PAL or NTSC (long) was: The quality of 8MM film

[sb]

NTSC is 525 lines and PAL is 625 lines. More lines, better picture.
PAL is Phase Alternating which means the Hue doesn't change, it's locked,
unlike NTSC, which is sometimes referred to as "Never The Same Color twice".

OTOH, PAL's 25 f/sec means that you are scanning fewer lines since NTSC
scans at 29.97 f/sec.

As for camera recommendations in the $3K range, there are really only a few
by each major manufacturer. Most of the reviews I have read on LAFCPUG,
Creative Cow, and 2-Pop praise the Sony PD150, the Canon GL2, the Panasonic
24P camera, and there's also a 3 chip JVC that's in the same price range
(not the "HD", a regular miniDV camera)

The people who are trying to make real movies like the Canon XL1 for it's
changeable lens (most films are shot with a fixed lens, not a zoom lens) and
the XL1 is the only handycam style camera to take different lenses.

The PD150 is switchable between miniDV and DVCam, and it also has
addressable timecode, which is nice if you are shooting a lot of tape. You
can change the start timecode of each tape to reflect the reel number.
It also has two XLR (audio) connections, which is very helpful.

You really can't buy a camera without holding it in your hands and trying it
out. You need to feel whether the controls are comfortable, etc. If you like
the way a camera fits your hands, any of the three chips will be relatively
similar in picture quality.

 my .02

 sb


On 7/28/03 6:33 PM, "Paul Williams" <mulder at fred.net> wrote:

> Which is a better DV format NTSC or PAL? Also, if you had, lets say,
> $3,000 to burn on a digital video camera to use in FCP or FCE, where
> could you find a good, solid, objective rating of the available
> cameras out there. I've been looking at the compatibility page at the
> mac site (http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/qualification.html), but
> where do you start narrowing down which one to use?
> 
> Paul
> 
>>>  Heres my question: When i discuss transferring these 8mm reels to a
>>>  format, what format should i get them transferred to so i may
>>>  continue my work on FCP, FCE or some other editor you might suiggest?
>> 
>> Get them transferred to whatever DV tape format you can work with -- be it
>> miniDV or Digital8.  Do not get it on DVD unless that's the only way you can
>> get it digitally (DVD will still look TONS better than VHS or SVHS even
>> though it's compressed with MPEG2).  But you might just be getting fed the
>> signal from a low-end VHS camera into a DV camera, which is far from
>> ideal...  But still better than VHS tape I guess?