When to shoot 24p? 24p Advanced? 30p? 60i?

The general rule is to shoot 24p Advanced if you want to extract the original 24 frames/second for a 24fps edit or film-out. Shoot 24p Standard if you are going to stay on video and edit at 30 frames/seconds (60 fields/second, i.e., plain ol' video at NTSC frame rates), without extracting the original 24 frames into a 24fps timeline. In more detail:

Shoot 24p Advanced for:

• Post-production using tools that understand Advanced pulldown. 24p Advanced footage can be turned into pure 24p footage more cleanly than 24p standard footage, because every frame in the pure 24p timeline is pulled from a whole frame in the 24p Advanced footage, whereas the C frame in 24p Standard footage is split across two different source frames as discussed above.

Shoot 24p Standard for:

• Getting the “film look” on video when you're staying on video and editing at 29.97.
• Intercutting with film transfers also using 3:2 pulldown, and staying on video at 29.97.
• Working with traditional film-on-tape tools that understand 3:2 pulldown, but not 2:3:3:2 advanced pulldown, when you need to extract the 24p footage for true 24p processing.

Shoot 30p for:

• Getting true progressive pictures with a 30 fps frame rate, as when pulling stills for motion analysis.
• Working alongside Canons and older Panasonics in Frame Movie Mode, when you want to match their motion rendering.
• You want the slightly "filmic" motion of 30p, but don't want to go to 24p, and you aren't concerned about ever going to film or converting to PAL.

Shoot 60i for:

• Anything that you want to use as plain ol' video at NTSC frame rates: in 60i, this camera makes pix that look (from a motion-rendering standpoint) just like the pix from any other video camera.
• In other words, use 60i for everything that isn't supposed to “look like film” and doesn't need progressive scan!