48 FPS

[largento]

Interesting note from Peter Jackson about doubling the frames per second to improve the quality of the viewing experience.

[Meowx]

Just thinking about that from an editing and rendering perspective is enough to give me nightmares.

[robcat2075]

I'll be interested to see.

 

I wonder how they will promote that? "Shot in Glorious 48fps!"

 

 

On why we have 24fps...

 

In his book "The Parade's Gone By", film historian Kevin Brownlow asserts that 24fps was chosen for the standard sound speed because it was an average of what silent films were being projected at at that time and not because of any minimum quality parameter of the audio track.

 

Silent films had begun with fps as low as 12, but theater owners were speeding them up to get more shows in per day. Film makers countered by shooting at faster speeds and the result was a gradual creep upward all through the 20's until sound arrived and a fixed speed had to be nailed down.

 

He quotes one actress as saying that when they saw these films that were not over-sped it seemed like slow motion compared to what they were used to.

[jason1025]

James Cameron has been talking about this for years. Its mainly fueled by 3D. I personally like 23.976.... frames per second. Originally I heard that 48fps was going to be divided by 2. 24 frames would go to the left eye and 24 to the right eye. This is not new as SD-DVD had 30 fields going to the left eye and 30fields going to the right.

 

If you view 48 frames per second in 2D it looks like video. Kind of a step backwards to me. The more fps the more temporal detail which is a good things like sports. But It makes CG effects look cartoony and cg mixed with Live action at 48fps sticks out like a sore thumb.

 

24fps has a flaw but in my opinion this flaw is a quality that I grew up with. Its the natural shutter effect that comes with 24 fps. If you pan a camera at a specific speed it can look kind of nasty but thats the film look. Also the people who's job it is to put credits scrolls in at the end of the movie or tv show also get their hands tied because of this. Move the credits too fast and that shutter causes a blur. The same thing is not true for 48 or 30 fps.

[largento]

I've ridden Star Tours several times (which is 60fps) and my only impression was that it did feel more real.

 

It certainly will double their render times, but I appreciate the spectacle of it. Of course, there will be folks who will claim that it ruins the experience because the flicker of 24fps (like film grain) *must* be there or the experience is destroyed.

 

I think it's a smart move. Theaters are always looking to differentiate themselves from TV and this is just another way to do it.

[robcat2075]

I remember when "All In The Family" came out I knew it looked different than the other sitcoms, but I couldn't figure out why. Now I know it was ... more fps!

 

I suppose there were other direct on video tape sitcoms before that but that was the first one I noticed.

[jason1025]

http://www.slashfilm.com/peter-jackson-exp...bbit-48-frames/

[thejobe]

most new TVs of today can support up to 100fps. But anything past 60 and the effect starts to become blended. Also with that as you are talking more frames you are talking more money. Regular film it becomes 2x the reel size. Digital it becomes larger files sizes. At 30fps at full 1080p HD images are captured at 3.4 GB per sec at full raw capture. So 48fps at full HD would be close to 6GB per sec. Need some large portable HDD or go back to Dv tape. (Not mini DV)

[TheSpleen]

all my videos are at 30 fps

[robcat2075]

In the future people will say to their grandkids "When I was a boy we only got 24 frames per second... AND WE LIKED IT!"

 

I suppose at some point a Ted Turner will start reframerating old movies so they look like they were shot in 48 fps because they're sure the kids won't watch 24fps anymore.

[largento]

You kid, but I'm sure they'll be able to notice the difference. To them, our latest blockbusters will look like the old 16fps silent movies do to us.

 

If this really takes off, the real problem is going to be traditional animation. You're doubling the number of drawings needed. Full animation is already prohibitively expensive.

 

Here's an interesting bit from an article linked to by the Wikipedia article for frames per second, which seems to confirm that at 48fps, flicker would cease to exist:

 

Thomas Edison recommended a speed of 46 frames per second- 'anything less will strain the eye.' As historian Gordon Hendricks wrote in his book "The Edison Motion Picture Myth": 'There would seem to be no good reason for it. This rate was far above any rate necessary for gaining the persistence of vision.' H.A.V. Bulleid points out, however, that Edison's decision was a sensible one: 'To obviate flicker from white light projected on a bright surface requires about 48 obscurations per second.'

[robcat2075]

Thomas Edison recommended a speed of 46 frames per second- 'anything less will strain the eye.' As historian Gordon Hendricks wrote in his book "The Edison Motion Picture Myth": 'There would seem to be no good reason for it. This rate was far above any rate necessary for gaining the persistence of vision.' H.A.V. Bulleid points out, however, that Edison's decision was a sensible one: 'To obviate flicker from white light projected on a bright surface requires about 48 obscurations per second.'

 

that's interesting. I had read of Edison doing experiments of up to 90fps but once someone invented the multi-blade projector shutter he seems to have accepted much lower rates for his own films.

[thejobe]

well if you guys think about it now frame-rate really is irrelevant to digital technology. mostly because the way TV and movie screens are projected. unless you have a projector with actual movie film, most projectors and TVs are digital now. which means that it goes by refresh rate, and with that we are already watching tv at 60fps and even 120 fps (just look at your TVs refresh rate either its 60 MHz or 120 MHz) even when i watch commercials on my moms TV (120 Mhz) everything is super smooth almost lifelike. so 48 fps is not really that big of a deal when you look at it that way.

[Meowx]

Er, even if the TV is refreshing at 120 fps; it can't physically display more frames per second that is being broadcast to it. And no network or recording broadcasts at 120 fps.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refresh_rate

"In the case of filmed material, as 120 is an even multiple of 24, it is possible to present a 24 frame/s sequence without judder on a well-designed 120 Hz display (i.e., so-called 5-5 pulldown). If the 120 Hz rate is produced by frame-doubling a 60 frame/s 3:2 pulldown signal, the uneven motion could still be visible (i.e., so-called 6-4 pulldown)."

[NancyGormezano]

Real-time image generation for military flight simulators was done at 60hz starting back in the 80's. The flicker from 30hz was reported as being too distracting, disturbing for pilots when training for missions. The imagery was projected on special purpose display systems (dome), using special purpose hardware, and we only had 16 ms to compute a frame. To be fair, the imagery was way less detailed, but it was generated for 20 mile visibility.

[robcat2075]

I believe some modern TVs have a feature to create inbetweens between the received 24 or 30 fps using something like the "motion prediction" that is used in video codecs.

 

This may be why some animation I've seen on big screens at the stores looked oddly floaty.

[Fuchur]

This is quite comon... the HD standards like 720p or 1080p are at 50fps (dont know exactly if it is 60fps in the US).

We produce all our animations in 720p with 50fps here at my agency. It is just needed to fit the framerates of the filmfootage.

If you compare 25 to 50 you see a real difference... but I doubt that a non-animation/non-video-guy will see it when there are no very fast movements.

 

See you

*Fuchur*

[thejobe]

The most recent and advanced technique is motion interpolation. Motion interpolation is a process by which your TV analyzes the current frame, and the next frame, then creates an average. It inserts these averaged frames in between. The result is extremely smooth motion with no motion blur and judder becomes almost non-existent. There are a few technical issues with this, including the possibility of ghosting or artifacts in rare cases. Also the smooth movement this creates is slightly disconcerting.

 

this is the whole article

[robcat2075]

This reminds me of a conversation I had when I was a student in the video dept at U of North Texas.

 

There was a student there from an African country that was on the PAL system which is 25fps/50 fields per second.

 

I had read lots of commentary from engineers about how awful our NTSC system was compared to PAL in terms of color rendition but i had never seen PAL so i asked him what he thought of the two and he said preferred NTSC because it looked smoother.

[dblhelix]

about the "disconcerting"-

reminds me of queuing for DVD's in the digi/gaming mecha the last time, watching an animated scene on the bestest-hyper-HD screen. it sort of stood there screaming. nothing else in the room was so sharp, crisp, absolute.

 

it's easy to get used to cinema, for instance; easy to understand a "replicating" technique that's inferior to percieve. small wonder that it would be unnerving to be able to percieve more than your eyes usually do.

 

so when the world ends and if we're around, we'll all just be disappointed at the lack of HD of it.

[Rodney]

I haven't seen it mentioned so will add this into the mix...

 

It's been said that one primary reason for the popularity of 24 fps is the purely practical one of mathematics.

24 was divisible by 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 and 12 which made working with it easy.

This was especially true when it came to animation.

48 being a doubling of that to maintain access to that same practicality.

One might assume 50 fps would have advantages similar to that of the metric system and can be accomplished by adding 2 frames.

One could assume 30 and 60 would be of particular advantage to those who wish to sync with minutes and seconds?

 

Keep in mind that it was 16 fps that was common in early film and animation most likely for the same practical reason (easily divisible by 2,4 and 8). To understand why film moved from 16 to 24fps it may help to understand why early filmmakers preferred to count their films in a standard measures of 24 fps (1 foot equaling 24 frames... the doubling of 12 standard inches).

 

Some have suggested the initial frame counts were a product of Muybridge and others who had set up their series of still cameras in those configurations.

 

Given this basic practicality we may be able to predict to some degree the success of competing film standards.

Standards being designed to address specific interests and fill specific needs.