Comments

farss wrote on 9/16/2005, 8:39 AM
I think the issue is going from 50i to 60i involves de-interlacing and that's the tricky bit, without motion compensation motion gets a little blurred although no one has complained so far and as one client said to me today his footage that I converted to NTSC looks better than the job done through a high priced pro post house.
My advice though, if you want NTSC and have no need for a PAL output shoot NTSC, life is complex enough. If you need 16:9 buy a HDV camera, even if you don't want to deal with HDV, just switch the thing into SD mode.
You've now got a choice, the Z1 or the A1, both can shoot SD PAL or NTSC in 4:3 or 16:9.
Bob.
Laurence wrote on 9/16/2005, 10:39 AM
I find that Vegas 6 can convert PAL interlaced to NTSC interlaced with no problem, so I really don't need to worry about deinterlacing.

At this point I'm more concerned about high quality 4:3 and 16:9 output than I am with HD. I do documentary style stuff that really lends itself better to a 4:3 than 16:9 format. I do projects for non-profit organizations and most people will definately be viewing my work on 4:3 sets and I want it to look the best it can in that format. On the other hand, 16:9 is the format of the future no question, and so I need to do that as well. What I really need is to be able to do SD at both aspect ratios cleanly. If I got the Z1 or A1, I'd probably still be shooting 4:3 SD so as best to do both formats.

A Z1 would be the best option for me if I could afford it. Does the A1 really do both PAL and NTSC as well? Is it passable in low light?
jrazz wrote on 9/16/2005, 1:21 PM
I believe spot posted a thread on the A1 in which he reviews the pre-production model. It might be under DSE. You could run a search for that or you could go to sony.com and look up the specs on it there or b&h has them listed as well I believe. I will be upgrading to one of these as soon as they become "in stock" again.
By the way, I think I did read that it does both PAL and NTSC... I didn't pay much attention b/c my venue has no interest in PAL.
Laurence wrote on 9/16/2005, 6:40 PM
I looked up the A1 through several sources. It does not seem to be dual PAL/NTSC format as is the Z1.

The extra vertical resolution of PAL means that even after you lop of a quarter of the resolution off the top and bottom of the image, you still have 432 lines of resolution. That is only 50 lines short of the 480 that an anamorphic 16:9 NTSC image has. Interpolating only 50 lines and generating the extra frames would be a piece of cake for Vegas 6.

Somebody must have experience with this.