Ntsc (60 fps) vs PAL (50 fps)?

Forum|Forum|12 years ago
January 8, 2014
3 replies
49697 views

Hi all,

I have to choose between NTSC with 60 FPS or PAL with 50 fps on my new GoPro camera (black edition hero3+). What should I do? I live in the Netherlands, so intuitively would go for PAL. But that lowers the framerate possibilities. Higher framerate will enhance my plans to edit certain parts in slowmotion. So, is it possible to shoot with NTSC at 60 fps, edit this movie (in a 60 fps project), burn it to blu ray with loss of quality? Or should I choose for PAL 50 fps?

Thanks in advance for all for the help!

Hugo

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Steven L. Gotz

Inspiring

Your thought processes are almost correct. Shoot 60fps and edit 25fps.

The frames per second for your sequence have little to do with the frames per second of your footage when you are shooting with the intention of playing it back in slow motion.

Now that we are not using interlaced footage, and we are not trying to solve the problems of frame size differences between PAL and NTSC, there is little difference between me shooting at 60fps to put it on a 24fps timeline, and you putting it on a 25fps timeline. At least not for the slow motion footage.

The slow motion footage will show every frame when you interpret the footage to 25fps. No problem. It will look great.

The question is, what will the 60fps footage look like when put on a 25fps sequence at normal speed? Keep in mind the shutter speed is different when shooting 25 or 60.

And I say "little" difference. The math of 60 to 24 might be easier for the program than 60 to 25. I doubt it. After all, it is just a matter of dropping frames.

So that leaves the footage content itself. If it can survive the dropped frames, then great! If it is a little choppy, then it really wasn't suitable.

You have to decide that for yourself. My suggestion is to shoot some sample footage for practice before you do it for anything important. Get to know your camera and how 60fps looks on a 25fps timeline on a BD.

artofzootography.com

Averdahl

Community Expert

Your thought processes are almost correct. Shoot 60fps and edit 25fps.

No, i disagree. BD-disc's handle 720p60 in PAL contry and converting the material will only lead to loss of time and quality with no gain at all.

For slow motion use either Interpret Footage or Clip Speed / Duration.

To JacquesBak:

Try both methods and see what looks best.

J

JacquesBakAuthor

Participant

Roger,

I have tested extensively and I have found that slow motion works best when the footage is interpreted and not merely had frames duplicated.

Therefore, shooting 60fps and editing on a 25fps sequence makes for beautiful slow motion when the footage is properly interpreted. There is no real advantage to shooting 60fps if you are just going to edit in a 60fps sequence and then export by throwing away frames to get to 25fps.

The original post suggested editing in a 60fps and exporting 25fps. But it also indicated that he wanted good slow motion. That is why he wants to shoot 60fps.

If he shoots 60fps and edits 25fps, then the slow motion will be great.

You are probably correct that the BD can handle 60fps, (I would not know) but I don't think that is the point of the original query.

Edit: If the light source is a problem, shoot 50fps instead of 60fps.

Thanks all for the response!

@ Steven,

There is also a possibility in Premiere Pro to interpret parts of the footage at a lower frame rate within a 60 fps sequence. Is that not a better option than working with 60 fps footage in a 25 fps sequence? In addition, your answer suggests that the project setting is PAL 1080p PAL 25 fps, whereas I shoot footage using NTSC settings (at 60 FPS)? This is not a problem? Or should I burn the bluray as a 30 fps NTSC? Lastly, if I'm going to edit in a 25 fps sequence, then I can also import in Adobe Elements instead of Pro right?

Thanks all once again for helping me out. You are all right that I need some actual experimenting with my camera to find out what works best. The proof of the pudding is in the eating!

Ciao

Hugo

Averdahl

Community Expert

So, is it possible to shoot with NTSC at 60 fps, edit this movie (in a 60 fps project), burn it to blu ray with loss of quality? Or should I choose for PAL 50 fps?

Yes, you can shoot 60 fps, edit 60 fps and burn a 60 fps BD-disk without and view it in PAL contry without any issues. You can mix frame size and frame rates on BD without any issues, that's one of the wonderful things with BD compared to DVD.

/Roger