Pal vs NTSC

ScumLord

Is it best to just use Pal in Europe? I got a Gopro Hero 2 and it gives me the option of choosing between NTSC (30fps) and Pal (25fps). For the hero it would seem having more frames per second would be beneficial as it would cut down on blur and when using the cameras higher frame rates I'd have more detail to work with the slow motion features of the camera.

Is it all much of a muchness once you get it into your editing package? I haven't noticed any problems yet.

The one major concern is my other camcorder is set at Pal 25fps so maybe I should keep it the same across the board? Or can I treat the Hero differently so I can get the maximum frames?

Bodhan

I edit on Premier Pro, I shoot in 720p NTSC on one camera, 720p PAL on another one and sometimes NTSC @ 60fps.

I just have to render them on the timeline when I edit. For export I do NTSC 720p @ 30fps works on Youtube just fine.

frozenfrozen

ScumLord wrote: »

Is it best to just use Pal in Europe? I got a Gopro Hero 2 and it gives me the option of choosing between NTSC (30fps) and Pal (25fps). For the hero it would seem having more frames per second would be beneficial as it would cut down on blur and when using the cameras higher frame rates I'd have more detail to work with the slow motion features of the camera.

Is it all much of a muchness once you get it into your editing package? I haven't noticed any problems yet.

The one major concern is my other camcorder is set at Pal 25fps so maybe I should keep it the same across the board? Or can I treat the Hero differently so I can get the maximum frames?

Go for ntsc, higher frames on a gopro is definitely better

Bodhan

It's not better, it's the same with more frames in it. It only really matters if you want to slow something down.

If you film at 50/60fps you can make the editing package interpret that as 30/25fps making slow motion out of the clip.

For high speed stuff e.g. a car moving quickly through the frame go for high FPS. For talking to the camera or taking scenic shots then it makes no difference because the resolution is the same.

On a side note, it's less rendering timelines if you keep all the same resolution and frame rate and format.

Miguel_Sanchez

Best to keep everything 25 fps - if you try to start mixing stuff you're opening up a world of annoyance for yourself.
Trying to mix 30fps and 25 fps footage will be hugely problematic.

Best to stick to one frame rate. And if you finish a whole project at 30fps and then want to have it shown on TV - welcome to the world of standards conversion - which is a headache and a half (or at least I always found it was!)

Lump

25 FPS..... 5 frames per second isn't going make much different for blur etc. Also the Standard in Europe is 25, so it's best to stay with that!

ScumLord

Bodhan wrote: »

If you film at 50/60fps you can make the editing package interpret that as 30/25fps making slow motion out of the clip.

It'll shot at 120fps for some cool slowmo stuff. Haven't tried that feature out to much as it requires an awful lot of light.

For high speed stuff e.g. a car moving quickly through the frame go for high FPS. For talking to the camera or taking scenic shots then it makes no difference because the resolution is the same.

On my other camera that's all handled with the framerate I can't adjust the fps at all.


I'll default to PAL for compatibilities sake and try and experiment when I can.

For SD, PAL would give better picture quality than NTSC despite the lower framerate (576 visible lines rather than NTSC's 480). For HD the quality should be the same and in theory it would be better to use 30fps but as 25fps is the standard in Europe you could run into trouble with standards conversion down the line.

Rew

I shoot everything on my Hero 2 at NTSC 720p 60fps and convert down to what ever im going to publish at. You can do nice smooth slow motion By bringing the 60fps down to 25fps.

Unless your shooting specific story borded shots you never now when your going to capture something that would look nice slowed.

This was shot at 60fps and slowed:

pandaboy

I'd stick with Jeff_Lebowski's answer above. If you're dealing with something for online material then there's no problem with shooting with NTSC but all cameras must be shot in the same standard. You can conform the frame rate and Adobe does a good job but there are expensive applications out there that will do a better job.

For the sake of 5 frames and to save yourself a headache in post and to also save time then stick with PAL - especially for multi-camera shoots and if you're dealing with something for broadcast in Europe.

If you're looking at doing slo-mo stuff then check out the app Twixtor, it's excellent for slo mo and works with Adobe After Effects like a dream.

Rew

There is a difference between conforming 60fps to 25fps and manufacturing frames to get 1000fps and the like. If your using Twixtor or similar you get much better results from using 60fps footage in the first place as it gives Twixtor double the amount of info to work with.

For GoPros id stick to 60fps as you can easily drop down but you will struggle be able to achieve a decent slowdown.

pandaboy

Rew wrote: »

There is a difference between conforming 60fps to 25fps and manufacturing frames to get 1000fps and the like. If your using Twixtor or similar you get much better results from using 60fps footage in the first place as it gives Twixtor double the amount of info to work with.

For GoPros id stick to 60fps as you can easily drop down but you will struggle be able to achieve a decent slowdown.

Bang on the money there. I don't know if you can adjust shutter speeds with the Go-Pro but it's recommend you work with a high shutter speed so as to have a crisp image when Twixtor conforms the footage to which ever amount of frames you're using. Blur effects are then applied to parts of the image where the "jelly effect"/ rolling shutter appears so as to bring a bit of fluidity to the final image.

Rew

pandaboy wrote: »

Bang on the money there. I don't know if you can adjust shutter speeds with the Go-Pro but it's recommend you work with a high shutter speed so as to have a crisp image when Twixtor conforms the footage to which ever amount of frames you're using. Blur effects are then applied to parts of the image where the "jelly effect"/ rolling shutter appears so as to bring a bit of fluidity to the final image.

No shutter speed control on the gopro, everything is auto (small bit of control on metering thats all)

pandaboy

Cool, so if you are looking to do some slomo stuff you're going to need a strong light source. Again, I don't know how the shutter mechanism works but from what I've seen from videos on YouTube it seems to be fairly good.

Looking to get one in the next month or so. They are well worth the cash.

ScumLord

I did a bit of experimenting with the hero 2, I was actually going to ask how the hero 2 capture compares to shutter speed as that's what the other camera uses but the hero has a rolling shutter. Does that mean it will never get blur?

I can adjust blur on my Sony camera using shutter speeds and thought the two cameras might match up better with the hero in medium FOV at 25fps. The hero 2 is pretty comparable to a non fish eye lens at the medium or narrow FOV.

pandaboy

ScumLord wrote: »

I did a bit of experimenting with the hero 2, I was actually going to ask how the hero 2 capture compares to shutter speed as that's what the other camera uses but the hero has a rolling shutter. Does that mean it will never get blur?

I can adjust blur on my Sony camera using shutter speeds and thought the two cameras might match up better with the hero in medium FOV at 25fps. The hero 2 is pretty comparable to a non fish eye lens at the medium or narrow FOV.

Rolling shutter will give a jelly effect; prime example would be guitar strings on the iPhone 4 videos. From what I can see so, the shutter speed is variable resulting in the jelly effect. If editing you can put a blur on the wobbly part but it could take a bit of tweaking.

Rew

They crop the image to take out the fish eye but the sensor is big enough to not lose quality.

GoPro's are brilliant depending on what you want them for. I've used mine for skiing, mountain biking, swimming, ice skating, paint balling, on my car, time lapse videos, adventure racing, climbing etc. Stuck one on to a HDMI->HDSDI converter and into a vision mixer recently to see if there was potential to use it in a live shoot, looked good.

I did manage to knock the SD card out in once ski crash and lost that video but it was fairly hard smack!

The Hero 2 is substantially better at lower light levels then the Hero but don't expect miracles. In bright sunshine the footage is beautiful.

ScumLord

It is spectacular in the sunshine it's just unfortunate we don't get much of that in this country. I was filming yesterday while it was overcast and the light isn't great. There is a lot of colour detail though and you can make the image look a lot better with some colour correction.

Got it in front of a green screen too, it seems very good at chroma keying.

Martindwest1

For a beginner with gopro 4 silver should i set cam un ntsc or pal, thanks

ScumLord

If you're in Ireland PAL. NTSC is slightly smaller screen size and operates at a higher frame rate. I don't think it makes a huge difference these days but I'd set it to pal just to avoid any problems.

Bob Z

a few years ago i had bother with a project because i mixed different standards i cant remember if it was differing fps or screen sizes that caused the problem. i could edit it ok but i couldnt export it as a file so try to keep everything the same even sound dont mix 12 and 16 if you can

it was on premier i cant remember if fcp had the same problem

having said that it was years ago so the software can deal with it