PAL vs NTSC, still matter with HDTV?

[samstock]

The recent video cameras still let you choose to shoot in Pal or NTSC. But these are analog video systems and nowadays we use mostly Digital TV. Why do PAL and NTSC still matter?
Does someone know if there is any other difference between 1080p50 (PAL) and 1080p60 (NTSC) except for the fps?
I'd say I should go for NTSC for the higher frame rates, although here in Europe the standard is PAL.

 

[kelemvor]

I believe in digital land it's just the framerate. Actually I thought both were encoding systems used for analog only but you're right about the framerate difference. If you're in europe you should go with pal. Your source media (cable/broadcast/blu-ray) is all going to be 50hz. Your tv is going to be expecting 50hz. If you want to play 60hz content, it will likely get converted along the way.

I have watched a fair share of converted 50hz media on 60hz displays (also 25hz on 30hz back in the SD days). My experience has been that the converted video is not as pleasant - although that depends on exactly how the conversion is performed.

If you're still shopping for a camera, look into 4k. They must be coming down in price by now. Most top tier cell phones have recorded 4k for a few generations (galaxy s5, s6 etc). "Action" cameras like gopro and other brands all do 4k. If you've got a camera and are just wondering what setting to use, stick with PAL for now.

 

[samudravisions]

I think this is an interesting question, which has been an issue for many filmers.

I have tested many settings this year since I recently bought a new camera.30 and 60 fps looked best and most smooth. 24 fps didn't look good at all, very jerky. 25 frames was okay, but you could see a big difference with 30 frames regarding the smoothness.I now always render my footage to 1080p with 30fps. I live in Europe where PAL is the standard, but still use the NTSC settings on my camera. But I think that doesn't matter anymore with the HD TV's nowadays. Whatever I convert to 24 fps looks terrible, very jerky, like it is skipping frames. Not smooth at all. 25 fps to 25 is fine of course, but 25 to 24 also looked very bad.

My favorite setting is 2.7k with 60 frames. It still looks sharp when you use lens correction etc, and you have a possibility to slow some shots down.

I recently saw an underwater documentary on DVD here, and at some point they said they were filming at 60 fps. So they must have converted it but it still looked good and smooth. Are there special programs to do this?

I'm curious what settings other filmers use for filming underwater?

 

[kelemvor]

Whatever I convert to 24 fps looks terrible, very jerky, like it is skipping frames. Not smooth at all. 25 fps to 25 is fine of course, but 25 to 24 also looked very bad.

You might look into other conversion software. Usually when this happens, conversion software that lazily duplicates frames or worse duplicates the same frame many times is the culprit. Good conversion software will generate intermediate frames spaced as evenly and far apart as possible. That minimizes the jerky look you're seeing. You can do it right with free software like virtualdub, but that is one difficult to use package. Keep in mind that in SD land, you get higher resolution (PAL) in the framerate tradeoff .

Also, if you're shooting greater than 1080p you will find you need a pretty beefy computer to deal with that video come edit time. Unless you're just uploading it to youtube and using their rather meager editing tools (and google powered backend).

 

[samudravisions]

I used Adobe Premiere to convert my files so I doubt the conversion software was the problem since Premiere is a pretty advanced program. Editing 2.7k takes extra time indeed but the final result is really good.

 

[dfx]

The frame rate is the only difference. With any somewhat modern equipment, the screen refresh rate is either way higher than the video frame rate, or adjusts itself to match the video frame rate, so it doesn't really matter. Only if you want to play back the video on a screen with a fixed refresh rate that's somewhat close to but doesn't match exactly the video frame rate (say, 60 Hz screen and a 50 fps video) you may see some quality deterioration. Otherwise it doesn't matter.

Some HD video cameras can shoot interlaced video. Avoid that if at all possible.