[JonStatt]

The manual has some very strange wording under the "Digital Cinema" option

"The picture will be recorded as 50i irrespective of the digital cinema mode setting"

I am rather confused what this option is for if you still end up with 50i?!

[A n d r e w]

Most consumer AVCHD camcorders (I'm tempted to say all, but I haven't actually checked: but rest assured that Canon and Panasonic do the same thing) with a progressive recording option output progressive video in an pseudo-interlaced video stream. So, 25p is delivered in a 50i stream. I'm not entirely sure, but I suspect this means that the fields are simply doubled: instead of being "true" progressive and outputting 25 progressive frames per second, you probably get 25 frames per second, each comprised of two indentical progressive fields. So it's the same Twinkie in a different wrapper. Kinda.