Fiming in 60p vs 50p in europe

[Leon Yiu]

Hello

I was wondering about your thoughts on whether its best to film in 60p or 50p for those in 50hz countries.

In the Pal/ntsc days with the tradeoff from the 60i ntsc standard being 480 lines over 576 lines in Pal the increased frame rate came at a cost.

 

Now however Hdtv resolutions are standardised. There is a push for 50/60p frame rates for uhd video, however in 50hz countries that'll mean 10 fewer frames per second and in future with 120fps/100fps that'll be a difference of 20 fps which is significant.

 

There were several issues with filming at a framerate different from the electricity supply, however many of these issues are now non-existent, most flat panels sold now can happily except 50/60i and fluorescent lights have ballasts which up the frequency to several megahertz to prevent flicker. For broadcast of a 2160p/60 to a hd 1080i/50 channel, every sixth frame can be dropped and interlaced for hd broadcast.

 

Wouldn't it be better to have a standardised frame rate throughout the whole world rather than multiples of legacy frame rates otherwise here in europe we'll be watching fewer fps than in the u.s and japan.

[Julian]

Fewer frames isn't necessarily a bad thing. Filmmakers prefers 24p/25p over 30p, because of the fewer frames which result in a different look.

[bluez]

Hi Leon.

 

I have set my Eos 600D to NTSC so i can shoot @ 30P. I have not had any problems with flicker yet and my HDTV has no problem reading and displaying the format. 30P is a little better than 25p for action filming and it matches youtube.

 

It's sad that so many compact cameras are sticked to 50 or 25 P in Europe, and 30 ot 60P for the US market.

They have often set the meuse so the user can't change it.