[Scruffie]

I'm not too bothered with converting to SD or 24p but i've seen lots of talk of possible flicker issues when using a 60i\30p HD camcorder from a NTSC\60hz region but does anyone here actually use one in a PAL region? Ebay is full of them so somebody must

If so what are your experiences? Is the flicker bad or only in certain types of lighting? Would you swallow the extra cost and go PAL if you were to buy again?

I've looked and can only find 1 video example of the flicker:
YouTube - Flicker
but thats just pointed straight at the light so doesnt show how it really effects the wider scene of what you would be filming.

[gary99129]

That video is a bit dubious the light works and refreshes at 50Hz! If you try that test in the United States the results will be the opposite way around.

[glesgaguyav]

Originally Posted by Scruffie

I'm not too bothered with converting to SD or 24p but i've seen lots of talk of possible flicker issues when using a 60i\30p HD camcorder from a NTSC\60hz region but does anyone here actually use one in a PAL region? Ebay is full of them so somebody must

If so what are your experiences? Is the flicker bad or only in certain types of lighting? Would you swallow the extra cost and go PAL if you were to buy again?

I would stick with a 50hz cam if you live in Europe, 60hz are intended for the US market, they are perfectly usable in the HD world, but as the video shows flicker will be a problem in some instances.

You'll still be spending a fair bit of money, for a bit more you'll get a cam that's intened for use in your country.

Sellers on E/bay sell them to buyers who don't know any better and only see the money their saving IMO

[vib ribbon]

For what its worth, i have a Japanese (NTSC) Canon HF11 that films in 60i, 30p and 24p and have never had any issue playing footage back on my UK Sony W2000 LCD TV nor my 'PAL' Sony PS3.

As the above poster states, if all you are looking for is HD material then this is not as much an issue.

The money i saved getting it from Japan was well worth it.

[Scruffie]

So if in Europe you should steer clear of the Sanyo Xacti HD2000 even if you buy it from a legit european dealer as it only shoots in 60hz mode? If thats the case its a bit of an oversight by Sanyo or is 60p not effected by the issues?

[glesgaguyav]

Originally Posted by Scruffie

So if in Europe you should steer clear of the Sanyo Xacti HD2000 even if you buy it from a legit european dealer as it only shoots in 60hz mode? If thats the case its a bit of an oversight by Sanyo or is 60p not effected by the issues?

Sanyo get away with it because the market has become blurred in terms of video standards and the cams are IMO Hybrid.

In the UK the broadcast standards are still 50hz/25fps/50i.
60hz/30fps/60i will play back on all HD equipment, but our electrical system is still 50Hz and will never change.

That's why 60Hz HD cams will never be made for the UK/Euro market, why bother producing 50Hz HD cams if we can all use 60Hz?

I had a Sanyo HD2 bought here in the UK, when I tried to downscale to SD for use with my PAL footage it caused all sorts of problems, same with HD material shot in 25fps.

I wrote to Sanyo at the time asking why they sold cams in the UK that didn't conform to UK broadcasting standards, I didn't get a reply.

[ronaldkwok]

I do not live in the UK but in Malaysia which is very much a PAL area due to the past colonial link. I have the Sanyo HD2000, the purely NTSC/USA model. As pointed out earlier, there is no issue viewing videos on HDTV. Even watching on old analogue PAL TV, there is no problem since there is the option to select the output to PAL or NTSC system. I have burned many DVD's using the standard DVD format and these play back flawlessly on normal DVD players but you need to select NTSC and not PAL for the output for burning. If PAL is selected, the videos will be jerky on playback. Most, if not all, current DVD players accept the NTSC format either automatically or after a manual selection. The only issue I have is the flickering under fluorescent lights but this only happens sometimes and not all the time. At times even if I video a fluorescent light directly, there is no flicker; still cannot figure out what exact conditions bring it on. Just my experience.
I understand there will be problem to mix PAL and NTSC footages but I have no experience on this as I have only this camcorder.

[chewoot]

The video is showing a Fluorescent tube. I am no expert in any way shape or form when it comes to HD video but would not all camcorders stuggle to film a fluorescent tube as they run at somewhere around 100-120hz frequency and unfortunatly unlike the human eye (which if the manufactures could replicate would be awesome) the cameras capture in frames rather than motion. So if you are filming a tube running at 100-120hz with a camera running at 25 or 30fps would it still not flicker when zoomed in for close up?

I have just filmed below with the NTSC and the converted to PAL, it is under a flourescent and you can see a flicker when zoomed in but in normal filming it is not noticeable.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9q0Dx-AnKU

[A n d r e w]

I'm not seeing this flicker you describe.

If the frequency of the camcorder field-rate and the frequency of the lighting source divide evenly, there's no flicker.

[Chris Muriel]

Originally Posted by A n d r e w

I'm not seeing this flicker you describe.

If the frequency of the camcorder field-rate and the frequency of the lighting source divide evenly, there's no flicker.

Correct.
Problems occur when there is the video equivalent of a "beat frequency" between the ambient light and the frame rate as this LF beat frequency manifests itself as flicker.

[boldandfunny]

Problems occur when there is the video equivalent of a "beat frequency" between the ambient light and the frame rate as this LF beat frequency manifests itself as flicker.

1) I think this is absolutely true - i.e. flicker does not appear when shooting 25/50 fps.

But I think flicker does not always(!) appear when 50Hz neon lighting is shot at 30P or 60P. I mean the flicker may or may NOT appear under neon lightning when shooting at 60P or 30P. It depends on shutter speed.

I suspect that at certain shutter speeds flicker is greatly reduced even at 30P or 60P. Consider neon light firing at 100 Hz (positive and negative half wave).
If I shoot 30 fps with shutter at exactly 1/100 sec then I my CMOS always gets full half-wave or say 2 quoter-wave's (e.g. 1/2 of positivve half-wave + 1/2 of negative half-wave) or some other ratio of positive/negative half wave. So amount of light recieved by CMOS is constant and there is no flicker. The same is true when shooting 30P @1/50 sec.

2)On the other hand when shooting @60fps 1/100s there may be a different effect noticeable on fast moving objects. When neon light fires at different moments relative to the start of the 1/100s shutter opening we may theoretically have a situation when object movement is recorded unevenly - e.g. object moving with constant speed will appear speeding up/slowing down with the beat frequency between 60fps and 100Hz neon flashes (which is what - 20 Hz - e.g. 3 frames=5 neon flashes = 1/20s?).
I wonder if anyone can notice that though.

3) The point 1) above probably explains why people only see flicker when they move closer to a brightly lit surface or to the lamp - I suspect that they are on auto-shutter mode and with slow shutter (below 1/100s) flicker is hardly noticeable but becomes a real problem above that. My guess is that 1/120 sec shutter may be noticeable as some frames will not get full light (e.g. frames centered on the moment when AC wave is at 0V).

4)I am looking to buy Sanyo VPC-HD2000 and in view of points made above I am really interested in list of all manual shutter speed available on it - anyone can provide this info, please?

Just my 2 cents.
Sergei.

[ronaldkwok]

The shutter speed that can be set manually are 4s, 2s, 1s, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/15, 1/30, 1/60, 1/100, 1/125, 1,250, 1/500, and 1/1000. However, the user manual also states that for video recording, the lowest speed used is 1/30s for normal mode (and highest at 1/10,000s!) and 1/15s at high sensitivity (lamp) mode. I'll test out some of these shutter speed on videoing fluorescent lighting later.

[boldandfunny]

Thanks for shutter speed list Ronald!
1) At least I know 1/100s is available which I think should be low flicker option for 50Hz countries (according to my guesses in previous post).

I guess I'd need a fair amount of light to use 1/100s but hopefully HD2000's good low light capability should help here.

2) I presume shooting 30P , shutter 1/30s = 33 ms might work reasonably well too as it is off by 3 ms with time for 3 flashes in 50Hz country (3x10 ms=30ms).
The reason is there are always 3 flashes while shutter is open and 4th flash is only taken for 3 ms (sometimes) so variation of light in worst case is 3.3/3 = 1.1 or 10%. I guess 10% is hardly noticeable and it might even be less in reality (as 3 ms is on the low part of the sin wave, so there is only about 5% difference). I could right a program to do exact value, but 5% should be fine IMHO.
I only hope focusing is not affected by this variation.

3)Now considering 60P and 1/60s = 16.5 ms shutter.
Now this causes some concern. With 100Hz flashing time = 10 ms we shutter open for time of a flash and 2/3 flash. I do not know time characteristic of fluorescent bulbs - e.g. how long actual flash is (as it will be probably less then 10 ms - may be as short as 3ms near the peak?).
If flash is actually 3 ms near the peak then we have our worst case:
sometimes we will get 1 flash centered in the shutter interval and sometime we will get 2 flashes (1 at the beginning and 1 in the end of shutter interval).
Ouch! 100% flicker (e.g. one frame is brightness X, next 2X) between 2 adjacent frames (e.g. frequency of flicker is 30 Hz). This is probably bearable to watch for a dew minutes but is going to give anyone a sore head after that.
This is hypothetical though - need to find real brightess/time curve for a fluorescent bulb. For example if it follows the sin (probably sin square actually) or is longer then 3 msec - say 6 msec then result may be less dramatic ( I guess 50% for 6 msec constant brightness/4 msec off curve).

Still quit bad though!

I really wish Sanyou would have 1/50s for 30P mode!

4) Talking about 1/50s shutter - I wonder if (presumably) Europe version sold by Amazon UK might actually have 1/50sec shutter?

(Amazon sells called Sanyo VPC-HD2000EBK or something - I am guessing that EBK has someting to do with Europe - it might not )

Anyone in UK who bought from Amazon UK or has thie EBK suffix model - would you be able to supply us with shutter speed list?

Thanks again
Sergei.

[ronaldkwok]

For those following this thread, I have done the flicker test and results are in the latest post in my HD2000 Blog.

Merry Christmas to all.

[Scruffie]

Thanks boldandfunny and ronaldkwok for updating this old thread with some interesting info and results.
A moot point for me seeing as i bought a UK Pannasonic SD200 in the end. Hope its helpful for others though.

[boldandfunny]

Just a note that priblem of fluorescent light flicker was originally discussed in somewhat more detail in second part (pages 2-3) of this thread here (just so happened that people noticed the other thread first):
How can I get 1080 60p video to play smoothly on my PC?

Hope this helps
Sergei