Hi guys,

please I've got a few questions on codecs: I work in Australia where the standard is PAL; should I ask Canon to add the 24f and 60i option to my camera? If yes, why? When would I be required to shoot 24f? Can the 25f be used as a proper shooting standard?

If I propose some of my work to a national broadcaster what format is he likely to ask for?

And also, if I capture to FCP via firewire as 24f or 25f with the new FCP 24f codec do I get a real 24p? Can the new FCP codec overcome the DVCPRO-HD conversion?

Thanks a lot for your help
Have a good day
Christian

Quite a few questions here.
It really all depends on what your destination going to be. If you are going to broadcast on in PAL, you will want to shoot 50i. If you want to broadcast in NTSC, you want 60i. If you are going to print to film, you want 24f.

If you shoot in 24f and broadcast it, it will have to be converted, or telecined.

Unless you are planning to export your media to NTSC countries, there should be no reason to have your camera changed. And no, the camera is never 'stuck' in 24f mode.

Regarding 'true 24p' with the XL, it doesnt exist. The XL uses an interlaced sensor, when you shoot 24f, it uses a field combining method to produce 24f, and I will attest that it looks REALLY GOOD. Having said that, yes, final cut will grab 24f from the camera.

Lastly, never use the DVCPROHD codec. It downsamles the image and it also goes through a colorspace conversion.

here is a quote from wikipedia.
DVCPRO HD downsamples native 720p/1080i signals to a lower resolution. 720p is downsampled from 1280x720 to 960x720, and 1080i is downsampled from 1920x1080 to 1280x1080 for 59.94i and 1440x1080 for 50i.