Forgive my ignorance, but what are the major benefits and liabilities of each design? From this thread, I gather that magnetic ballasts last longer. Yet I've also heard that they appear to flicker, especially when viewed by a video camera. When researching MAC 600s a while back, I noticed that the electronic ballast version can be operated at a variety of voltages, from 100 to 240
volts, whereas the magnetic ballast requires 208 volts (both figures denote 60 Hz.)
More to the heart of the matter, what does the ballast do?