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The Hobbit's Higher Frame Rate To Cost Theater Operators
kodiaktau writes "Film makers keep touting increased frame per second rate as improving viewing and cinema experience, however the number of theaters who actually have the equipment that can play the higher rate film is limited. It makes me wonder if this is in the real interest of creating a better experience and art, or if it is a ploy by the media manufacturers to sell more expensive equipment and drive ticket prices up. From the article: 'Warner Bros. showed 10 minutes of 3D footage from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey at 48 frames per second at CinemaCon earlier this year, and Jackson said in a videotaped message there that he hoped his movie could be played in 48fps in “as many cinemas as possible” when it opens in December. But exhibitors must pay the cost of the additional equipment, and some have wondered how much of a ticket premium they would charge to offset that cost.'"
I love this. They charge a premium for 3D that half of everybody hates. Now they'd like to charge another premium for 3D that will suck a bit less.
I look forward to the next article bleating about the mysterious decline in box office attendance. What could it possibly be?
Along the same lines was the announcement that by the end of next year the major studios plan to stop the distribution of film prints. How many screens are there that don't yet have digital projection equipment, hundreds of thousands? My personal fear is that the forced switch will cause a lot of smaller theaters to close, particularly the drive-in ones that I've just rediscovered with my kids recently.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Uh, 24fps movies are usually shot with a 1/48 shutter speed. Since this was, I believe, shot on Red digital cameras, they presumably shot 48fps at 1/48 so dropping half the frames will give you the horrid stuttering film look you're used to.
Yep. Next time you go to a store that has a bunch of TV's on display, go find one that has the 240fps interpolation turned on and watch it a bit. Instead of looking epic, it looks like behind-the-scenes footage.
If that's not enough for you, try finding a few storiea about the Hobbit and the 48fps footage, you'll find comments like: "Day time soap opera."
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Just to check here: are you talking about watching films at the cinema, or films on/transferred from a Region 1 DVD? There are huge problems with transfering content from the cinema (24fps) to Region 1's NTSC format (30fps), as you might well imagine, and there's no way you're ever going to get a non-jerky pan when watching an NTSC-encoded DVD.
(Personally, I've never found 24fps (or PAL format DVD transfers) to be at all jittery, but that might well be differences in perception ... I do, however, avoid NTSC format like the plague that it is.)
What was the point of that?
The universe is a 3D projection of a 2D surface? How does that impact those of us who are not stoned enough to think up that sort of bullshit?
No. NTSC is fixed at 60 FIELDS per second. Being interlaced, that becomes 30 FRAMES per second. NTSC is the standard that has been used in the US from the beginning. In other countries you have PAL which is 50/25 fields/frames per second.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTSC
Film doesn't do 60FPS. You can only get rates like that using video, which is not the same thing as film.
If I remember correctly the record for film frame rate is in the millions of frames per second, in special cameras designed for nuclear explosion analysis and similar high-speed events.
And even fairly cheap movie cameras can hit around 100fps; I believe the Aaton we used a few years back topped out at 120fps. How do you think movies have shot slow-motion footage for the last century?
You may think you can see it, but unless you've shown you can tell the difference in a double-blind study, that only tells us about your psychological biases rather that about your perception. (Saying you're biased is not an insult here; all of us are subject to quite a number of well-known psychological biases, and if anybody ever wants find the truth in these kinds of things they have to find ways to avoid letting these biases control their conclusions.)
All kinds of people think they can see 120fps, can hear the difference between normal audio cables and $10,000 gold-plated audio cables, etc. They can't. To believe such claims when they directly contradict all science is backwards superstition. If you're really so sure you can see the difference between 48fps and 120fps with proper motion blur, I'd bet the Randi Foundation would like to offer you their one million dollar Paranormal Challenge prize if you can prove it.
You obviously have no understanding of how human perception works. Go educate yourself about the response time of rods and cones and don't go around mouthing off at people just because they're better informed.