When you’ve got your new camera and your perfect range of lenses, you’ll want to start filming! The first thing you’ll need to decide on is what format you’re going to use whilst shooting. In last week’s article we covered the differences between resolutions so we’ll leave that one alone, but if you’re taking your filming to the next level you’ll want to take your knowledge a bit further too. You may have seen the abbreviations PAL and NTSC around before, but probably won’t have a clue what they mean.

They’re basically different encoding systems for TV, not really a huge issue in today’s online world, but knowing what’s what will save you some time if you ever want to transfer your footage to DVD and it’s important to know what you’re using when you get to the editing stage.

In the simplest terms, Canada and the USA use NTSC TVs, whilst the rest of the world (apart from those crazy Russians) use PAL. So unless you’re moving to Northern America anytime soon, get your camera set to record in PAL, that way if your Gran can’t figure out the internet, you can show her your skills on her telly.