You must have noticed a frequent change in brightness in a video which is what we called video flickering. Have you ever wondered why it happened? To answer this question, we will have to understand the difference between NTSC and PAL.
NTSC stands for National Television Standards Committee. PAL stands for Phase Alternating Line. NTSC is the standard broadcast format in the United States, while PAL is the standard broadcast format in Europe, Australia, and parts of Asia. There are complex historical factors that go beyond the scope of this blog and you just have to know that the lighting frequency is different in different countries. To provide some perspective into it, if your camera is set for 50hz to shoot in a 60hz lighting environment, the video will have flickering effects. Why? Here is the physics behind it. If the environment lighting is running at 60hz, the fluorescent lighting is turning on and off 60 times per second. Even if the turning on and off can not be detected by human eyes, it is happening every second after you turn on the light. In this lighting environment, if your camera’s frequency is set to 50hz, there are extremely short intervals where the camera sensor caught the moments when the light is dim which eventually leads to the flickering effects in your video.
Now, since we already know the cause of video flickering, how can we prevent it from happening?
Sync!
The best way to prevent this is to sync your camera’s frequency with the environment lighting. Many cameras and dash cams on the market now provide the 50hz and 60hz frequency options. If you are using the dashcam in the United States, simply change the frequency to 60hz, and then you can safely use your dashcam.
You can easily adjust the video frequencies of Acumen XR10 through Home-Settings-Frequency.
