Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

PAL or NTSC miniDV camcorders

Jul 28, 2007 5:15AM PDT

I am thinking of buying a camcorder that is compatible with my Apple macbook iMovie program. My research tells me that a miniDv camcorder is probably the best way to go. This is a silly question: Do I need to worry about whether a miniDV camcorder records in the NTSC or PAL format? Preferably I like a recording format that could be compatible with both PAL or NTSC. If this is not possible, then I would choose a NTSC format miniDV camcorder. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
if all you are doing is connecting the video to a TV,
Jul 28, 2007 12:18PM PDT

then you need the correct format (PAL or NTSC) to match that TV. If all you are doing is importing your video to a computer (in this case, an Apple Macintosh) for editing, then your output from that application will need to match your TV. The Mac can take in PAL or NTSC and deal with that...

- Collapse -
PAL or NTSC
Jul 29, 2007 8:14AM PDT

Thank you very much. Your feedback was very useful.