The camera lists one of the shooting rates as 29.97p ...I assume this is the same as what other companies call 30p???

I would think so. 29.97 is 30 fps drop-frame.

C

http://www.tvtechnology.com/features/Tech-Corner/f-rh-smp.shtml

As Serenas link states: "Monochrome NTSC ran at a rate of exactly 30 frames per second, and so did 1125/60 analog HDTV and 30 fps film. Color NTSC runs at a rate of 30 frames per second multiplied by 1/1.001, or approximately 29.97 fps."

When the NTSC system was being developed, they realised that the subcarrier frequency had to be an exact multiple of line frequency, itself an exact multiple of frame rate. Unfortunately, the necessary frequency that derived from 30Hz was found to interfere very badly with the sound subcarrier on some early monochrome receivers. The easy fix at the time was to move it by defining the frame rate as stated above.

Then time code came along, and the necessity of drop frame modes to keep it in sync with real time. Ease of downconversion is why these rates are kept into HDTV systems.