Pal / ntsc

[Alan Maughan]

Guys,

Firstly please forgive me if this is in the wrong section, after 5 minutes of deliberation I still couldn't figure to where to post this.

Im a photographer who is starting to dabble in video, I use a couple of 7D's. I have been asked to make a number of short 3-5min info films which I'm comfortable with and I feel well capable of doing well. Ultimately these films will be supplied to my clients customers in DVD and distributed in both the UK and the US as well as being hosted on sites like Youtube and Vimeo so I need to be able to supply the client with both PAL, NTSC and internet friendly formats.

My question is; what format and frame rate should I record in and what product would I use to convert one to the other and at what stage in my workflow?

Many thanks in advance for any help you guys can offer, at this stage I need to understand this issue before accepting the job.

[Jon Fairhurst]

I would shoot at 23.976 fps. Like any 24fps movie, this goes well into 60i. Speed it up by just over 4% and it will run at 25 fps for PAL viewers. Hollywood does this all the time...

[Stelios Christofides]

Jon
Is that the only difference?

stelios

[Jon Fairhurst]

DVDs have a higher resolution in PAL than NTSC, but shooting in 1080p, you don't have to worry about that. Just render to the proper MPEG-2 file format for 50 and 60Hz DVDs and it should take care of it for you.

[Alan Maughan]

Guys,

Im still not 100% clear on this and have an added consideration.

If I want to mix footage from my 7D and new GoPro 2 would this then force me to shoot everything in 30fps so it all mixes smoothly?

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Alan Maughan

Guys,

Im still not 100% clear on this and have an added consideration.

If I want to mix footage from my 7D and new GoPro 2 would this then force me to shoot everything in 30fps so it all mixes smoothly?

Not necessarily as you provided you don't need to synchronise audio you could use Cinema Tools or similar to conform 30p to 25p or vice versa.

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by Alan Maughan

My question is; what format and frame rate should I record in and what product would I use to convert one to the other and at what stage in my workflow?

One of the first questions to ask relates to what sort of look is required, and by that I'm thinking of motion rendition. Motion appears very different with frame rates around 24-30fps versus 50-60fps - the former can appear "juddery" if something moves fast across screen, the latter gives a more fluid motion. Think the difference between "film-look" and how such as sport normally looks.

Which do you want? No easy answer - depends what you're doing. The suggestion about 24-25fps may be best in some cases, but if "smooth motion" is desired it would not be a good choice. In that case, I'd be inclined to try shooting and editing etc in either 720p/50 or 720p/60 which will deal with the motion issue, then standard convert to get the other. That should be a case of selecting a different render output setting in your edit program.

The choice of 720p/50 or 720p/60 origination is probably best settled by whether your MAIN market for output is a 50Hz world like Europe, or a 60Hz world like the US or Japan. Inevitably, the original format will look somewhat better than the conversion, whichever way round. If neither can really be considered more significant than the other, it makes sense to shoot according to the frequency of where you are - so 720p/50 if in Europe, 720p/60 if in the US. (As an aside, "PAL" and "NTSC" really only have any meaning for analogue systems, and standard definition at that - far better not to use them in any HD context.)

To derive DVDs, then a downconversion from 720p/50 to 576i/25 (PAL) and from 720p/60 to 480i/30 (NTSC) works well in each case, and will preserve the fluid motion look. In each case, you are deriving a single field of PAL or NTSC from a single frame of the HD material.

If you don't need fluid motion, then what Jon suggests is a good idea, but again think about main market. If it's a 50Hz country, better to shoot 25p and speed adjust for 60Hz countries to 23.97p, rather than the other way round.

As far as the GoPro, does it not have any 24p mode?

[Alan Maughan]

Thanks for your reply David and others.

Sadly GoPro is 30/48/60 fps which has me confused.

The DVD needs to be played in both the UK/Europe and the US in equal measures, I am leaning towards shooting in NTSC 24p as Jon suggested. Im told that the majority of UK and European PAL DVD players all play NTSC format but not the other way around.

I just dont see how to integrate the GoPro easily or in fact what frame rate to choose for it.

This is an example of the type of footage I will shooting, this was shot in NTSC 24p with a Red and 5DII

The Incomparable Ponoi on Vimeo

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Alan Maughan

Sadly GoPro is 30/48/60 fps which has me confused.

If you switch the GoPro HD Hero 2 to PAL mode it will do 25/50 fps.

[Tony Davies-Patrick]

I viewed the "Incomparable Ponoi" video short on Vimeo. Nice filming technique and very interesting. Great work Alan, I liked it a lot and thought that it was well worth watching.

I also sell my own DVDs worldwide, but because the largest portion of buyers are Pal-land based (especially UK/Europe), I only sell Pal-DVDs. I also sell many to USA in pal format, but Europe/Africa/Russia/Asia/Japan/Australia/NZ are my main buyers.

I now film everything in Pal format HD at 25P.

If I need to blend older SD with HD, I like to up-rez the SD and down-rez the HD both to 720P. I then edit them together and make a completed 720P file. This final file is loaded to my DVD-authoring software to make and burn a DVD-R Master disc at highest quality MPEG-2.

These discs are then produced in batches of 1,000 or more by a professional DVD company as finished products with high-resolution on-bodies, inside special double-DVD disc sets (DVD 2-disc folders, plastic-wrapped & sealed).

Because my US/Canadian buyers generally don't mind purchasing Pal DVDs and playing on PCs/laptops/all-region DVD players etc, it is not worthwhile the extra expense for me to produce equal amounts of DVDs in Pal & NTSC versions.
Some years ago many of my US buyers bought my Pal DVDs and then had them converted themselves to NTSC format, but in recent years most are content to simply watch them on their big PC/laptop screens, (some are ex-Pat Europeans and already have Pal TVs in their homes).

If I were faced with the need to produce two separate versions of DVDS in Pal & NTSC formats, and the eventual sales covered the extra expense of doing this, then I would still film everything in 25P Pal. I would edit everything in to a finished HD file, and burn separate NTSC and Pal Mpeg2 files on to two separate Master DVD discs.

[Bernard Lau]

Since u r in the UK, I would recommend u shoot in PAL and at 24fps 1080p, the film look is what the 7D & other Dslr are great for. Also, u won't get flickering when you shoot at 50 or 30 shutter speed.

You can mix frame rates in your editor, with the new Premire Pros, u don't even need to render the clips.

Just make sure you make NTSC versions of the DVDs that will go to the US.
It won't matter on YouTube or vimeo.