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The Hobbit Filming at 48fps

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the why-stop-there dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Peter Jackson has announced via his Facebook page that The Hobbit is being shot at 48 frames per second, ameliorating the '3D headaches' that many viewers have complained of in the last few boom-years for the format. Film has been shot and projected at 24fps since the 1920s, with the exception of Douglas Trumbull's 60fps 'ShowScan' format, used for the Universal Back To The Future ride, amongst others. Jackson himself predicts that the widespread adoption of 48fps workflow could not only improve the 3D but also the general cinematic experience, though it may earn itself some backward-looking critics. But until digital principal photography completely usurps celluloid, this may be good news for Kodak, who now have even more reason to lament the death of Stanley Kubrick."

4 of 423 comments (clear)

  1. Wrong problem anyone? by kevinmenzel · · Score: 2, Informative

    Wait what? I'm not getting headaches because of the frame rate... People get headaches at 60FPS on their computers... if anything, this will result in a film that looks unnaturally smooth to a movie going audience... essentially adding a distraction for the 2D viewers while not fixing anything for 3D viewers...

    1. Re:Wrong problem anyone? by Colonel+Korn · · Score: 4, Informative

      Not to mention that 60FPS is overkill - the human eye can't see any faster than 50FPS. Making 60FPS a complete waste of data.

      48FPS is an unfortunate choice because it isn't a smooth 50FPS, meaning that it'll have weird pulldown issues on all TVs, but at least it's not throwing away frames the human eye is flat-out unable to see.

      50 fps is noticeably jerky - you're just used to it. The idea that the human eye can't even see something faster than 50 fps is preposterous. Take a look here for some solid debunking of this silly myth: http://www.100fps.com/how_many_frames_can_humans_see.htm

      --
      "I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
    2. Re:Wrong problem anyone? by Trogre · · Score: 3, Informative

      This.

      I'm still a bit disappointed that even the best LCD monitor I've managed to buy can only manage a 60Hz refresh rate. It's one of the few areas where CRT still has an advantage - under-drive a CRT's resolution (say run a 1280x1024 monitor at 1024x768) and you can often get a 100Hz refresh rate. Provided your CPU, graphics card, etc can keep up games and other simulations just look that much better, not to mention the tactical advantage in rocket arena style games :)

      --
      "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
  2. Cameron wanted 48FPS for Avatar by Animats · · Score: 5, Informative

    James Cameron wanted to do Avatar at 48FPS. Avatar II, or whatever, will be. He's been pushing 48FPS for a while.

    It's about time; 24FPS is way too slow. A big problem with 24FPS is that pans over detailed backgrounds have strobing effects unless the pan is very slow. Sometimes blur is inserted to mask this, either in camera or in post. Cameron likes richly detailed backgrounds ("Titanic", etc.), and this limitation has annoyed him.

    Cameron will use higher frame rates well. He's used 3D well. Other directors, probably not so much.