When PAL is selected under "Video System", is the camera shooting at 25fps, 50Hz?

I was all set to buy a HDMI-to-HDSI convertor so I could see the image with real and larger (9" and 17") HD broadcast monitors but found out that the HDMI only outputs 480P! Thanks to this forum, I saved myself some $. I'll use my portable SD monitor only for framing.

How far can we trust the image generated from the camera's LCD? Are the colours and contrast closely accurate to a broadcast monitor?

My understanding is that although when RECORDING it puts out a downrezzed image, it puts out the full signal on playback -- meaning you CAN capture the stream after the fact. But you might want to check that as I haven't actually done it personally. Also, I'm pretty sure this thing shoot 30p always. All that setting PAL does is change the playback, so somewhere somehow the 30p is being modified to 25p (it's not true 25p).