What does this tiny little switch do? (P or N)

[JacobCoy9]

I've just found this tiny, little switch on the back of my cam. It's on the side of the little board, and has two positions; One is labelled 'N' (what it was set to when I got it) and the other is labelled 'P'.

Not sure what they do. Any ideas?

(PS: Merry Christmas!)

 

[Jackson]

N = NTSC for USA video, P = PAL for Europe. (there are a few exceptions.)

 

[JacobCoy9]

Thanks! Got some good info from Wikipedia (Source; Source2). So is this the selector for what type of broadcast signal I'm sending? Not too familiar with radio transmission. How would changing the switch affect the transmitter? Clearly I should just leave it on "N" and not touch it, but it would be good to know.

-JM

 

[Gyro Doctor]

Yes, it's what kind of signal you're sending ... Simply put, since the USA uses 60 Hz electricity our TVs, cams, and other displays use the NTSC system which is designed to display 60 frames per second. In Europe the electricity is 50 Hz and then so are the TVs cams, and display systems (PAL) ... You can use either system provided your camera and display are both switched to the same setting (assuming both have that selectable feature). The transmitter doesn't care, it's just encoding whichever signal you're using and sending it along on a 5.8 GHz carrier to the receiver (which also doesn't care) that decodes it then sends that signal to the display.