Pal or NTSC ??

Anthony · Dec 12, 2016

Ok living in the UK i tend to think Pal is the way to go but is that right ??

APEX^ZERO · Dec 12, 2016

NTSC is North America only. PAL is the way to go for you.

thefrisbee995 · Dec 12, 2016

NTSC is 29.97 frames per second (fps)
PAL is 25 is fps
Double these and that will be the maximum frame rates you will be able to get at 1080p on your mavic.
24fps is what film is usually presented in - if you see "HFR" at the cinema, you'll see it in 48fps

I am English and live in England but I usually film in 60/30fps NTSC where I can as I can be more creative with higher frame rates, then saving at 24fps after editing if it's supposed to look "cinematic". On the internet, 30fps is common on most sites, youtube will take pretty much anything thrown at it though.

andynormancx · Jan 29, 2017

I'm also trying to decide which to use, NTSC or PAL.

Does anyone know for sure what the NTSC or PAL option actually does ?

The MP4/MOV files aren't in anyway formatted in NTSC or PAL, are they ?

I'm thinking that what the NTSC/PAL switch does it just push you to the "right" framerates for your region. In other words is steers people who live in 50Hz mains regions to 25/50 fps and those in 60Hz regions to 30/60 fps, to reduce the problems of frequency clash with mains power lighting.

Or does it do more than that ?

I live in the UK, but I'm never going to be shooting video indoors and I have no plans to shoot video when street lights are lit and visible in frame.

If I remember correct 25/50 fps video when played back iPhone/iPad is transcoded on the fly to 30/60 fps.

So I'm wondering whether given I'm not expect to have to deal with flickering mains lights, that I'd be better of just putting my Mavic on to NTSC and using 30 fps rather than 25 ?

Merko · Jan 29, 2017

more FPS is always better.

As you can see after the 2min mark the lights starts to flicker because of NTSC instead of PAL.

andynormancx · Jan 29, 2017

Yes, I know if I shoot UK mains lights when using 30 fps that I'll get flicker, as I said I'm not planning on shooting any lights.

maikm · Jan 30, 2017

Well, with more fps you get smoother movements obviously. NTSC and PAL als norms don't have any meaning for today's presentation methods. If that setting is your vehicle to higher frame rates, go with NTSC. I live in Germany where PAL is the usual norm because we have 50 Hz power, but I'm still going with NTSC and 30 fps.

That said, the h.264 max bitrate that the Mavic encodes video with is fixed at 60 Mbps. If you use 24 fps, you get more bits per frame than at 30 fps. So in theory, if you have lots of detail in the image, there might be a difference in image quality per frame. Don't know if that really shows up in practice though.

HK! · Feb 10, 2017

I've been pondering this one for my Drone
NTSC is progressive while PAL is Interlaced isn't it. 525i vs 480p? The 30fps PAL gets is just 24 fps sped up with an extra frame added every second or something.
This is why PAL shows like Neighbours/Eastenders looks Cheap/but more lifelike, like it's had the "Motion interpolation" option on the Tele turned on.

Maybe for shooting Scenery, th PAl effect is desirable.
I'm gonna switch tomorrow and compare.

andynormancx · Feb 10, 2017

All those complications apply to broadcast TV. The Mavic isn't recording in a format anything like broadcast TV...

The Mavic isn't recording interlaced video, 525 or 480 lines or anything like that (if we ignore the >50 fps modes, which are almost akin to interlacing).

I'm 99% sure that the only thing the PAL/NTSC switch does is switch the UI options to make the framerates make sense for 50/60 Hz mains countries. But I'm happy to be proven wrong.

HeavensAbove · Feb 11, 2017

Wait a minute, they demolished a crane with explosives and you're discussing frame rates and light strobe effect.

THEY BLEW UP A CRANE!

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