and realflow, need to update myself obviously)

So, I will set the camera to shoot HDV 1080i in 50i to output it to PAL SD and edit in SD. If I need HDV shoots for my reel later I guess I will have to go back to the tapes, but I guess it's fine.
(On a side note: you could put it to 60i if outputting to NTSC later. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong).

Things are looking better now. Guess I will get some sleep. Hope this short thread can help someone feeling lost like I was 2 hours ago.

Eric, I'd recommend that if your programme is for initially specific delivery to PAL TV markets then you'd want to shoot, edit and master it in 1080i50. From that HD (50i) master you could create an SD PAL deliverable whilst retaining the HD master for potential future HD sales / delivery.

The decision depends a bit on the location.

We had that before. Though the actual picture format now is the same with HD for both standards light sources which run on AC (60 Hz in the US, 50 Hz in PAL countries) could interfere with the recording speed (50 vs. 60).
So it's not only a decision which depends on the market to deliver but also on the location where you do the actual recording.
It's always easy to convert from one standard to another, but you nearly don't have any chance to remove light flickering.

Andreas

I'm kinda curious about this light flickering when shot with different frequencies. What happens at 24p?



www.strypesinpost.com

With 24p it might happen as well.
In any of those cases (24/25/30 etc) it also depends on the shutter speed of the cam.

Andreas

@ strypes

These cameras have a "synchro scan" (or similarly named) mode that allows small adjustments of shutter speed; watching the image on a decent monitor on location tells you when the rolling or flickering stops. Very Very helpful.

Thanks of all the tips!

I definitively will take Andy Mees' tips about shooting in 50i (bg fan you your tips on FXScripts!)

And I have to say that Andreas Kiel just SAVED my day yesterday. I went to shoot something indoors. Guess what kind of lights they had? Bingo, Fluorescent!

The flickering is just terrible, unacceptable. So I went ahead and changed the camera to 60i. Not the best, given that I will get some PAL out of that (probably using the Natress Plugin that I bought two days ago). But at least I got something to work on, thanks Andreas!!!!!

My camera does not have 24P, true 24P that is, so I can't really tell Strypes what will happen, I am also curious now. I do know that the flickering is not something that maybe only technical people will see. No it is pretty bad, as bad as a syncho scan.

The flickering did catch me off guard and we just had to roll, so I just went straight for 60i, but I will try to adjust shutter speed like Kit L suggested next time. Thanks a lot for that tip too!!!

Thanks guys , this IS the best forum , not the best FCP forum, THE BEST FORUM (period)

Just a small follow up:
I have shot in 50i using shutter speed 1/60 and the flicker was gone.