Flip camcorder NTSC/PAL?

Asked by cschack (227

) May 6th, 2008

I recently read about the Flip Camcorder. Seems like a perfect gizmo for playing around with, but would there be a problem using it on a European computer? The TV output is NTSC, but could I use the actual film itself when it’s on my laptop? It records Mpeg4, and I’d ultimately splice it together and burn the complete version to a DVD anyway…figured I’d ask before I went out and bought one. Thanks!

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4 Answers

Mine works just fine, as most computers can deal with both video outputs. You should be okay. :) Great camera, by the way.

richardhenry (12692

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Sweet, that’s what I wanted to hear. Thanks! :)

cschack (227

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If you’re talking about the iFlip, it records in .AVI, which is neither NTSC or PAL. NTSC & PAL are two broadcast formats; any digital video file (.mov, .avi, .wmv, etc.) must be converted to one of these in order to be viewable on either broadcast format monitor (read TV); soon ATSC will be commonplace as that is the new standard for high definition broadcast.

sndfreQ (11739

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To add to that, your DVD burning software does that conversion based on your region (country), usually defaulting to that country’s format (NTSC here in U.S.), although more sophisticated DVD authoring software gives you the choice between NTSC and PAL. In some countries there’s even a third broadcast format (SECAM), but that’s all going away with the DTV conversion.

sndfreQ (11739

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