@sam_stickland - sure, not complaining about 24p isn't in sync, that's not the issue. We're not talking about 24p, we just happen to have a heap of half-baked assertions that "24p and 25p are really quite similar, so why not just use 24p and fudge it a little"?

The problem facing people is that you can shoot 1080p ntsc video at 30fps, which is just fine for American mains sync and American or Jap TV, but you can't shoot 1080p pal AT ALL (which some here would really like to).

What irks me most about it is how Panny proudly trumpets on their website that the sensor captures 1080 at 50p (PAL) or 60p (NTSC), a spec which, as far as I can tell has NO EFFECT WHATSOEVER on what the camera can do - it's like saying "my car can do 500bhp, when the turbo is linked by a shaft to a fighter jet engine" ... totally pointless assertion, even if true. [ http://panasonic.net/avc/lumix/systemcamera/gms/gh2/movie.html - "Now the DMC-GH2 can record high-resolution full-HD 1,920 x 1,080 movies in astonishing smooth 60i (NTSC) / 50i (PAL), doubling the sensor output from 24p / 25p to 60p / 50p" ] Good job there, Panny.

The one interesting thing from *that* is that it implies that the sensor could *perhaps* be read at 50p and frame-dropped (esp. as shutter can be set slower than framerate... every second frame of 50p with 1/25th shutter would look a lot like 25p to my eye, I think), but apparently that's not an option? Maybe Vitaly can confirm... it could be that the sensor 'captures' 50p (i.e. the CCD pixels are always on the chip :-/ ) but can't output 50p to the next thing in the chain...

On a side note - for those who are shooting for broadcast, will the customers not take 1080/50i?

Chef you have it backwards - the GH2 has 24p but doesn't have 25p (yet ; ). For the web it doesn't matter (you also have a 30p option if you use MJPEG).

My GH2 box has PAL on it. So I do feel like I've been "done"! However, it's still a great camera.

@rozroz
There is logical reason - money.If you do not know what is going on, it's always about the money

Hey @rozroz...

Basically there is no way to 'understand' this... Panny can do anything that they want.
There is no reason why the HDMI output is 8bit..?

The simple answer is that the AF100 is Panny's flagship 4/3 film camera... and they made it so.

The good reason why there is no 25p in the GH2 is that they didn't even think that the GH2 would be used for what its 'going' to be used for. For them- its like watching a car crash in slow motion.

What did @VK say? Something like Panny being a bad mother that is now in a Hotel room making another baby? There was also a photo...

@blues, 24p on the GH2 is native, ie. you get a 23.97 progressive file. It has its own 'Cinema' mode for that, the 50i/60i are another mode. For your other question, I don't know if hacking PAL<>NTSC changes 50i<>60i, anyone tried it yet?

@madcat yes, makes sense now thanks. I don't see an issue with ultra-slow shutter speeds on incandescent lights, but that's because they have an amount of afterglow, so they don't actually flicker badly on AC. But I see it on fast pans of LED christmas lights, especially those driven directly off AC, as LEDs have no afterglow.

My HF fluro was a long fluorescent tube. Fluros can be driven at AC or at HF to look nicer. I think the newer bulb-replacment energy saving fluro lights are using HF more now, the older ones usually ran off AC directly.

Here it is.
This is what's happening shooting with the wrong framerate PAL/NTSC with main drive lights

@_gl, @stolpis Nice shutter speed testing, confirms the textbook theory nicely...

Just a point on frequency, it's not multiples of 1/50 that work with 50Hz AC, it's integer multiples of 1/100, so (1) 1/100, (2) 1/50, (3) 1/33.333, (4) 1/25, (5) 1/20, (6) 1/16.667, (7) 1/14.285, (8) 1/12.5, (9) 1/11.111, (10) 1/10, etc. Or from another perspective, a cycle takes 0.01s, so you can set your shutter to 0.01s, 0.02s, 0.03s, 0.04s, 0.05s etc. to get "whole cycles" into a shutter opening.

Not that you necessarily have all of those options... but some may be available, and I hear GH2 can have exposure time > shutter time for those 'dreamy blur' shots in one of the modes... of course, if you pan across a bulb with really slow shutter speed the blur / streak will have 'lumps' in it due to the ripple (just like light painting with a variable brightness light source).

I keep forgetting about the rolling shutter, I'm sure it will stick in my mind more when I get my GH2 ;o). Sounds like those energy-saving globes (I presume that's the HF fluro you were talking about) might make things interesting, too.

>I have a feeling Vitaliy is the type of person that would tell them to go eat "Sugar Honey Iced Tea" and die.!! :)

haha, true that!

@Mihuel

Sure, thumbs up, for VK :-)

@Mihuel

Sure, but we are who pay for their "gadgets", so they have to listen else they can loose money
if thousand of buyers gets ignored !?

@ Blues
In Gh2 1080p/24 is recorded in 23,97p regardless of whether you are in PAL or NTSC not in 50i or 60i.