I'm working on a scene file set up for a little documentary shoot for tv (PAL). The director said he'd like to have a special look, nothing like your normal tv look. Other than that I'm free to make suggestions.

I was thinking to give it a filmish look, but I don't want to shoot progressive because it is for tv only.

Now I was asking myself what would be the best syncro scan setting if I use 50i and "film cam" mode. Or doesn't that make sense at all and would it be better if I just used 50i and "video cam" mode. And why is the standard setting for "video cam" mode 1/48 when the camera is set to pal 576/50i ?

I have to admit I'm a little lost here...

Why not shoot progressive for TV? That's done all the time. If you want a filmish look, 25p is perfect for that.

(I'm not saying you have to do it, only that if you want that look there's no reason at all to rule it out).

As for your shutter speed -- you cannot set a shutter speed slower than your field rate. The slowest shutter speed you can use with 50i is 1/50th. If you set the syncro scan any slower (i.e., 1/48th) it'll ignore you and use 1/50th instead.

(note: it is true that you can choose a 1/25th or 1/12th shutter speed, but then you won't be shooting 50i anymore, it'll actually drop to 25p or 12.5p).

Thanks a lot for the clarification of the shutter speed issue. It's pretty confusing that the menu says "1/48" by default even when the camera is configured to PAL 50i...

About the progressive recording, I don't want to go too far with the film look, people are used to the news and tv look on our station, they might not get it (the documentary is only a small segment of about 5 minutes)