Why The Hobbit's 48fps Is a Good Thing

An anonymous reader writes "Last year, when we discussed news that The Hobbit would be filmed at 48 frames per second, instead of the standard 24, many were skeptical that format would take hold. Now that the film has been released, an article at Slate concedes that it's a bit awkward and takes a while to get used to, but ends up being to the benefit of the film and the entire industry as well. 'The 48 fps version of The Hobbit is weird, that's true. It's distracting as hell, yes yes yes. Yet it's also something that you've never seen before, and is, in its way, amazing. Taken all together, and without the prejudice of film-buffery, Jackson's experiment is not a flop. It's a strange, unsettling success. ... It does not mark the imposition from on high of a newer, better standard — one frame rate to rule them all (and in the darkness bind them). It's more like a shift away from standards altogether. With the digital projection systems now in place, filmmakers can choose the frame rate that makes most sense for them, from one project to the next.'"

Comments

Why?

[davydagger]

A lot fo the magic of film was 24fps.

sure its outdated, but so is 48 fps.

broadcast TV has been 50 for years, with more recent forays with high def into 120hz (no idea of the actual frame rate with digital, but I could image its up there)

why are the doing this now? and why only 48fps?

Re:Why?

[marcosdumay]

They are doing this because they want. No problem with that.

Why are people talking about this like if it was news? Or, in other words, why is it on /.?

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

why are the doing this now? and why only 48fps?

Follow the slashdot link in the summary, it was discussed extensively there, no need to derail yet another thread with it.

Re:Why?

[Dave Whiteside]

why do you think it last sooooo long .... ;-p

Re:Why?

[fastest fascist]

I'm not aware of broadcasts in 50 FPS. AFAIK, they're being evaluated, but basically material is broadcast at 25 or 30 fps, depending on the standard used. These conform to the old PAL/NTSC/SECAM framerates. Interlaced formats, however, can be 50 or 60, but that's because each frame is essentially split into two frames of alternating horizontal lines, "fields".

Re:Why?

[gagol]

I designed and produced many corporate events in my life. Most of then involving video animations on screens as large as 60 foot wide. As soon as technology allowed me, I produced and projected video animations in 60fps to make pans more fluid. Would I be producing a movie today, I would try to shoot in 60fps for the same reason, much more fluid motion on big screens.

Re:Why?

[Bill_the_Engineer]

broadcast TV has been 50 for years

Clarification: That was 50i for PAL and 60i for NSTC. Because of the interlace the FPS was actually 25fps and 30fps respectively.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Screen refresh rates are something totally different from field rates or frame rates.

In the US, analog TV used to be broadcast in NTSC format, 320 x 240 pixels, 29.97 frames per second (progressive rate). Analog TVs have long supported 480 lines, though. In interlaced rate, the frames are drawn on screen in something called "fields". First, the odd field is drawn (all the odd lines) and then the even field (all even lines). Each field persists for two refresh cycles, alternating in turns. This makes it look like a 480-line picture.

Even with digital, the frame rate is still mostly 29.97fps, with some 24fps made directly from digitized film. All the "i-modes" (480i, 720i and 1080i) are interlaced in the same way as it was with analog, which makes 1080i look worse than 720p (IMO, at least). Nothing changed that much.

So, although TVs can refresh the screen 120 times per second, DVDs, BDs and digital broadcast TV still uses the same frame/field rates as ever. And I don't think it will change in the future.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess that depends on how you define it. On interlaced broadcast (like all old TV), you get a half-frame every 50 seconds, where half-frame means either the even or the odd lines, alternating. However in true interlaced broadcast (i.e. where the material was already recorded in that format, not transformed into it as when putting a movie to TV) it's not that you get the even and odd lines of the same image, but each half-frame is recoded on its own time. So say you've got 50 half-frames per second, then you'll get e.g. the even lines of the image at 0ms, then the odd lines of the image at 20ms, then the even lines of the image at 40ms, then the odd lines of the image at 60ms, and so on. Only with converted stuff, the even and odd lines will be from the same image.

You can see that quite nicely when capturing a true interlaced-recorded TV program on tjhe computer, where two half-frames are combined into a frame. If there's fast movement in the scene, you'll get striped frames because your "frame" is actually the combination of two images at different times, with the even and odd lines image separated by 20 ms (50Hz) or 16.7 ms (60Hz). Given that those images are recorded at different times, I'd say it makes sense to consider them different frames which are recoded at half the vertical resolution with a displacement of one line every second frame.

Re:Why?

[Githaron]

there is a reason we use 24.

Like because it is cheaper and easier to make movies that way? If something looks fake when there is not enough blur, it is because movie makers have not bothered figuring out how to make their scenes look more realistic at a more realistic frame rate. It has nothing to do with the video technology. It is like complaining that color TV looks too realistic and they should stay with black and white. These days people only watch black and white TV whenever they are feeling nostalgic. I applaud Jackson for trail blazing the path to higher frame rates in movies.

Re:Why?

[Phreakiture]

Broadcast TV has been 60 here in the states since digital TV, and quasi-60 (i.e. interlaced) prior to that.

Going beyond 60 in TV is only done with interpolation, so it's basically an upconversion. I am not willing to count that as equivalent because then you could just start applying this trick to every 24 fps movie out there and claiming HFR.

Where this is interesting, though, is that, besides the word "interlace" never even entering the conversation, this is >30fps and >720p at the same time and that gives them an edge over TV.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason you think 720p looks better is because of frame rate. That's why ESPN and Fox Sports both use 720p for broadcast. In the US-ATSC system, 1080i is interlaced at 59.94 fields per second, or 29.97 frames per second. 720p is progressive scan at 59.94 FRAMES per second.

There is also a lesser quality version of 720p at 29.97, but broadcast 720p is 59.94 FRAMES per second. That's why it is better for fast-action sports, and looks much better than 1080i.

720p-60 (as it is called) uses the same amount of broadcast bandwidth as 1080i-30.

YIAABE (Yes, I am a broadcast engineer) Posting annon since I am too lazy to log in.

By the way, if your cable or satellite provider is giving you ESPN in 1080, they are downgrading the original format, but that bigger number impresses the idiots who don't know any better.

Re:Why?

[somersault]

I agree with you, I think hobbit looks like ass, WAY to much detail and no motion blur or warm moments for your eyes to pause on.

I agree with you. I think real life looks like ass. WAY too much detail, and no motion blur. Though our eyes provide "motion blur" anyway on our practically infinite FPS world. Get a grip.

Re:Why?

[SternisheFan]

If you suffer from motion sickness, do not see the 48fps version on a full stomach. You have been warned!

Re:Why?

[grenadeh]

120 hz refresh and frame rate are completely separate things. And broadcast tv looks like ass, that's why it's hard to adjust to HD TVs.

Re:Why?

[nabsltd]

As soon as technology allowed me, I produced and projected video animations in 60fps to make pans more fluid. Would I be producing a movie today, I would try to shoot in 60fps for the same reason, much more fluid motion on big screens.

If Jackson had chosen 60fps for The Hobbit, it would have been a much better choice, at least as far as home video is concerned.

With a choice of 48fps as the source, we are going to get stuck with a much lower quality home video release, because there is no current format that allows at least 48fps and 1920x1080 resolution. So, to convert to 24fps, either the original footage will have to be filmed at 24fps, or else some sort of digital interpolation will have to be done. Neither will give the same quality that we have come to expect from current media, as instead of 24 frames per second where scenes with little motion have very sharp frames, pretty much every frame will show some sort of motion.

Re:Why?

[Artraze]

> make their scenes look more realistic at a more realistic frame rate

Whilst I do generally like higher frame rates, the above is actually the trouble... It looks _too_ realistic. For a high fantasy movie like The Hobbit sometimes putting a little 24Hz vaseline on the lens helps let your brain fill in the gaps with fantasy. That 48Hz the project fills in the gaps with reality.

It's a lot like the transition to high def... Things that are real look better easily, while things that aren't supposed to need to rework their bag of tricks in order to make the new tech a benefit rather than a hindrance. I'm definitely glad Jackson is pushing this, but it does sound like there's a ways to go yet before production really hits its stride. I'm really quite surprised that we didn't see, say, James Bond try 48fps instead, but ah well. We'll see how Cameron does with his Avatar sequels.

Re:Why?

[thomasw_lrd]

I bought $50 monster cables from Best Buy. You mean they weren't worth all that?

Re:Why?

[budgenator]

It's also much more effective to down-convert from 60 FPM to 60i for broadcast than to up-convert from 24 or even 48 FPM to 30i

Re:Why?

[gagol]

48fps -> 24fps only require to drop every second frame. No interpolation or fancy algo required.

Re:Why?

[mcgrew]

WAY to much detail and no motion blur or warm moments for your eyes to pause on

You sound like an old audiotard who says he hates CDs because they don't have pops and rumble and hiss and flutter and wow like the LPs and tapes he was used to did. Oh, and the motion blur is still there, it's just that there's only half as much of it.

we had the technology to go as many FPS as we wanted to for the last 50 years, there is a reason we use 24

Wrong, kid, we didn't have the tech, but that's not the only reason. In 1962 there was no such thing as digital. All movies were film, and doubling the frame rate meant doubling the cost of distribution, since you needed twice the film -- and film wasn't cheap. THAT is what kept movies at 24 fps.

jackson is a retard.

Looks to me like you're the one lacking in IQ points, dufus.

Re:Why?

[DriveDog]

I was just wondering if anyone else would mention ShowScan, amid all the claims of "first time such a high frame rate film has been produced... blah blah blah..." when the claim really should be "finally, something almost as good as what was available 40+ years ago."

24fps has always bothered me whenever an object or person moves across the screen quickly. Even the small increase to 30fps is a significant improvement to my eyes. 72fps seems like a good goal, though I probably won't complain about 48.

I think those in the "24fps is magic" camp have a lot in common with the "vinyl is better" and "tubes are better" bunch. They either like their content distorted by their medium of choice or just like the idea of using archaic technology. There's certainly nothing wrong with either of those things, but the old ways are not "better" for everyone else.

Re:Why?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Oh, and the motion blur is still there, it's just that there's only half as much of it.

Which is the problem, right?

24FPS is fast enough to fool the brain into thinking it's not a series of still images, so that's how fast we process information. So, the brain must be conditioned to understand motion blur at approximately that frequency.

If you're capturing only half of the motion blur that people are used to seeing, it'll look weird. I understand that shutters exist and that vision doesn't have shutters, so I'm not arguing against 48FPS but they need to figure out how to capture 24FPS motion blur at 48FPS.

Somebody set me straight if they know more than my plain reckoning, but it sounds as though The Hobbit will become known as an historically odd-looking film because the technology was not yet mature when it was filmed.

Re:Why?

[David Nabbit]

not retina resolution

You really have no idea what you're talking about.

Neither do you. No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.

Re:Why?

[omnichad]

More like an attempt to make movies impossible to watch at home in the same form, therefore making you buy theater tickets.

But seriously, most people can see the difference in rates above 30. See the complaints about the "Soap Opera Look" of 120Hz TV's.

Panning and dolly shots look terrible at 24fps if they go too fast. So. much. judder.

Even if the human eye can't distinguish > 60fps (it definitely can), the human retina is not v-synced with the television/screen. So you still need more temporal resolution than the eye can handle for it to appear smooth.

Re:Why?

[Lord Lemur]

That's like 50% off, sooooo worth it!

Re:Why?

[Miamicanes]

> Most people can't see a difference in rates above 30fps and pretty much nobody can distinguish fps over 60 fps.

Bullshit. You most certainly CAN see a difference, particularly when there's high-resolution, high-contrast detail with fast movement across the screen. In fact, high-framerate video has its own "uncanny valley" problem (above a certain framerate, generally in the neighborhood of ~300fps, hyperfluid 2-dimensional video becomes disorienting and vertigo-inducing, because your brain can't reconcile the seemingly-lifelike motion with its lack of depth).

Re:Why?

[mcgrew]

In the US, analog TV used to be broadcast in NTSC format, 320 x 240 pixels

Completely incorrect. Analog TV had no pixels at all, it had scan lines, and there were 525 of them. You only have pixels in digital media, not analog.

Re:Why?

[dinfinity]

Whilst I do generally like higher frame rates, the above is actually the trouble... It looks _too_ realistic. For a high fantasy movie like The Hobbit sometimes putting a little 24Hz vaseline on the lens helps let your brain fill in the gaps with fantasy. That 48Hz the project fills in the gaps with reality.

It sounds reasonable, but it isn't. There are less frames, but the filling in your brain does is more or less equal to what just presenting it with more frames does. It doesn't synthesize detail like it does with low spatial resolution imagery.
Consider the following: suppose you were given a low resolution drawing, you would not be able to draw the equivalent of the high resolution version of it. If you were given two subsequent (drawn) frames, you _would_ be able to fairly accurately draw the frame in between.

It is really just a matter of getting used to the smoother optical flow. Anecdotal, but: when I saw the effects of the temporal interpolation algorithms on my '100Hz ultramotionflowsupersmooth+(tm)' TV, I hated them with a passion, experiencing the 'soap' effect.
When I played around with it a little bit, I started getting used to it. I am now so used to it that watching 24fps material without at least the most basic motion interpolation turned on is something I find extremely distracting. In fact, every single frame skip or visible judder in any video has become painfully obvious for me.

Re:Why?

[omnichad]

If you're capturing only half of the motion blur that people are used to seeing, it'll look weird. I understand that shutters exist and that vision doesn't have shutters, so I'm not arguing against 48FPS but they need to figure out how to capture 24FPS motion blur at 48FPS.

The RED cameras they used for filming do exactly that - All while recording separate sets of frames for both the 24fps and 48fps versions. He may not have made the most aesthetically pleasing choices, but it was considered and attempted to a degree.

Re:Why?

[omnichad]

Sorry - link I provided doesn't explain it as well as I thought. I lost track of the article I read about this in.

Re:Why?

[Lord Lemur]

Motion Blur isn't desirable. It is mearly a imperfection that we can easily process away. You don't need motion blur to follow that path of a real ball in flight. However if you try to animate images of a ball in flight you will need to add blur to trick the mind into seeing those still images as a seemless. If you can put enough images in there your mind won't have infer from motion blur how motion is occuring relative to it. Now how do you handle rapid motion that's relative to the camera, as the camera is rapidly moving without making your audience get seasick? That's the real question.

Re:Why?

[omnichad]

They're already making a 24fps theatrical version that has the appropriate amount of extra motion blur. Why would they drop every other frame?

Re:Why?

[Beat The Odds]

I guess that depends on how you define it. On interlaced broadcast (like all old TV), you get a half-frame every 50 seconds, where half-frame means either the even or the odd lines, alternating.

No wonder it looks so crappy!

Re:Why?

[tzot]

24 fps from a high-speed shutter camera (usually digital these days), can be disturbing. 24 fps with low-speed shutter (older analog cameras), where there is motion blur is ok; motion blur approaches what we see with a naked eye.

24 fps from a video game, which is a sequence of stills, typically without motion blur as it requires more CPU time, is awful.

Assuming Jackson used digital cameras, 48 fps should be an improvement.

Re:Why?

[hairyfeet]

Maybe if you're a 20 year old with perfect eyesight, but how many of those will be willing to buy $1000 TVs? The whole reason Blu Ray has been a flop is the average viewer can't tell the difference between an upscaled DVD and a BD enough to make it worth the money, and the last figures i saw had 3D TV also ending up in the "People don't buy this shit" column, so really who cares?

We ALL know why they are doing this, its the same reason they try to push 3D on us every so many years since the 1950s, its because it lets them charge more per butt in the seat, and i have no problem with that, I really don't. But when you look at what people are actually buying for their homes you see a shitload of 720P and 1080P bottom of the line sets, the 120Hz sets ain't selling for shit because frankly most people don't care and their DVDs aren't HD anyway so why should they spend the money?

Until they are selling 120Hz 60FPS sets for $199 at the Best Buy AND all the programming is also in that format? Give it up chuck, its another teeny tiny niche that won't sell for squat. I mean look at how many gave up their HD sats and cable for the compressed all to hell netflix, at the end of the day its "good enough" and that is all the masses give a shit about.

Re:Why?

[dgatwood]

But the reason for using fields is so that the effective frame rate perceived is 60 frames per second, just at half the vertical resolution. Each field contains a different image than the field before it. So we're used to relatively fast frame rates. If people find 48 FPS distracting, the reason is probably either a psychological "uncanny valley" thing—because it feels almost like TV but not quite—or perhaps it just happens to be a magic speed that makes people uncomfortable for some reason. It certainly isn't because 48 FPS is faster than we're used to. It isn't. It's faster than we're used to seeing in theaters, but it's slower than we're used to seeing in our homes.

For that matter, even in theaters, 24 FPS isn't projected at 24 FPS; they project each frame twice so that it is above your flicker fusion threshold. The only difference with true 48 FPS is that you see different content every 48th of a second instead of seeing the same content twice in a row, which means that it is closer to what you see when you watch traditional NTSC TV (but still a lower perceived frame rate than NTSC video).

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people can't see a difference in rates above 30fps and pretty much nobody can distinguish fps over 60 fps. There are plenty of people (especially gamers) who think they can but they are imagining it.

You really don't have a clue, but you've bought into some techno-babble explanation and have convinced yourself that you do. It's sad, really.

There's a point at which a flickering light source stops being perceived as flickering, and starts being perceived as continuously lit. That threshold is somewhere south of 60 fps for the vast majority of people, true, but that isn't the same as not being able to perceive more than 60 fps (much less 30!).

The reason film (@24 fps) and TV (@30 fps) look smooth, where video games (@30 fps, or even 60 fps+) don't is because the human eye is fooled by (or possibly trained to be fooled by) motion blur. When a camera takes a picture, it doesn't actually capture a moment in time, it captures a span of time. The more something moves during that span, the more motion blur exists. This is due to the shutter system which is required to keep the film from being exposed when it is out of position within the camera. (Note: Motion blur is an effect that can be seen with the naked eye, even with no camera in the mix, but the speeds involved for that are *much* faster than required to see them on film.) Video games (short of the ultra-high end games coupled with extremely powerful graphics cards) don't produce motion blur. Instead, they work to produce more than 30 fps, which is the *minimum* required to feel 'smooth' in the absence of motion blur, frame rates faster than 30 fps (up to at least 75 fps for most people) have been shown to be distinguishable as noticeably smoother in experiments.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

The 'judder' happens because of a mismatch between the source frame rate and the display frame rate. Films are recorded at 24 fps*, while the TV displays 30 fps*. This means that an additional 6 fps of film footage have to be 'created' when playing a film on TV. This is done by way of a process which duplicates every 6th frame. In continuous pans, this becomes most obvious.

Some sets have the circuitry to change their frame rate which will fix this problem completely given the correct source, but that doesn't help if they're showing an already converted 24->30fps feed.

* or multiples thereof

Re:Why?

[camperdave]

1080i would correspond to 540p, so it's no wonder why 720p looks better.

Re:Why?

[nullifi]

Are no broadcasts in 1080p? My TV is only 720p/1080i so I've always made sure I got my stuff at 720p. But I thought that 1080p was available too..

Re:Why?

[BitZtream]

Hence the use of the word: practical

We all get Plank time, nice attempt to show how über smart you are, but epic fail for missing the details that make it clear it's not meant to be taken literally

Re:Why?

[RocketRabbit]

The magic? When there's a pan, getting seasick is magic?

Watching motion break up is magic?

No, no no.

Re:Why?

[cayenne8]

You sound like an old audiotard who says he hates CDs because they don't have pops and rumble and hiss and flutter and wow like the LPs and tapes he was used to did.

On the other hand...stereos that glow (tubes) are pretty cool.....

...even today!

Re:Why?

[GuldKalle]

Converting to 24 fps is just a matter of removing half the frames. No interpolation needed.

Re:Why?

[Tough Love]

A lot fo the magic of film was 24fps.

Oh yes, like wagon wheels going backwards. I also pine for the days of scratches, dust spots and pubic hairs on the big screen. And nothing but nothing beats the exhilaration of watching the celluloid melt because the projector stalled.

Re:Why?

[LoRdTAW]

Technically for PAL, the broadcast rate is 50Hz BUT that does not mean there are 50 complete frames every second. In order to conserve bandwidth for radio (radio meaning RF) broadcast, the picture is split into odd and even frames. This is called interlacing and when displayed on a CRT, the persistence of the phosphor coating makes it appear as one frame. So the actual frame rate is 25 but the frames are chopped up and broadcast in two parts. Back in the day before good video codecs, capture cards and acceleration, digitized, interlaced video sometimes looks jagged when played back on a computer. The computer CRT is progressively scanned and not interlaced, usually at 50+ Hz (upward of 85Hz on old CRT's).

For NTSC its the same thing. 30 frames per second is the actual video frame rate while the interlaced rate is 60Hz.

A little info on interlaced analog video:
The analog composite video signal from a game console or dvd player along with S-video and component are interlaced. The composite analog video signal is basically the same signal format broadcast over the air but not modulated over an RF carrier (along with audio). There are two parts to a video signal, the luma or luminance (intensity) and chroma (color) channels. The luma channel is the actual picture data which defines the display rate and syncing signals along with the brightness of each pixel. Before color TV, the luma channel was the actual picture, they added the chroma channel on top of it to enable color TV. To enable higher resolutions for s-video and component, they split the signals up. The chroma channel has its own wire in s-video or in the case of component, two wires allowing for more bandwidth. RGB video from a VGA port is not at all related to analog TV video, it is progressively scanned drawing the frame in one pass. RGB instead splits the picture into a high bandwidth red, green and blue picture. The vertical and horizontal scanning rates are also two separate signals. So you have five completely separate signals for PC RGB. Though, some RGB systems have the sync signals combined on one wire.

Re:Why?

[HoleShot]

I agree with this, Motion Blur is not desirable. In real life you see everything with no motion blur. The old motion picture standard was picked based on economics. It was the slowest frame rate the film industry could use but still trick most peoples minds into thinking it was fluid motion. Keep in mind how film motion pictures work, one frame, (a still shot) moves in front of the light source, the shutter opens you see the still, the shutter closes, you see nothing, (a time of darkness,) the next frame moves in front of the light source, the shutter opens you see the still frame, and so on and so on, 24 times a second. Now on an old TV screen the picture never blanked out, it was supposed to persist until the next frame, so that the image would not be perceived as flickering. I was a TV technician for 20 years, and believe me if you wanted motion blur, old time TV was what you needed. Motion blur was depended on to prevent people from complaining about flicker. TV companies made TV screens with different degrees of persistence to try and balance fluid motion, (how we see real life,) with motion blur (compromised image to reduce flicker.) Give me fluid motion in a motion picture, for that you need frame rate. I am not sure but I think digital projectors work more like a big TV, as they have no shutters, they just paint over the previous frame, like TV does in its digital 30 fps mode. I think 60fps would be very good, 120fps might be over kill.

Re:Why?

[HaZardman27]

The whole reason Blu Ray has been a flop

Has Blu Ray been a flop? I've never done any research, but I've certainly never seen anything to indicate that (at least in the US).

Re:Why?

[LordLucless]

I don't know if you'd describe it as a flop, exactly, but it certainly lacked the massive uptake of DVDs/CDs over VHS/Cassettes. In my experience, most people didn't rush out and buy a Bluray player; they got one the next time they were going to upgrade anyway - with their console, or built into their TV, or occasionally replacing their standalone DVD player. I still know many people (including myself) who just use DVDs.

The high-res transition was very much an iterative update. People had too much invested in the prior format.

Re:Why?

[Pseudonym]

Panning and dolly shots look terrible at 24fps if they go too fast.

Not if the cinematographer was doing their job. Strobing usually only happens if the shutter angle was too low.

Admittedly it's more of a problem with digital than with film.

Re:Why?

[LDAPMAN]

The satellite and some cable providers have a limited selection of 1080p pay-per-view movies but in general the only time your actually getting 1080p is when watching a Blu-Ray.

Re:Why?

[McGuirk]

I can't answer on why they went up to 48, but why they did 48 instead of 50 is obvious:

It's easy to convert down to 24 FPS if need be.

Re:Why?

[fatphil]

> Oh, and the motion blur is still there, it's just that there's only half as much of it.

Way way way way way way way less than half of the motion blur of film stock. Digital at 24fps is as choppy as fuck (see the attack scenes in /28 Days After/, for example). 48fps of course makes it half as choppy, so that's a good thing. But I still expect the smooth motion blur of film stock to, well, be smoother. And therefore more close to what we see in real life - which is a constantly moving blur.

Re:Why?

[Teancum]

The reason why DVDs took over from VHS tapes (which hardly was an overnight thing either) had more to do with creature comforts of not having to rewind the tape, deal with tape stretching/media fall out, and other physical problems of the VHS medium. That the DVD discs took up much less space was also a huge bonus and none of those advantages applied to Bluray as a format. For the most part Bluray is simply DVD on steroids and seen as just that.

On the technical side, there are some decided advantages of the Bluray format over DVD that goes well beyond just resolution and menuing options. One thing that hasn't even remotely been dealt with on Bluray content though is the fact that the Bluray player is a fully functional computer that is merely optimized for video playback. DVD was mostly the same thing, but it didn't have any RAM in the official spec (other than data buffers... not really accessible) and only 40 or so registers with fewer options in terms of what you could do with that computer. Unfortunately the technical specs are locked up so hobbyist-hacker developers can't really develop content unless they are employed by a major video studio.

Re:Why?

[godel_56]

I don't know if you'd describe it as a flop, exactly, but it certainly lacked the massive uptake of DVDs/CDs over VHS/Cassettes. In my experience, most people didn't rush out and buy a Bluray player; they got one the next time they were going to upgrade anyway - with their console, or built into their TV, or occasionally replacing their standalone DVD player. I still know many people (including myself) who just use DVDs.

The high-res transition was very much an iterative update. People had too much invested in the prior format.

The initial rip-off cost of the disks didn't help either. I've read that a Blue Ray costs about 25% more to make than a DVD, excluding any extra authoring costs. And DVDs are sometimes given away as promotional items by my local newspaper.

Re:Why?

[LordLucless]

Yeah, to my mind, Bluray (and DVD-HD or whatever it was called) were attempts to artificially reproduce the massive profits media companies got by people re-buying their movie/music collections on optical discs. I'm glad it failed.

Re:Why?

[mattack2]

24FPS is fast enough to fool the brain into thinking it's not a series of still images

Except when you're panning, for example. (There's a scene in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" when they're out in the city and there's a WAY too fast right to left pan, and it's really choppy.)

Re:Why?

[tylernt]

no need to derail yet another thread with it.

You must be new here.

Re:Why?

[Gr8Apes]

The whole reason Blu Ray has been a flop

Has Blu Ray been a flop? I've never done any research, but I've certainly never seen anything to indicate that (at least in the US).

Yes I would characterize it as a flop. It certainly didn't make the inroads that Sony hoped. They are suffering massively for their rather huge bet on BD, at least in part.

Re:Why?

[LWATCDR]

I saw the Hobbit in HFR IMax 3d and it was interesting. What I saw was the live shots looked great. The special effects in my opinion looked worse. The realism of the live shots contrasted with the effects shots to me. For instance the scene where the rabbit drawn sled was running from the Orcs.

Re:Why?

[Gr8Apes]

You don't need to be a 20 year old, nor have perfect eyesight. You do, however, need a larger TV, and generally a decent one. You also need to know what to look for, and not watch cartoons or animated features, although even they can show some of the horrors of lower res, low FPS effects.

For me, although I do have decent eyesight, I can't deal with CRTs with lower than 75Hz scan rates, back when that mattered. For LCD/LED TVs, 240Hz was the first scan rate that didn't give me ghosting headaches. This didn't deal with the other major issue with LCD/LED TVs: banding effects. This occurs due to the LCD being a square and butting up to an adjacent crystal, and having discrete color across the crystal. So in cases of gradually changing color tones, such as shading etc, you wind up with blocky bands. This is not to be confused with the staircase artifacts from bad encoding/over compression. Additionally there's the problem with shades of black in dark scenes, my last ditch effort on my current HDTV set will be to purchase a full colorimeter to attempt to properly calibrate the screen programmatically, although I believe this will help, I'm not holding my breath that it will actually "fix" the core issues with LCD/LED tech. So I'll try plasma next, and see if I can live with its tradeoffs.

Re:Why?

[WhirledOne]

Bingo. Also, while NTSC has 525 scan lines, some of them are "invisible" since they're part of the vertical refresh interval. That leaves, oh, just over 480 scan lines for the actual picture. Since it's an analog signal, horizontal resolution is not measured in pixels, but in line pairs-- essentially the densest arrangement of pairs of black and white vertical lines you can have across the frame before they are no longer distinguishable as individual black and white vertical lines (and look like a solid gray area instead). Normal NTSC TV receivers top out at about 270 line pairs unless they are equipped with a comb filter circuit, but the NTSC broadcast signal itself is good for somewhere around 320 or 340 line pairs. Double the line pair number to get an approximate "pixel" count for a digital equivalent, and you get about 640 pixels. Hmm. 640x480 pixels. Where have we seen that before..?

BTW, in the days before color, the video amplifiers in some early 525-line B&W TV receivers had bandwidths that covered the full 4 MHz video channel, giving them even better horizontal resolution than NTSC color would allow. This results in the odd experience of being able to "see" the colorburst signal (3.579545 MHz) when viewing a color NTSC program on such sets, which appears as a fine grid-like pattern of shimmering dots on the screen.

Re:Why?

[omnichad]

It's no more a problem with digital than film. They can both accept the same shutter speeds and aperture settings and even the same lenses. How can digital exhibit anything different?

Stuttering happens on pans that are too fast. It's because there aren't enough frames. But sometimes we want sweeping panoramic shots at a decent speed. In order to deliver on that, you MUST have a higher frame rate.

Re:Why?

[Grayhand]

A lot fo the magic of film was 24fps. sure its outdated, but so is 48 fps. broadcast TV has been 50 for years, with more recent forays with high def into 120hz (no idea of the actual frame rate with digital, but I could image its up there) why are the doing this now? and why only 48fps?

"Fields" not frames. A field is a half frame. It's persistence of vision that makes it look like 25 frames, I assume you're in Europe. The field rate is based on the number of cycles for simplicity's sake. Europe and much of the world is 50 cycle making 50 fields easy to sync. The US is 60 cycles so our video is 60 fields. This is PAL/NTSC bullshit and it's dying slowly because of all the old equipment and systems it needs to support.

Re:Why?

[gmeb]

Stuttering happens because digital TV uses lossy compression algorithms that are able to show a reasonable image as long as the algorithms' underlying assumptions hold, i.e. not too much will change from one image to the next.

Re:Why?

[fnj]

So, to convert [48fps] to 24fps, either the original footage will have to be filmed at 24fps, or else some sort of digital interpolation will have to be done.

Huh? It's the OPPOSITE of interpolation. All you have to do is sample every other frame, at the rate of 24fps. It's a perfect subsample. How is that much lower quality than normal? It's exactly the same.

Re:Why?

[wolrahnaes]

I'm not aware of broadcasts in 50 FPS. AFAIK, they're being evaluated, but basically material is broadcast at 25 or 30 fps, depending on the standard used. These conform to the old PAL/NTSC/SECAM framerates. Interlaced formats, however, can be 50 or 60, but that's because each frame is essentially split into two frames of alternating horizontal lines, "fields".

720p60 is a common broadcast format and a few European broadcasters do 720p50 (presumably to ease upscaling 25 FPS SD content). It seems 1080i50 is more popular over there though (annoyingly, I despise interlacing and would much rather have seen 1080p30 and 1080p25 become the broadcast standards rather than their crappy interlaced counterparts).

Re:Why?

[chrismcb]

there is a reason we use 24.

Yes, but it really has nothing to with how it looks. It has to do with sound, and cost.

Re:Why?

[TheRealMindChild]

The sadness in me grows when I think Motion Blur was one of the last kicking features of the latter 3dfx line

Re:Why?

[omnichad]

You must have cable or satellite, watching some "hd lite". OTA broadcasts at close to 20Mbps really don't have any motion artifacts. And certainly not on Blu-Ray.

Re:Why?

[hairyfeet]

Hell its STILL a ripoff Godel, I often see new DVDs for $10-$12, the same movie in BD, no extras, no nothing, is close to $40.

With DVD all the hassles of VHS are gone and I've seen good upscaling DVD players for as little as $50. Most people i know look at a DVD on their new widescreen and say "It looks okay to me" and that is the end of that, they just don't see paying sometimes triple the cost for a BD when the DVD is "good enough" for them.

Re:Why?

[Grishnakh]

Exactly, just like this HDTV stuff looks like ass because there's way too much detail, and that omnipresent 16kHz buzz is gone. We need to bring back NTSC. And even better, we should dump the color stuff and go back to B&W, and maybe even dump sound too and go back to silent movies.

Re:Why?

[ultranova]

As soon as technology allowed me, I produced and projected video animations in 60fps to make pans more fluid.

And yet, ironically, it's the pans which have problems in The Hobbit, at least in the 2D version.

Re:Why?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Except when you're panning, for example. (There's a scene in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" when they're out in the city and there's a WAY too fast right to left pan, and it's really choppy.)

Well, the shutter is going to exacerbate that, but (not recalling the scene) would a human have clear vision at the same rotational speed?

Re:Why?

[mattack2]

Yes, because your eyes do a move, stop, move, stop thing that (AFAIK) prevents you from having the same sort of choppy look.. or the brain interpolates, or something.. I don't know, but it sure doesn't look as bad simply swinging your head around really quickly.

Re:Why?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Thanks for the lead. Perhaps it was this? It's at least comforting that once in a while my wild speculation turns out to have been already implemented. :)

The nice thing for The Hobbit is that it seems the algorithms are applied in Post, so if today's algorithm is lacking, the blur can be re-processed in the future. The 8th Special Edition box set, no doubt.

Re:Why?

[J-1000]

Have you seen the movie yet? Reserve judgment until you do. My wife went into the viewing not really comprehending what "HFR" meant. About 30 seconds into the movie she leaned over and whispered, "Is the entire movie going to be like this???" and later, "It looks like a video game."

I was pretty well mentally prepared for the frame rate difference, so I was able to enjoy it as a spectacle if nothing else. But it added nothing of value to the movie itself, and speaking honestly the movie did lose something in the transition. It ceased to feel like a movie. It felt like an extremely high definition live broadcast.

I would like someone to explain to me, where is the inherent benefit with 48 FPS? Sure it's nice for directors who would love to shoot faster-moving pans, but how exactly does it make things nicer for the viewer? Do people complain of headaches when they watch movies? Seriously, where is the improvement?

Re:Why?

[bill_mcgonigle]

In real life you see everything with no motion blur.

I'm sitting in front our our Christmas tree here. I just shoot my head side to side quickly and saw the light streak. There's a decay time on the light sensitive chemicals on our retina; I don't think motion blur can be avoided if the speed is fast enough.

TV companies made TV screens with different degrees of persistence to try and balance fluid motion

Ah, I recall seeing old posts here when LCD technology was improving about the screens being 'finally good for gaming'. IIRC, people are happy with 5ms LCD screens. But the geeks always point out that 5ms is really 15ms (RGB?) so perhaps that's the real measure. Let's see: 1/.015 = 66.666_ - perhaps that's why 120Hz screens are becoming popular; 60Hz doesn't quite cut it.

Re:Why?

[J-1000]

24 fps from a high-speed shutter camera (usually digital these days), can be disturbing.

What camera man in his right mind would shoot faster than 1/24s shutter speed and then display it at 24 FPS? This only happens when taking a live broadcast at a high frame rate and insta-converting to 24 FPS like they do (or did) with some awards shows. It would never happen in a movie.

Re:Why?

[detritus.]

Half off on copyright infringement if you capture it in the theater at 24fps?

Re:Why?

[thegarbz]

There's a point at which a flickering light source stops being perceived as flickering, and starts being perceived as continuously lit. That threshold is somewhere south of 60 fps for the vast majority of people, true, but that isn't the same as not being able to perceive more than 60 fps (much less 30!).

Actually there's more at play there. Go turn off an incandescent light and you'll see it fade, quickly at first, but there's a slight glow visible for a few seconds after on the filament. It is this slow reaction combined with the fact that the power being delivered to the light fades smoothly in and out that helps make the light source continuous.

A perfect example of the opposite is a device like a surge protector where the LED is wired as a half wave rectifier. LEDs respond quickly and they are only on for half the time, as opposed to on nearly all of the time and drawing zero current for only a tiny fraction of a second. Those damn LEDs flicker like buggery.

Re:Why?

[Fjandr]

Personally, I didn't even notice.

Re:Why?

[slashmydots]

I think they chose it because it was double and there's not much more to read into it than that. What irks me is they made it looks twice a realistic with less noticeable flicker and people are saying it's distracting? WTF? Maybe they should jack it up to 72FPS and I'll send them a welcome to 1990 card because that's what a lot of CRTs ran at back then. Seriously! More frames = more realism. Thus the 120FPS HD signal. There is no getting used to something that looks more like reality. That's quite literally the opposite of the thing your eyes and brain would notice. Let's make all these "intelligent" reviewers watch a 12FPS movie and see if they still think lower is better. In fact forget that, 1 FPS. That's the king of all movie quality! Ugh, some people just need to get a damn clue.

Re:Why?

[styrotech]

What I saw was the live shots looked great. The special effects in my opinion looked worse.

Hmmm... that could end up being a good thing eventually.

Re:Why?

[serviscope_minor]

No wonder it looks so crappy!

Actually, no it doesn't. Not on a TV tube and taking into account it's only standard def anyway and TV tubes are often a bit fuzzy if you didn't have a good one.

It's a simple and effective form of video compression.

With fast motion, you get 50fps at half the vertical resolution, but that's OK since you can't see high resolution at high speed.

With still frames, you get the full resolution and your brain/eyes interpolate the alternation.

It's actually a really cunning scheme which improves considerably the video quality given the bandwidth constriants.

Of course if you smoosh the fields together and show it at 25/30 per seconds then it looks crap, but that's not how its meant to look.

Re:Why?

[serviscope_minor]

Completely incorrect.

Yes, but not for the reasons you've given :)

Analog TV had no pixels at all,

Nyquist wants a word with you.

The bandwidth of the signal is limited, so it's not unreasonable to talk about it in terms of pixels. The results come out the same. Anyway, in terms of effective pixels, NTSC is more like 640x240 at 50fps than 320x240. Of the 525 lines, generally only about 480 had picture data in them.

PAL is more like 768x576, (BT878 cards on Linux could get it all) but often it's only digitised at 720x576.

Re:Why?

[serviscope_minor]

Well to me film often doesn't look smooth at 24fps. It's quite juddery on panning shots even with motion blur. I'm sensitive to flicker. I did some experiments with an old SGI CRT and modelines a few years ago and found I could percieve flicker in my peripheral vision at over 80Hz. Only at 85Hz did the monitor look completely smooth to me.

Anyway.

TV is generally at 50/60 fields per second, not 25/30 FPS. The interleaved nature effectively gives twice the temporal resolution for half the vertical spatial resolution when motion occurs. That makes it look smoother. The other problem with video games requireing a very high framerate (not just motion blur) is that they're interactive unlike TV and people are quite sensitive to latency.

Re:Why?

[cameraman_ben]

The vinyl is better comparison is a bit unfair. To me the 24fps (or 25 for TV here is the UK) is more of a psychological shorthand. Cinema started out hand cranked, then settled on 18fps then on 24fps and has stayed there for decades. TV, for years based on tube cameras and CRT screens went for technical expedience reasons to 25fps in Europe and 30fps in the USA but with two interlaced fields per frame; effectively 50 and 60 fields per sec. Expensive dramas and high-end documentaries until recently were always shot on film then telecined to video so the two fields were effectively the same moment in time.

For pretty much the lifetimes of every viewer today big budget and classy = 24/25/30 fps; news, soaps, current affairs, live events and home videos = 50/60i. As a cameraman ironically the stutter is a very easy way to add to the perceived production value for the viewer. There was huge uptake of video DSLRs after the Canon 5D, partly for the shallow focus, but also for the ability to shoot 1080p rather than 1080i.

My father in law bought a rather expensive TV a couple of Christmases ago featuring some clever optical flow tricks to upsample 25p to 50i. I didn't know about this at first and The Mummy was on. Something seemed odd, mundane and the camera wiggles and effects looked unconvincing and 'low budget'. I realised that it was too smooth and had dipped into an uncanny valley so psychologically I had lost the suspension of disbelief and a big budget movie looked like a student film.

A side note is the use of narrow shutter angles (or fast shutters if using electronic shutters on video). Since Saving Private Ryan a popular trick is to use narrow or fast shutters to remove motion blur and make action feel faster. I've got mixed feelings about this and think that it has been massively overused (as most new tricks do in movies and TV) but it inherently does make pans really juddery. Maybe that is what distracts you or have you really never seen a movie with people moving across frame that doesn't bother you?

The flip is 360 shutters. When digital HD video cameras were first launched they had trouble interlacing the progressive picture for live viewing. The viewfinders were horrible and on the live monitor really juddery. Combine that with video people who were disparate to shoot progressive like movies but used to working with interlace and the recurring requests would be 'must shoot progressive but take out the judder'. That meant take out the shutter so that the picture was taken for a 25th second rather than a 50th of a second. The result is swooshy blur that I have always hated and reminds me of 70s tube cameras. Thankfully that trend for 'smoothness' has faded but you still see it occasionally and sometimes for night shoots where directors want an extra stop without adding gain.

Long story short - 48fps looks cheap in a big budget movie, then you get used to it, think what did I ever see in 25fps, then don't think anything about it and then filmakers at all levels have lost a simple way to shiny up their film.

Re:Why?

[adolf]

Why didn't the industry standardize around 48FPS? Well, for most broadcasters, bandwidth is money, and the higher frame rate would have massively increased the cost of distribution. Secondly, at the birth of digital HD, encoding and decoding at this rate was much more expensive, and LCD TVs have a very poor response rate, making them (at the time) a poor match for higher rates.

The reasons are simpler than that. At the time, VHS was still king. LCD TVs were expensive, small, and fickle novelties. CRT televisions seldom even had an S-Video port, let alone the ability to display anything other than 480i NTSC. And MPEG2 was the best that anyone could reliably get away with, which has never been considered to be all that bandwidth-efficient.

In terms of bandwidth: These days I get far better pictures from a ~6Mbps h.263-ish stream over the Internet than I ever do from a ~19Mbps MPEG2 stream over ATSC, so it seems plain to me that it's entirely possible to do more with less. But in the early-mid 90's the tech wasn't there yet.

Furthermore, the broadcaster's actual band-width is the same as it was before: 6MHz.

Who knows how they (broadcasters, legislators, FCC) would have acted back then if they had the same technology then as we do now, or if they had a magic looking-glass that could show them that in the mysterious future folks would have large-format televisions that are only an inch thick, with digital interconnection and the ability to display unique 1920x1080 images at 120Hz...

Framerate? Meh. When the first grumblings of "HD TV" made the rounds, most folks I talked to didn't want it at all. Given the negativity associated with it, and the 15-20 years it took for the concept to get from conjecture to actually supplanting NTSC, I'm frankly astounded that it works as well as it does even if it is limited to 480i, 720p, or 1080i at various multiples and permutations of ~30 FPS.

All that said: Why was the magic number of 30 chosen? It should be no surprise that broadcast television is run by broadcasters, not the movie industry, and 24 and 48 FPS simply didn't fit well with their existing program material and signal chain. 30 and 60, however, fit very nicely. Trying to add even more complexity to a system that, at the time, most folks didn't want would not have done a single positive thing to hasten its acceptance (which, as I stated, was already very lengthy).

Perhaps a better question is this: With movies being shot with digital gear and projected with digital projectors, why is 48 FPS even in the running for future formats? Would 60 not be a better and more-compatible cinematic framerate?

Re:Why?

[adolf]

What camera man in his right mind would shoot faster than 1/24s shutter speed and then display it at 24 FPS?

Seeing as it's physically impossible to shoot slower than 1/24s on a 24 FPS film camera:

Disregarding any cinematic effect (see Saving Private Ryan): If exposure adjustments need to be made (due to lighting, film, or lens availability), they can only happen in one direction: Faster.

[duh.]

Re:Why?

[adolf]

Most people think the stereo that came with their car sounds good enough, because that's all they've had.

Most people think the earbuds that came with their MP3 player are good enough, because they've never tried anything different.

Most people think Bud Light is OK, because that's what everyone else seems to be drinking.

FFS: Most people ran their CRT monitors at 640x480 @ 60Hz, before Windows started defaulting to 800x600 (still at 60Hz), and they were OK with that because it was all they knew. And I know, without asking, that as a helpful computer guy you've spent a few minutes fixing that for countless people, all of whom were thankful at the difference it made.

I don't care what most people think is "good enough". I care about what I perceive to be better: An old 3-cylinder Metro is big enough to haul my family and carry the product of my errands, and would be "good enough". But I drive an old 6-cylinder BMW instead, because I perceive it to be in many ways that are important to me. It's faster, safer, funner, a bit larger, more comfortable...and also heavier and less-efficient. (I'm OK with that -- it's efficient enough.)

And there seems to be enough folks (no, not "most people") who think similarly enough to me to keep BD movies on physical shelves at real stores: If it were a total flop, as you suggest, it would have already disappeared or resigned itself to a special-order niche item ala Laserdisc.

(And why buy a $50 DVD player, when you can instead buy a $50 Blu-Ray player?)

Re:Why?

[somersault]

I went to see it last night. I do think it looked cheap a lot of the time. The better framerate made it feel like you were watching a live action play. Which obviously means it felt more "real", but I'm not sure that's a good thing. Gandalf's hammy acting was quite noticeable. Martin Freeman was great though I have to say. He saved it all from being a complete let down in my book.

Other issues: The lighting felt quite artificial a lot of the time. I'm guessing maybe they upped the brightness of the film to counter-act the light you lose from polarised glasses. The special effects and physics of the rendered characters/objects were very poor. It felt like a cheap made-for-TV movie. I'm considering going to see it again in 28fps just to see how much my perceptions were being changed by the frame rate. If they were producing everything the same way they did LOTR then I'd say that 48fps needs a lot more attention to detail to make it feel impressive.

Re:Why?

[SuricouRaven]

I can see it happening to hobbyists and those on budget so tight they are using point-and-shoot consumer gear, but any professional camera operator should be familiar with the correct use of shutter speed.

Re:Why?

[SuricouRaven]

Interlacing was a wonderful thing in the analog days. TV would have looked (literally) half as good without it. But those days are passed: It is time to let interlacing die. It just gets in the way now and complicates things needlessly.

Re:Why?

[SuricouRaven]

With one slight problem: There will be almost no motion blur at all. Motion blur is both a camera artifact and a desired visual effect, aiding the brain in performing that unconscious process of allowing a series of still images to be perceived as motion. Watch the film without motion blur and people will get the feeling something is 'wrong.' They may not be able to tell what, unless they are experienced in video production, but they'll pick up on it. The video will look strangely jerky, or animated.

Re:Why?

[mcgrew]

Seeing is done in the brain, not the eye. The eye simply measures photons, and the brain corrects for the eye's defects as well as it can. Each eye has a blind spot, but the brain simply ignores it. The same goes for motion blur.

Re:Why?

[Mr.Radar]

There are very definitely broadcasts at 60 FPS, at least in North America. The ATSC standard for digital television used in North America requires receivers to support 59.94/60 FPS progressive-scan modes at the 1280x720, 704x480 and 640x480 resolutions. Many sports events are broadcast at 59.94 frames per second in progressive scan due to the advantages it provides over interlaced scanning for fast motion.

Re:Why?

[the Gray Mouser]

The question is not "Are tubes better?", but "Which sound better to you - EL84's or SLS's?"

Oh, and vinyl isn't distorted, it's compressed (so the needle won't jump out of the groove).

Re:Why?

[Rei]

Personally, I'd like to see the end of the concept of framerate altogether - that changes to the display image are bundled into timestamped packets which can be of any infintessimal interval. It'd impose a slight bandwidth overhead but be pretty insigifnicant if more than a few pixels were contained in each bundle.

You'd be detaching the uptake mechanism from the playback mechanism. Each device does the best it can with the hardware it has on-hand. The simpler the task it's presented with, likewise, the smoother the framerate it can provide you.

One could even go a step further and have the display hardware have smart interpolation. Each pixel or block of pixels could keep a tiny buffer of what it played recently and what it's to play in the immediate future and do a spline interpolation (which it should be able to do exceedingly rapidly), filling in the already tiny gaps between frames.

It may sound crazy, but our current insistance on sticking to frames already has some serious hardware limitations due to the fact that all pixels are generally *not* captured at the same time. Take your high-end consumer camcorder, set it on full optical zoom, highest possible framerate, and film out your window at something as close to you as you can without acceptable blur. Then step through your frames on a big screen on playback and you'll notice something interesting. Everything is bent! You'll generally find something along the lines of the top pixels captured before the bottom pixels, and so the objects that they're part of have moved partially past. The pixels near the top may belong to frame #38121, but the pixels near the bottom should really be part of frame #38121.8 or something along those lines.

There are potential workarounds, but IMHO, it's just better to scrap the concept of a discrete framerate.

Re:Why?

[Rei]

** Window of a moving car, that is.

Re:Why?

[nabsltd]

They're already making a 24fps theatrical version that has the appropriate amount of extra motion blur. Why would they drop every other frame?

I didn't know that this source was already made, but it will likely look "wrong" if the blur is added digitally. There's a lot going on with an analog shutter opening and closing, even if it is in front of a fixed digital sensor instead of a moving film.

For example, without knowing what the relative movement of camera vs. subject was in some form of exact measurement, you can't know what movement should blur and what should not. Assuming that an object is sharp in every frame of the 48fps source, knowing that it moved 27 pixels from frame 1 to frame 2 and 32 pixels from frame 2 to frame 3 doesn't tell you if that movement rate was "too fast" for the virtual 24fps shutter between frame 1 and frame 3 unless you know the exact distance moved in the real world. In other words, just because it was sharp at 48fps doesn't mean it should be blurry at 24fps...maybe it would only be blurry at 10fps.

Re:Why?

[lgw]

You don't get judder with film, because you get motion blur instead. Motion blur is vastly less annoying,.

Re:Why?

[omnichad]

I might have been unclear, but its actually recording at two different "shutter" speeds from the same sensor.

Re:Why?

[omnichad]

Yes, you do. On high shutter speeds. Same as digital. Motion blur comes from longer exposure time.

Re:Why?

[Psyborgue]

Quite a few games, even dated ones, use motion blur and it's hardly costly computationally. It's generally a post process involving motion vectors. Even the first Mass Effect does it. Lots of games have been doing it for quite some time, even on consoles, because it's a lot cheaper to do vector motion blur than it is to increase the frame rate to compensate for the effect you mention. Even my old laptop with an 8600m nvidia chipset can play the game quite decently at 720p with motion blur.

Re:Why?

[Psyborgue]

Lots of modern video games, especially on consoles, use a relatively low frame rate (even around 20-30) and motion blur. It's a lot easier to add vector motion blur to a video game than it is to increase the frame rate. Done as a post process on the GPU, it's relatively computationally inexpensive. Even relatively old games (i'm talking 5+ years) use the feature. Example: UT3, the first Mass Effect and the first Crysis. Basically when the image is rendered, a motion vector pass is included and this is passed to a post process which blurs each pixel by a given amount in a given direction. It's very very cheap to do compared to deformation techniques or the brute force of rendering the image multiple times and averaging the result together.

Technology is moving fast. The next generation of games are going to be doing realtime global illumination (UT4, CryEngine 3) and hardware tessellation and displacement -- all on the GPU. 5 years ago that was unthinkable. At this rate, the following generation will probably be doing path tracing -- something that's already doable if you're willing to deal with a low amount of samples per pixel. We'll probably skip the simple raytracing step altogether.

Re:Why?

[davydagger]

you don't have to rewind dvds?
http://www.dvdrewinder.com/

Re:Why?

[Teancum]

Note that they discontinued sales in 2009. Not a bad site though.

Re:Why?

[hairyfeet]

And that is why the things you like are 3-8 times more expensive than what everybody else is paying, because you are a niche buyer, simple as that. whether you like it or not economy of scale makes a BIG difference in price and Sony simply badly overcharged for BD and tried pushing it too early at too high a price and its a flop. last figures I saw had nearly 60 of a new release DVD sold for every copy of BD, this is why many B&Ms like Walmart are sticking the BDs in a corner and devoting more shelf space to DVD, its all about selling as much product as possible.

But I know what you mean, I hang onto my Ranger with its Vulcan V6 even though its a gas hog because it has plenty of power and hauling capacity, the only way to get the same level today would be to buy a huge V8 that blew through gas even worse and took up more parking space. but the masses have spoken and they prefer either no truck or a big ass hemi, no in between so guys like me just have to hang onto what we got. that is what happens when you don't follow the herd, you'll end up on laserdisc while everybody else has VHS.

Re:Why?

[Kjella]

Interlacing was a wonderful thing in the analog days. TV would have looked (literally) half as good without it. But those days are passed: It is time to let interlacing die. It just gets in the way now and complicates things needlessly.

Yes, sadly neither the ATSC, BluRay or AVCHD 1.0 standard defined a indisputably superior progressive picture, you can have either 1080p30 or 1080i60 but no 1080p60 giving you both the full resolution and smoothness. Why interlaced seemed like a good idea at the time I don't know, interlaced monitors had long since died an early death with computers. But on the bright side 1080p60 is now standard on most $300+ cameras so interlacing is clearly going away - even if you still have to send it interlaced you'll be filming in progressive. And moving to 4K I've not seen any camera anywhere that shoots 4K interlaced, so that's probably not even going to be an option.

Re:Why?

[nabsltd]

So, it's a an interpolation of some sort, and not an actual 24fps shutter, which means it won't look "right".

There has to be a physical shutter to make the sensor work right, as it needs time to reset to "all off", and this can't be done in the presence of light. And, if that physical shutter is running at 48fps, then any other frame rate will be an interpolation, with all the issues that I mention.

Re:Why?

[SuricouRaven]

Interlacing was around long, long before digital. It needs only moderatly complicated analog electronics. It wasn't possible to do a full frame fifty (Or sixty, for those in the US) times a second - it would have exceeded the acceptable bandwidth, in the analog sense. So the options were to either halve the frame rate, or halve the number of lines. Flickery, or blury. Interlacing solves the problem - send alternating lines each frame. You get all the benefits of the full line count on still images, and all the smoothness of full frame rate on motion. Best of both.

Re:Why?

[adolf]

3-8 times more expensive? With those figures, I'd be buying Blu-Rays for somewhere up to around $280.

You really need to get out more. These items simply aren't priced like that (if they were, I wouldn't be buying them).

Most of the movies I buy on BD are about 25% more expensive than the same film on DVD. Sometimes, the price is the same. Sometimes, it's even cheaper.

Last week, I picked up a trilogy on BD for $27, when just one of those movies was $20 on DVD.

*shrug*

Re:Why?

[hairyfeet]

The problem is the price on BD rarely falls like the price on DVDs. In less than a year that $20 DVD is in the $4-$6 bin, the BD? Still $20-$30 if you can even find the thing. this is especially true of older movies, I was fighting the crowd at the Wally World the other day, they had the Kill Bill DVDs for $4 each, only BD they had was a box with both movies for $40. that is 5 times more, just as I said.

At the end of the day the numbers don't lie, most new releases are selling 30-40 DVDs for every single BD sold, which tells me all I need to know. Most people simply don't care so its gonna be another Laserdisc, in fact I would argue if it weren't for PS3 owners it wouldn't even be selling as much as they are.

Re:Why?

[omnichad]

That is not how cameras work at all. The shutter is typically open for much less than 1/24 of a second even on a film camera. For most shots in The Hobbit, they used a shutter speed of 1/72 of a second.

And no, the digital sensor doesn't get "tired" and need to rest between frames. However, there is part of the time that sensor data is ignored (between frames)

Re:Why?

[davydagger]

probably because no on buys DVDs anymore.

I wonder if they made one for blu-ray?

I'm sick of rewinding my blue-rays either by hand or in the drive.

Re:Why?

[bingoUV]

Longer exposure time of the camera or high response time of the display.

Re:Why?

[omnichad]

from the film. You can only get ghost images with a slow fade, slow refresh (phosphor) screen. You can't get any additional motion beyond your fps.

Re:Why?

[nabsltd]

The shutter is typically open for much less than 1/24 of a second even on a film camera.

Yes, I know. This controls the exposure (and also affects how much blurring you get). But, the start of opening is every 1/24 of a second (form normal movies), and where the subject is located at each of those times compared to where they were located the time before is what controls whether the image has motion blur, along with the shutter speed.

The problem with interpolation is that it only knows the "pixel count" movement (and even then needs a powerful processor to get the movement correct), when it really needs to know the physical distance (both to the subject and how much it moved), the lens focal length and the iris size (which together with the distances give you knowledge of whether the subject should be in focus in the first place), the shutter speed, and the frame rate. Now, the camera does have most of this available, but I find it hard to believe that it also has the processing power to do full vector movement analysis and stores both a 48fps video along with the interpolated 24fps video.

And no, the digital sensor doesn't get "tired" and need to rest between frames.

In a sense, yes it does. If you keep the shutter open for an exposure that is long relative to the frame rate, then you get junk data from the leftover light that has still excited the sensor. Otherwise you wouldn't need a physical shutter to block the light...you'd just sample the sensor every 1/24 of a second. And, yes, I know that many cheap camcorders work without a physical shutter, and it shows in the image quality.

Re:Why?

[omnichad]

The framerate (1/24 of a second) determines how much judder you get. The shutter speed determines the motion blur.

The Hobbit does not use interpolation. It is shot at 48fps. Interpolation is used by 120Hz TV's to guess the intermediate frames and is a worthless technology in my mind. I only want to see the original framerate, whatever that may be, and of course motion blur is removed on the interpolated TV's, against the director's wishes.

It doesn't do any analysis. The sensor is always on. There are two "bins" that get the data. Every 1/24 of a second, the 24fps frame is shot, and every 1/48 of a second the 48fps frames are shot.

The RED Epic camera does NOT have a physical shutter:

Unlike most HD video cameras, the Red Epic does not generate a video stream in-camera which represents its final product. Its real time monitoring outputs do not reflect the resolution and dynamic range captured in the raw files it records. The camera's live outputs are intended to be used for on-set monitoring, similarly to the way a video tap is often used with film-based acquisition.
The shutter speed can be set to any value that would correspond to a shutter angle of 1 to 359 in a film camera without creating the artifacts that a mechanical shutter creates in such a camera. Rolling shutter artifacts haven been reduced significantly by the faster readout of the sensor compared to the Red One.

Framerate on the Epic can be brought down to 1 fps to shoot time lapse footage with a user-definable shutter speed.
The camera is based around a modular design concept. It has many mounting points for accessories like recording devices, viewfinders, etc. that can be mounted to the camera, rather than being integral parts of the body. Several cages, plates, and rail systems are available that provide protection or extra mounting points.

Re:Why?

[adolf]

But it's already doing far better than Laserdisc: In my entire life, I've never seen a Laserdisc for sale on a shelf in a big box store.

I knew of them; I even worked for a store that sold the players. But the media itself always seemed relegated to mail order. If BD were as dead as Laserdisc, it wouldn't be possible to find them at Wal-Mart at any price.

Meanwhile I find that big box stores are a lousy place to find movies, anyway, unless it is within a week or two of release: Chances are excellent that I either already have or do not want most of what is on their normally-stocked shelves.

Pricing. Let's take another couple of examples: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

There are two different versions of this film currently in circulation, and both are available on DVD and BD (and none of them at my local Wal-Mart).

At Amazon, the normal release is $7.49 on DVD, and $11.49 on BD.

Likewise at Amazon, the Criterion release is $17.39 on DVD, and $17.99 on BD.

I do not find these prices to be appalling in any capacity.

It's easy to list dead/stillborn consumer media formats that never really managed to populate store shelves: DCC, Minidisc, UMD video, Laserdisc, VCD, SVHS, D-VHS, DVD-Audio, SACD [...]. Some of these were always intended to be niche, high-end formats, and others were aimed squarely at the pit of consumerism. They all have one thing in common, and that is failure to thrive and become accepted in the marketplace.

BD doesn't show any sort of that level of failure, and with price-parity existing between BD players and DVD players, it's unlikely that the format will die any time soon: Even at the 30:1 ratio you keep mentioning, that's an absolute fuckload of sales.

And, AFAICT from memory and looking at the dates, it does seem to be catching on at about the same rate as DVD did even though DVD was never cursed with a real format war* ala HD-DVD vs. BD.

(*There was that whole Circuit City DIVX debacle, but it never had any teeth.)

Re:Why?

[Tore S B]

Some errata:

In cinema, exposure time is a function of frame rate and "shutter angle". The shutter rotates over the film, and by varying the angle you can get higher shutter speeds. IIRC, my Arriflex (made for TV, thus geared for 25fps) maxes out at 180 degrees, meaning 1/52s.

Digital cinema cameras do not have high-speed shutters (unless you set them that way, just like with film). Indeed, since there is no mechanical requirement to blank away the film while the claw advances, you can actually have smaller shutter angles/greater speed.

Re:Why?

[Tore S B]

In Norway, the public broadcaster broadcasts 720p50 simply because people watch TV on flat panels, which means that if we sent 1080i50 the TV would deinterlace internally - and deinterlacing is nearly impossible to get right. 720p50 from a hefty box full of ASICs gives much, much higher effective quality than a home user would get from 1080i50, which is the normal HD format until 1080p50 infrastructure becomes adequate.

1080p25 is not something you want. It's really only useful for film material shot at 25fps (as most made-for-TV film stuff is). Frame rates that low incur several restrictions that you cannot process your way out of, like the "safe panning speed".

Re:Why?

[Tore S B]

Digital interpolation is not really all that lossy nowadays, if you use the right equipment.

I would prefer the home release to be 720p50, myself, but I expect it'll either be 1080p24 - or maybe 1080i50?

Re:Why?

[Tore S B]

My first thought is: Good luck syncing audio to that!

Second: Good luck doing meaningful digital compression!

In professional broadcasting - _unlike_ the camcorder a mortal can afford - rolling-shutter is under control, as is a lot of other Bad and Wrong stuff that consumer cameras do. (Here's one you can easily check at home: Point a TV remote at it, and press buttons. Do you see the remote LED lighting up? That means it doesn't filter IR, and that wreaks havoc on colour fidelity!)

Re:Why?

[bingoUV]

You are right, I was mistaken in believing the effecs would be similar. Thanks.

Re:Why?

[tzot]

Any camera man with instructions from their director. I believe “Gladiator” and “Saving Private Ryan” are two typical examples of famous directors using high-speed shutter in their film.

Re:Why?

[loufoque]

how many of those will be willing to buy $1000 TVs

You mean there are decent TVs for less than $1,500?
What fantasy world do you live in?

Re:Why?

[loufoque]

People just don't buy optical media anymore.
They just download scene releases, the quality and experience are better.

Re:Why?

[omnichad]

720p60 is only possible on cable or satellite. It's certainly not possible on ATSC OTA. 720p on OTA is only 30 frames per second (or 29.97, don't remember). There isn't enough bandwidth for 720p60 over the air. So sports are usually broadcast OTA in 1080i for better motion.

I wouldn't worry whether you're getting 1080i or 720p. Most providers are still overcompressing HD video so much it doesn't matter anyway.

Re:Why?

[AttillaTheNun]

I saw the movie in 48fps HFR (High Frame Rate) yesterday afternoon. The difference is significant, and the movie felt much more like a BBC/PBS made-for-TV production, but I think there are several factors behind this:
Same author, same director, same score composer, same production house and art direction, and much of the cast returning from Lord of the Rings. Hard not to expect a similar look and feel. However, as is the case with the novel, the story and narrative tone is much lighter than Lord of the Rings. 3D, which definitively adds something new to the look. 48fps film and projection.

It's hard to determine exactly how much of the difference can be attributed exclusively to the 48fps aspect of the production, but the movie definitely felt more like a large TV production.

I'll be taking the kids to see a 24fps 3D showing this week, so it will be interesting to see if my opinion of the film itself changes after seeing it in a more "traditional" presentation.

Re:Why?

[chispito]

What camera man in his right mind would shoot faster than 1/24s shutter speed and then display it at 24 FPS? This only happens when taking a live broadcast at a high frame rate and insta-converting to 24 FPS like they do (or did) with some awards shows. It would never happen in a movie.

Have you seen any action movies in the last 15 years?

Re:Why?

[J-1000]

Wow, really? This may partly explain why I disliked the action scenes in Gladiator. Did you read an explanation of why they did this?

Re:Why?

[MotorMachineMercenar]

As someone who has seen The Hobbit in 3D HFR, 3D IMAX HFR, and regular 2D at 24fps, it's fine - the 24fps version looks like any other 24fps movie.

FWIW 2D was the best experience, as much as I wanted to like 48fps.

Re:Why?

[Miamicanes]

> AND all the programming is also in that format

It is. It's called "1080i60". 120/240fps TVs use their higher framerate to simulate interlace flicker so they can fade & blend adjacent fields without comb artifacts and BOB blur.

120/240hz (and 100/200hz) TVs were developed as an alternative way to reconcile the curse and pain of interlaced content with the inherently progressive-scan reality of modern TVs. Interpolated higher framerates (for "Soap Opera Effect") was a tacked-on afterthought.

Trivia: a 120hz plasma TV is roughly equivalent to a 240hz LCD, because plasma has its own fading effect and doesn't literally have to bit-bang the whole thing from start to finish the way LCD does.

Re:Why?

[tzot]

All that said: Why was the magic number of 30 chosen?

Isn't the typical answer that North-American/Japanese etc AC power is 60 Hz and European etc AC power is 50 Hz?

30 is 60/2 and 25 is 50/2.

Re:Why?

[adolf]

Yes, that's the typical answer. Except with digital video, the power frequency doesn't matter at all. Keeping things in multiples of 30 is/was only important for historic reasons relating to their existing media and production chain.

Meanwhile, if anyone is still reading: Someone's going to ask "Well, why not 50FPS? That way the Europeans get the most benefit!", to which I'll retort that I don't care. Europeans have had 60Hz NTSC-compatible playback equipment for eons, whereas Americans almost never have 50Hz-compatible gear.

So the most broadly-supportable format would be, AFAICT, 60 FPS (for both sides of the pond).

Re:Why?

[llin]

Actually, the "standard" shutter speed for 24fps film is typically 1/48s (180 degree shutter angle in film-speak). Cinematographers choose different shutter speeds based on a number of considerations, mostly related to how motion (camera (pan judder) and subject (strobing)) will look w/ specific lenses and lighting. Depth of Field also plays into that choice of course. Common shutter angles range anywhere from 270 degrees (1/24s) all the way down to 45 degrees (1/192s). FYI: 360 degrees is now possible w/ digital cameras, but was *not* possible with mechanical cameras! (practically every feature length film shot until the last decade or so).

You can easily find samples online, as you can imagine, they give extremely different looks for motion.

Re:Why?

[llin]

One of the biggest benefits of HFR (48FPS) is specifically for 3D. 3D project is actually "triple flashed" at 144FPS (72FPS/eye). This accentuates the (camera and subject) motion issues w/ 24FPS, so HFR is a way of trying to get around that - and having just seen the Hobbit in 3D HFR today, it seems to do a pretty good job at it. Fast motion is crystal clear - it's really astounding.

That being said, I agree about the aesthetic adjustment. The intro scene in the Shire/Bag End in particular... just looks bad. Similarly the way the set/makeup/lighting looks. IMO, the most CG parts of the movie looked best because at least it didn't have that "live theatre" look. I think most films won't adopt HFR because it may just be too hard/expensive to make things look good.

Another part of it seems to be the DOF choice - it's just incredibly deep/clear which IMO is *not* realistic at all - when you look at something in real life, that's just not how your foveal/peripheral vision works, at least for me. Sure the clarity is nice for spectacle, but not so much for immersion.

And lastly, of course people (especially people that watch lots of films) have an expectation of what a film should look like and HFR totally breaks that.

Still, I'm sure that people had this sort of discussion w/ the switch from B&W to Color or w/ Talkies, soI guess time will tell.

Re:Why?

[J-1000]

Thanks for the info. Looks like I was dead wrong.

Re:Why?

[tzot]

I didn't understand your question was intended as rhetorical; that's why I answered it. Perhaps you should've answered it yourself in the same post, making it thus truly rhetorical, saving both my time and yours.

Re:Why?

[Postpwnd]

It felt like an extremely high definition live broadcast.

For me, that's kinda the point.

Re:Why?

[node 3]

I'm sitting in front our our Christmas tree here. I just shoot my head side to side quickly and saw the light streak. There's a decay time on the light sensitive chemicals on our retina; I don't think motion blur can be avoided if the speed is fast enough.

Yes, the motion blur is in your eyes, not the christmas lights. Your eyes will do the same thing with a motion picture of sufficiently high frame rate.

The primary reason we have motion blur in motion pictures is because the frame rate is so low that it's needed to help make the brain see the images as continuous, instead of discrete.

But with a higher frame rate, there's a point where motion blur is no longer needed to make our brains think the motion of the objects in the pictures are continuous.

At 48 fps (chosen for the obvious reason that it's double 24 fps), most motion appears smooth, and does not benefit from blur (in fact, blur will make things worse), but there's still some amount of high speed action or panning which would benefit from smoothing up until (supposedly) somewhere between 60 fps and 120 fps.

Re:Why?

[Phreakiture]

Sometimes, yes. Overwhelming, no.

Where?

[Hatta]

Where can I see the Hobbit in 48FPS?

Re:Where?

[ArchieBunker]

Never heard of google? http://www.48fpsmovies.com/48-fps-theater-list/

Re:Where?

[girlintraining]

Where can I see the Hobbit in 48FPS?

"Yes."

Re:Where?

[grenadeh]

Any theater with modern digital projection, so, any modern theater.

Re:Where?

[bondsbw]

Sure I have.

Re:Where?

[GNious]

frack

Brussels: Brussels Kinepolis

and I ordered my ticket at UGC, when the Kinepolis webpages refused to work properly.

Re:Where?

[innocent_white_lamb]

Not all digital theatres currently have 48fps capability. In fact, most don't as of right this minute.

Most digital cinema setups can be upgraded to play 48fps by replacing the IMB and upgrading the projector's firmware, which may or may not happen in the future.

Re:Where?

[MrLogic17]

Thanks! My local theater advertised as "High Frame Rate", but when I sat down, it was plain old 24fps. I was seriously disappointed.
Don't expect the minimum wage teenager at the counter to know what's in the projection booth.

What makes it...

[Anonymous Coward]

distracting? Since the film seems to be getting panned a lot, does this maybe have something to do with it?

Re:What makes it...

[Dahamma]

If you have a modern medium to high end HDTV, turn on frame interpolation processing (by whatever silly trademarked name your TV has for it) and watch an HD movie (especially one with sweeping pans and action, etc). It's hard to quantify exactly why it's distracting, but is sometimes described as a "soap opera" effect.

It bugs me too, but it really is hard to objectively say why. I'd like to think it's about a subconscious feeling of "expansiveness" and uncertainty (since your brain has to interpolate instead of the TV, and maybe your brain interpolating engages you with the content differently, etc) that you want with a more "epic" movie experience.

But there is also a strong argument that it's mostly your brain adjusting to something it has not experienced in this setting, and you will get used to it if exposed enough. Sort of like getting a new pair of glasses with a different shape/refractive index...

Re:What makes it...

[gravis777]

I actually think this is probably why I didn't mind The Hobbit in HFR. I turned the feature on on my television one day, and forgot about it. HFR in The Hobbit seemed natual to me, and a perfect fit for 3D. It was the 24fps trailers that showed before hand that felt jarring and unnatual to me. I just don't go to the theater much any more, as I get a better experience at home a lot of times. But this HFR thing was great, and I for one hope to see more.

Like I said, maybe its just the fact that I got used to watching movies with the TrueMotion turned on.

Re:What makes it...

[Tore S B]

That isn't because high-framerate content is bad, though, that's because consumer televisions do a terrible job of motion compensation (which is a HARD problem).

Re:What makes it...

[Dahamma]

Yeah, motion interpolation is making up new frames where they didn't exist, which is different from filming and displaying at a higher rate, of course. There is only so much information you can add to video by yelling "enhance!" :)

Why not 50Hz?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why 48 frames per second? Yes, it's double the existing film standard, but since it's an entirely new thing why not use 50 fps which is used in many countries for TV and computer monitors? Then I could watch the film at home without any of the nasty hacks used to get film fps to match TV fps.

Re:Why not 50Hz?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because 1080p24 is the resounding standard for high def. 50fps is incompatible with that.

Re:Why not 50Hz?

[fibonacci8]

Because adding difficulty converting the film from one format to another without loss of clarity is an intended consequence.

Re:Why not 50Hz?

[MobyDisk]

It's hard to scale temporal resolution by non-integer values.

Re:Why not 50Hz?

[dfm3]

Because refresh rate (usually reported in Hz) is different from frame rate (fps). To quote Wikipedia:

For example, most movie projectors advance from one frame to the next one 24 times each second. But each frame is illuminated two or three times before the next frame is projected using a shutter in front of its lamp. As a result, the movie projector runs at 24 frames per second, but has a 48 or 72 Hz refresh rate.

Now, the above is probably referring to older film projectors. While I don't know much about cinema projection technology, I have heard that most of the digital equipment used by movie theaters is designed to project at 24 fps, but that the specification for the hardware/software currently used by most theaters calls for it to be capable of 48. (source:DCI) So, 48 fps is not really a "new thing" but is simply an extension of current hardware capabilities. Also, the way I understand conversion technology, when converting to a format for display on a TV it is much easier to use tricks like 3:2 pulldown and interlacing to convert from 24 or 48 fps to the NTSC (60 Hz) or PAL (50 Hz) standards (some sources are sped up from 24 to 25 fps during conversion to PAL) than it is to convert 50 fps to something that can be shown on NTSC equipment. Perhaps someone with more experience in this field could shed some light on this?

Re:Why not 50Hz?

[nabsltd]

Also, the way I understand conversion technology, when converting to a format for display on a TV it is much easier to use tricks like 3:2 pulldown and interlacing to convert from 24 or 48 fps to the NTSC (60 Hz) or PAL (50 Hz) standards (some sources are sped up from 24 to 25 fps during conversion to PAL) than it is to convert 50 fps to something that can be shown on NTSC equipment.

The only current 24fps sources are Blu-Ray and HD-DVD...no TV broadcasts are sent at that rate, but most Blu-Ray players can be sent to output at 24fps, and many new TVs support this.

So, the easiest way to convert from 24fps is to not convert at all.

Re:Why not 50Hz?

[Dahamma]

A lot of speculation or vague answers to your post, but the real reason is simple - many theaters can't display it at 48 fps, and this way they can easily make 24 fps prints.

Re:Why not 50Hz?

[Psyborgue]

When they release it on BluRay, I wouldn't be surprised if they released a 720p 50p version. It wouldn't be full resolution (BluRay does not support 50fps at 1080p), but it would be full frame rate, albeit sped up by 5%. Pal dvds of films are commonly mastered at 25fps (actually encoded at 50i) by speeding up the video by the same rate. It's barely noticeable.

Rather than shooting with more FPS

[Andy Prough]

maybe Jackson should just try actually shooting the whole story this time. Hey Merry - where'd you get that cool magic blade that killed the Witch King? "Errr.... well err ummm. See there were these barrows, but we had to cut that from the story, but - hey, Liv Tyler is hot, right??"

Re:Rather than shooting with more FPS

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this the part where I have to pretend that the whole Tom Bombadil segment wasn't the most poorly-written part in the books?

Re:Rather than shooting with more FPS

[Andy Prough]

And here I thought the worst part was the hundreds of pages of walking through marshes and getting eaten by midges.

Re:Rather than shooting with more FPS

[MightyMartian]

Fog On The Barrowdowns is one of the most harrowing parts of the book, and the first major signal that this wasn't merely The Hobbit part 2.

Re:Rather than shooting with more FPS

[Andy Prough]

And it could have been done SO WELL on the big screen. Would have made the first movie much more enjoyable.

Re:Rather than shooting with more FPS

[gfxguy]

At the same time I love the movies (and just got the extended BR edition), I'm sad that they weren't as 'faithful' as they could have been to the books, and worse is that it was such a huge endeavor that it's not likely to be tried again for at least a very long time, if ever. I more than understand cutting out a part like Tom Bombadil (and changing and cutting various other things) for the sake of brevity, but that's not what they did - they cut it for the sake of stuff that wasn't in the books at all.

Back on subject - I haven't given a lot of thought to 48fps except that I was under the impression it was to make 3D versions better - clearer and brighter, due to counter the effects of the glasses (cutting 50% of the light). What I've read so far is that it makes the characters look 'plastic-y' like straight to video does. i wonder how this affects BR releases... can consumer devices handle that much throughput in HD?

Re:Rather than shooting with more FPS

[alen]

150 pages of Frodo walking with almost nothing else happening in mordor didn't excite you?

Re:Rather than shooting with more FPS

[ColdWetDog]

But it yielded Tim Benzedrine. That alone was worth it.

Along those lines, a quote in TFA made me wonder exactly which book Peter Jackson was basing the plot on?

An interminable sequence in Bilbo’s hutch culminates in a dorky, dwarven drinking song, performed alongside animated plates and spoons.

Bored of the Rings?

We Boggies are a hairy folk,
Who like to eat until we choke.

Loving all like friend and brother,
We hardly ever eat eat other.

Gorging out from morn till noon,
But don't forget your plate and spoon.

Now, I would pay good money to see that film.

Re:Rather than shooting with more FPS

[Charliemopps]

If you watch all 3 movies in the "Extended directors cut blah blah blah" or whatever, I think they come out to be about 12hrs or so. How much longer did you want them to be? Maybe they could have been made into 9 movies? I can't imagine they would have been nearly as successful though.

Re:Rather than shooting with more FPS

[tnk1]

If he really wanted to, he could have cut all of Helm's Deep, added the Barrow scene and the Tom Bombadil scene (although I can see why that was cut) and probably just had the movie end before the book did. Then they could have picked up the story in TTT.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't hate that they did Helm's Deep or even that they went to Osgiliath in RotK, but it was jarring to leave out the Barrow Downs, have all these expensive and time consuming deviations, and then be told that the canon parts could not be fit into the story.

Re:Rather than shooting with more FPS

[Anonymous Coward]

I would've been interested in seeing Fog on the Barrow Downs in a movie, but I don't know if Peter Jackson could have gotten the suspense and creepiness right,
after seeing how he did the Dead Marshes. I appreciate that he made the movies and I mostly like them, but the Dead Marshes felt tonally wrong to me.

Re:Rather than shooting with more FPS

[Andy Prough]

Helm's Deep was in TTT movie (and book). Jackson admitted that he cut stuff from the first movie to give Liv Tyler a bigger role, whereas Lady Arwen only gets a couple passing mentions in the books. I'm assuming the Barrow Downs was one of those unfortunate cuts.

Re:Rather than shooting with more FPS

[AmiMoJo]

I was wondering about BR myself. The HDMI found on all but the oldest devices can handle 1080p 60fps, but if the device can is another matter. Most BR players should be fine as we already have higher FPS video in the form of 30p 3D (which is 2 full 1080p frames stacked on top of each other, so the same decoding requirement as 2D 60p). The unknown is the display devices.

Most high end TVs should be okay after a firmware update, although there is of course no guarantee that manufacturers will offer one. Lower end ones might suffer.

My guess is that they will probably convert the film to 50p, much like how they often convert normal films to 25p for PAL markets. The change in playback speed in not noticeable and sound is corrected for pitch. All HDTVs support PAL frame rates so compatibility should be pretty much universal.

Re:Rather than shooting with more FPS

[idontgno]

It's further proof that one does not simply walk into Mordor.

Re:Rather than shooting with more FPS

[nabsltd]

i wonder how this affects BR releases... can consumer devices handle that much throughput in HD?

No.

Blu-Ray does not support 48fps at all. It's not part of the current standard, which means no current Blu-Ray player supports it. In addition, there is no current mode supported by Blu-Ray that has at least 48fps and 1920x1080 pixels. So, to see every frame as filmed, they will need to use 1280x720/60p (with 3:2 pulldown added).

Otherwise, there will have to be some sort of frame combining to allow 1920x1080 pixels.

Re:Rather than shooting with more FPS

[nabsltd]

Most BR players should be fine as we already have higher FPS video in the form of 30p 3D (which is 2 full 1080p frames stacked on top of each other, so the same decoding requirement as 2D 60p).

Actually, most Blu-Ray players are not 3D. Many (if not all) newly sold ones are, but the vast majority in homes are not. In addition, there are many 3D formats available to Blu-Ray, but the most popular is a full left-eye encode along with difference information for the right eye. This means that the 2nd "frame" isn't anywhere near a full frame, even in the busiest 3D scenes.

My guess is that they will probably convert the film to 50p, much like how they often convert normal films to 25p for PAL markets. The change in playback speed in not noticeable and sound is corrected for pitch. All HDTVs support PAL frame rates so compatibility should be pretty much universal.

That's three wrong guesses in 3 sentences...not bad.

First, almost no TV sold in the US (or any other NTSC country) support PAL input rates (25fps or 50fps). Second, the change in playback speed is noticable to many, and it's impossible to 100% correct for pitch. Last, the only 50fps mode supported by Blu-Ray players is interlaced, not progressive.

Re:Rather than shooting with more FPS

[jfengel]

They mostly did. The whole story, plus Appendix A, plus Quest for Erebor, plus some stuff from Unfinished Tales. Plus a bunch of stuff they made up (some of it necessary, some of it really, really not).

That's why it takes them 3 hours to get through the first six chapters. And why there are two more films coming.

There is some stuff cut out (chapter 6 gets pretty short shrift, actually, cutting the talking eagles and adding in yet more combat) but nothing like the sheer amount of stuff they cut from the LotR movies. If they shot LotR at this pace it would have been six times as long.

Re:Rather than shooting with more FPS

[mikael_j]

You have to keep in mind that Tolkien's world during the third age is still very much one filled with magic, both still-active and lost relics. The magic has begun to fade and the age of men is approaching but it's still all around. And it's not like the swords are somehow one-of-a-kind super-special ones.

Re:Rather than shooting with more FPS

[camperdave]

It's not about making them longer, but about telling the relevant parts of the story.

Re:Rather than shooting with more FPS

[Rob Simpson]

Hopefully, pirates will get their hands on a digital copy of the original video, resulting in a high quality h.264 file that can be played on virtually any media player or HTPC, instead of those silly obsolete Blu-ray disks.

Actually, now that I think of it - I wonder if this will be offered on things like Netflix or AppleTV in the full resolution/refresh rate? Or if it will be crippled to avoid making the Blu-ray version look bad?

Re:Rather than shooting with more FPS

[mcgrew]

I haven't given a lot of thought to 48fps except that I was under the impression it was to make 3D versions better - clearer and brighter, due to counter the effects of the glasses (cutting 50% of the light). What I've read so far is that it makes the characters look 'plastic-y' like straight to video does.

The higher FPS shouldn't make it much brighter, nor should it make things look "plasticky". I really doubt TFA's writer knew what he was talking about. What the increased film speed does do is to reduce motion blur by half, and you'd want that if you had a lot of panning, especially quick panning.

Re:Rather than shooting with more FPS

[knarfling]

And like many people that have commented it seems, I found that the Tom Bombadil thing was horrendous in the book, and cheered a little inside when it was skipped in the movie.

I honestly can't even slightly understand why some people have such a hardon for that part of the book. It was terrible. TERRIBLE!

One of the reasons people like the Tom Bombadil section is because of the character development.

Remember, the book was about little, ordinary people that can do great things, even while big, great people are doing great things all around them. The book was not about little people outshining big people, nor was it about great people overshadowing the efforts of little people. On complaint about the movie was that it was more about Aaragon and Legolas with Gimli being the comic relief than it was about the Hobbits.

As for the character development, the Tom Bombadil was one of the first things that said, "This is not a simple trip across the forest. This is a dangerous journey and you better be ready." In the book the RingWraith drove them into the dark forest, and they almost got killed because they did not take the journey serious enough. When they got to Bree, they tried to fall back into the easy ways of the shire, only to be almost killed again by RingWraiths because they weren't paying attention. Only this time, they "found" a guide to help them in their character development. By the time they dealt with WeatherTop and finally made it to Rivendell, they were ready to start the journey to Mordor.

The Scouring of the Shire, another section left out by the movie, was the final step that the Hobbits had to take to realize that they were no longer children or ordinary people, but had become great people with large responsibilities. They no longer needed to rely on their guides or other races to take care of their own troubles. Their accomplishments did not belittle the other races, but finally became equals with them. And as equals, they were expected to take care of their own troubles. With great power comes great responibility. (The words are from Spider Man, but the theme is ancient.)

Re:Rather than shooting with more FPS

[PCM2]

Of all the things to complain about, this is fairly lame. It's a movie. Things need to be cut.

Apparently that isn't true for The Hobbit, which sounds like it's going to be even longer than the entire Lord of the Rings in movie form.

Re:Rather than shooting with more FPS

[dragonturtle69]

Ah yes, Bored of the Rings, a fine read it was, and a good way as a Lord of the Rings reader to learn about good parody; you can laugh at something you like being poked.

Re:Rather than shooting with more FPS

[lgw]

Further proof that Bluray is obsolete. Spinning disks are obsolete. Movies are files, and are wathed and traded as files everywhere .. except the store.

Re:Rather than shooting with more FPS

[lgw]

The movie was full of gratuitous panning, to be sure. But it looked like a student film, for whatever reason. The same costuming and set dressing that looked really good in LoTR looked really fake at 48 FPS.

I'm not sure I care why that was the case, but it inarguably was.

Re:Rather than shooting with more FPS

[lgw]

Right. You don't really like Tolkein's writing, and so you're the formula-action-movie marketPJ films for. You'r ein the majority, to be sure, and I can't blame PJ for cutting the story in the way that would please the most viewers, instead of the hardcore fans.

But I do hope that one day someone will actually make LoTR into a movie. Or even The Hobbit, which was a great accessible book with normal pacing and didn't need any car chases at all. But I guess we won't see that.

Re:Rather than shooting with more FPS

[lgw]

973 hours, if that what it takes. It's a great story - maybe one day someone will tell it with moving pictures. Maybe "movies" are the wrong fomat and we need something more appropriate. Sadly, Hollywood only seems to make short movies, or TV shows that are entirely episodic with no coherent longrunning plot. A story that takes more that 12 hours to tell just can't happen here, I guess.

Re:Rather than shooting with more FPS

[omnichad]

You would need something other than 3:2 pulldown for 48->60. 2:1:1:1 pull down or something like that.

i always liked the soap opera look

[alen]

for decades i could never figure out why they could do it on TV soap operas and some sit coms but not on movies that cost a lot more money to make

i'll take a blu ray of an older movie over the grainy theater crap quality any day

Re:i always liked the soap opera look

[Anonymous Coward]

Blu-Ray of old movies are still 24P, they don't magically add more frames that don't exist, and interpolation generally looks like ass.

Re:i always liked the soap opera look

[dj_judas21]

True that BluRay movies are generally 24p, but 24fps motion picture film has almost equal durations of blackness between each frame as the shutter passes over the film gate, whereas your LCD/plasma screen at home does not. This changes the appearance dramatically.

As a lesson learned, actually.

[JeanCroix]

From the reviews I've seen so far, no one seems to enjoy the 48fps. Even mainstream reviewers have referred to it as 1970s video smooth, "old Dr. Who at best." (Paraphrasing from the CNN review this morning). Maybe The Hobbit is the sacrificial movie which needed to be made and receive this kind of backlash, in order to never have such an awful-looking "feature" used in film again.

Re:As a lesson learned, actually.

[prefect42]

I really don't get why people are so attached to 24fps. Can you imagine this with computer games?

Re:As a lesson learned, actually.

[Anonymous Coward]

People are just so used to shitty framerates of 30 or under that their brains aren't used to seeing something at decent FPS, and it can look jarring for a short while before you get used to it. I guarantee you that if high framerate becomes the norm, people will marvel at how they put up with such low framerates in the past.

Re:As a lesson learned, actually.

[kachakaach]

To paraphrase Pavlov, you simply have not been sufficiently trained yet, give it time:

http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/03/11/153205/young-people-prefer-sizzle-sounds-of-mp3-format

Re:As a lesson learned, actually.

[Dyinobal]

So basically most the starwars fanbase?

Re:As a lesson learned, actually.

[lattyware]

You say that, games are actually going the other way, well, console games anyway. As the hardware ages and game developers want stuff to look better, they keep lowering the framerate to allow the consoles to cope. A lot of games are now 30fps on consoles.

Re:As a lesson learned, actually.

[tnk1]

You have a point, and yet at the same time, even the highest fps game I have played feels a lot less "real" than a movie.

I recall that I just fixed a problem with one game I was recently playing where the FPS had slowed to a crawl. It had been such a gradual process that by the time it had become unplayable, I actually thought of the game in a completely different way visually. Then, I carried out the fix, restored my high FPS and the game was suddenly completely new and different. It was obviously a huge improvement overall, but then I started to see some details in the game that actually looked jarring with the higher frame rate.

It may simply be that we're used to seeing movies in a particular way and that we have to get over it. Or there may be some things that don't film well at a higher frame rate.

Re:As a lesson learned, actually.

[spire3661]

They are attached to a 'look' specific formats give. There is far more to video then 'FPS'.

Re:As a lesson learned, actually.

[spire3661]

Superior, in this case, is subjective.

Re:As a lesson learned, actually.

[prefect42]

I guess there could be an element of uncanny valley going on there. Low fidelity leaves you wiggle room for your brain to fill in, but maybe with higher fidelity you realise how crap the actors are?

Re:As a lesson learned, actually.

[kimvette]

I've always hated 24fps, because motion is so jerky and pans are annoying to watch. For me 120fps and faster frame interpolation was a godsend. :-)

Re:As a lesson learned, actually.

[jonadab]

That's what I was going to ask. I'm not even much of a gamer (err, unless you count NetHack...), but I thought 60fps was an annoyingly bare minimum low-end framerate. I'd vote for 85 or higher, assuming the hardware can handle displaying the frames that fast without jerking to a latency peak every few seconds.

People *prefer* 24? Is that like people who prefer to play vinyl records on a vacuum-tube-based turntable because they "sound warmer" and/or "lighter" that way and have a "better-attenuated", "less granular", "more energy-infused" "quantum noise flux distribution" with "just a hint of a spring breeze" and allow the listener to "feel the moisture in the singer's throat"?

Re:As a lesson learned, actually.

[JeanCroix]

That's most likely the gist of it. For those of us old enough to remember, there were some very "smooth" looking video formats used on television in the late 1960s and 1970s. It was generally associated with low budgets, thus poorer quality shows. Whereas movies, even though at a lower frame rate and not having that smoothness, were associated with quality. I'm sure to the younger generation, adapting to the higher frame rates The Hobbit will no doubt usher in will be much less of a problem. For some of us, it will be difficult to reject half a lifetime of smoothness = crap.

Re:As a lesson learned, actually.

[Zordak]

old Dr. Who at best

My desire to see The Hobbit just multiplied ten-fold.

Re:As a lesson learned, actually.

[JeanCroix]

Indeed. The fact that oil painting survived the invention of the camera is pure foolishness.

Re:As a lesson learned, actually.

[prefect42]

Bare minimum changes over time. 15fps was considered smooth not so long ago, then 30fps was the quake era gold standard, now 60fps. I don't really know where it will usefully end. Clearly it matters a lot more with some game types.

Re:As a lesson learned, actually.

[jfengel]

I found it less distracting than the 3D artifacts. It didn't help that I didn't have a great seat for seeing 3D, but still, between the technical side effects and the "look, we're in 3D, it's coming right at you" shots, that took a bigger toll on my suspension of disbelief than the oddly smooth 48fps.

Re:As a lesson learned, actually.

[shellbeach]

I really don't get why people are so attached to 24fps. Can you imagine this with computer games?

Because 24fps in a movie has no relation whatsoever to 24fps to computer games. In a movie, 24fps is shot with cameras and you get motion blur (just as you would if you take photos at a film speed of 1/24th of a second). Your brain is an amazing thing, and happily interpolates the motion blur to give a concept of smoothness. What I'd like to know is whether 48fps looks "soap opera" simply because we've conditioned ourselves to equating high fps video with the crap shows that always used it on TV, or whether there really is something magical about 24fps. I can't really see any inherrent reason why 48fps should look bad per se, even if it probably doesn't add anything much.

I do know, however, that there is no way I want to go anywhere near The Hobbit. Forget the whole 24 vs 48fps thing -- Jackson sold out big time in making three stodgy films out of one tiny, light-hearted children's book, presumably for no other reason than to rake in the extra cash. He ought to be ashamed of himself.

Re:As a lesson learned, actually.

[prefect42]

24fps with a panned shot is plain jerky *and* blurry.

Re:As a lesson learned, actually.

[Shadow of Eternity]

I think you've got that backwards. 100fps was the PC standard for high framerates, 60 for "average" performance, and 40 was considered the absolute minimum acceptable framerate. It wasn't until consolitis set in that FOV started getting narrower and narrower and the standard of performance was dropped from 60, to 40, to where we are now witho 30fps being "normal".

Re:As a lesson learned, actually.

[stymy]

The thing is, 24fps is such a low frame rate that for pans and fast action scenes, the requisite motion blur turns everything into a blurry mess. Seriously, if you can't even do a proper pan with that frame rate, it's got to go.

Re:As a lesson learned, actually.

[kachakaach]

I was not comparing the quality of the differences, just commenting on how easy it is to train people to "like" something different. I agree that we are talking about two different ends of the spectrum when comparing faster frame-rate and higher compression.

I also agree that "like" is very subjective, and some people like crap (from my subjective viewpoint that is).

Re:As a lesson learned, actually.

[prefect42]

No. Given lots of LCD screens top out at 60fps, and most CRTs were less than 85hz, this simply isn't true. Yes refresh rates of LCDs have gone up, but have you checked what yours is running at? Mine's at 60hz.

Re:As a lesson learned, actually.

[shellbeach]

Personally I don't mind the jerky pans -- I actually quite like them. But it's fascinating that very few people have ever complained about 24fps before. One argument that's come up lately is that 24fps is slow enough to create an "otherworldly" look about films, whilst being sufficiently fast to not disrupt action sequences.

Whatever the reason, if you can get away with shooting in 24fps without people minding, isn't that argument enough to keep using it? The lower the frame rate, the smaller the data files, after all. It's a bit like bluray -- the resolution increase made no difference to most people, so nobody rushed out to adopt it and very few people care about it (current bluray disc sales are about one third of DVD sales).

Everything else Jackson's done with The Hobbit has had a mercenary motive, so I suspect that his choice of 48fps was similarly driven.

Re:As a lesson learned, actually.

[shellbeach]

Generally those pans turn out jerky rather than blurry, probably because they're often outdoor and using a faster shutter speed. But I rather like them :)

For that matter, when was the last time you heard anyone come out of a film saying, "Man, I loved the plot line, but I wish they'd shot in higher fps so that those pans weren't jerky!" Very few people even notice the jerky pans, and of those that do, I suspect a fair proportion rather enjoy them and would choose to watch a film in 24fps preferentially.

I'm really glad The Hobbit is being critically panned; if it had been a success I think a lot of studios would have latched onto 48fps in the same way as they latched onto 3D post-Avatar.

Re:As a lesson learned, actually.

[jonadab]

> 15fps was considered smooth not so long ago

When and by whom?

As far as I know, the 60fps figure dates from the mid-to-late nineties, when gamers first started talking about frame rate as the major perf metric (because color depth had stabilized at 24-bit and people had stopped being interested in running games in a window smaller than the full screen).

Re:As a lesson learned, actually.

[prefect42]

I just have a different idea of not so long ago. I was thinking pre-PC era, although nobody was thinking about 60fps Wing Commander. But go further forward and read a review of a 3dfx voodoo card, which revolutionised PC gaming, and they'll talk about smooth 30fps gaming: http://tech.mit.edu/V117/N49/threedfx.49a.html

That's 1997 and we're still only talking 16bit colour, so I still think you're lightly rewriting history.

Roll forwards to 2000 and the geforce 256 was the next real revolution.

  http://m.tomshardware.com/reviews/leadtek-winfast-geforce-256-ddr-review,157-4.html

They describe 31fps as reasonable, and they're still benchmarking with 16bit colour. Indeed later in that article they refer to 30fps as "the magical barrier".

Also, you must be joking about running windowed for more performance. Dropping resolution, sure, but not windowed. voodoo and voodoo 2 couldn't even do windowed 3d.

Re:As a lesson learned, actually.

[jonadab]

> Also, you must be joking about running windowed for more performance.

Not joking as such, but I was perhaps a bit careless about terminology. I meant "window" in the sense of "small area in the middle of the screen that's actually drawn, surrounded by a big black border". Guys used to run "raycast" games (notably, Wolfenstein and Doom) that way. It allowed for the game to be rendered at resolutions lower than VGA supported for display, which improved performance, allowing higher frame-rates than would otherwise have been possible on the hardware of the day (think: 386 or 486).

Running real-time (as opposed to turn-based) 3D games in a Windows window came along rather later.

Now that you mention it I think the move to full-screen did, at least for most people, happen before the move to 24-bit color for 3D games. When I said everything had moved to 24-bit color by the mid nineties, I was forgetting that games in general and 3D games in particular lagged several years behind on that. (I played a lot of games during that era, but most of them were interactive fiction, which isn't really relevant to this discussion.) GUIs had almost totally standardized on TrueColor by 1998 or so (except, icons were frequently still made in lower color depths for a good while), and non-3D games (platformers and such) followed shortly after, but come to think of it 3D games did take a while to catch up. And then if a game crashed without changing the video mode back, you'd look at your GUI and want to puke. I'd almost forgotten about that lovely experience. Thank you for reminding me.

Re:As a lesson learned, actually.

[Tore S B]

Film cameras need time to advance to the next frame, and to expose the viewfinder. Usually the shutter speed is effectively around 1/50s - in motion pictures the term used is always "shutter angle", never "shutter speed".

Re:As a lesson learned, actually.

[Shadow of Eternity]

1600x1200@100hz or up to 2048x1536@85hz. Or did you mean the monitors I used back in the 90s? Never had one that was worse than 1024x768@85hz.

Re:As a lesson learned, actually.

[prefect42]

Yes I was talking 90s. I'd guess the median refresh in the late 90s was either 72 of 75Hz. I seem to recall the RAMDAC on my ATI Mach 64 1MB graphics card could only hit 85 at 800x600, and that was 1995 I had that.

Re:As a lesson learned, actually.

[Shadow of Eternity]

Well your problem there is that you're guessing refresh rates in the late 90's based off of a videocard that was discontinued before even 1995. That's like using a voodoo 3 when referring to 2004.

Re:As a lesson learned, actually.

[prefect42]

All I can say is lucky you. When I said 95, I was being entirely fair, that was still what I had in 97. I think I must have been slumming it lower down the pecking order than you, as even later on when I'd upgraded, I didn't have monitors of the calibre you're talking about. Think more like this, but 15").

http://www.computerdisplays.co.uk/17%20inch%20monitors/iiyama_1402.htm

In 2000 I upgraded to a 19" monitor driven by a matrox G200 (from a machine I bought in late 98). But that card only had a maximum resolution of 1920x1200@70Hz, so I still couldn't have hit your figure. I splashed out and bought a replacement graphics card in 2001 (GeForce 2 MX), that *still couldn't hit the higher than 2048 x 1536 / 75.0 Hz (but to be honest, the 19" monitor I was using wasn't sensible to use about 1600x1200). Right, so that's up to 2005 and I've still not owned anything that can hit what you're listing.

Right, then what did I own... ATI Radeon 9600 XT. Still maxes out at 2048 x 1536 / 60.0 Hz. Next... not sure. I had a ATI X1300. That could do 2048x1536@75Hz. 2007 I upgraded that to an nVidia 7950 GT. Done it, I've finally hit something I've owned that could drive a monitor at 2048x1536@85Hz, but by then I'd got rid of my CRT, so I'm back down to 60Hz again...

I'm not saying you *couldn't* do these things, but I'm definitely saying that *I* couldn't, and I don't think I was anywhere near slumming it at the bottom, I just wasn't cutting edge.

Re:As a lesson learned, actually.

[Shadow of Eternity]

If you could hit 1920x1200@70hz you should've been quite capable of 1600x1200@85hz, or at the very minimum 1024x768@85hz which was my go-to resolution until I finally went crazy with dual trinitrons. It sounds more like your issue had more to do with your choice of monitors than graphics cards. I've seen smaller trinitrons that can do much higher resolutions and refresh rates than larger ones, and other same-diagonal trinitrons that are far less impressive in their performance.

Re:As a lesson learned, actually.

[prefect42]

Sure, monitors were expensive, and even the 19" was second hand (and still in active use by someone else). Monitors have almost always been the ultimate limiting factor, as they are now more often than not.

I've got an 11 year old 3840x2400 monitor at work that can manage a stellar 41Hz if you wire in all 4 dvi leads... I guess that monitor probably exceeds the limits of a graphics card, unless you count an X2 or eyefinity 6.

What about YouTube?

[Anonymous Coward]

when can we upload 48 or even 60fps videos to youtube?

right now everything gets transcoded to 24fps which is absolutely terrible if you're uploading gaming footage with single frame flash effects

nicovideo lets you do it, as do a number of the other providers, but google, who one would expect to be at the forefront of technology will always downgrade whatever you upload

Re:What about YouTube?

[Anonymous Coward]

right now everything gets transcoded to 24fps which is absolutely terrible if you're uploading gaming footage with single frame flash effects

Pretty sure the cap is actually 30FPS, which matches NTSC.

But the answer is "never" because higher than 30FPS is useless for video, as the Hobbit is demonstrating. Video games have needed higher framerates because they don't do motion blur, so the frames don't blend together quite right.

But for a video, it's just wasted extra data. You're throwing more frames at the screen than needed to create the illusion of motion. Throwing more at the screen disrupts the illusion. Just read the reviews of the Hobbit.

Also, why are you uploading "gaming footage" to YouTube? Do you really need to let the world see your "sick pwn" of people in Call of Duty? I'll never understand why people feel the need to upload footage of themselves playing games. Congrats, you really "pwned" those "noobs." For your next trick, try getting a real hobby.

Re:What about YouTube?

[Anonymous Coward]

But for a video, it's just wasted extra data. You're throwing more frames at the screen than needed to create the illusion of motion. Throwing more at the screen disrupts the illusion. Just read the reviews of the Hobbit.

I will have to step in and call bullshit. The more frames you have, the better the illusion and smoothness of motion. This does not affect the texture of the picture in any way. Oh, I am an old fart, and watch classics speedruns on youtube. Now get off my magnificient, freshly mowned and well fertilized St-Augustine lawn.

Re:What about YouTube?

[wonkey_monkey]

But the answer is "never" because higher than 30FPS is useless for video, as the Hobbit is demonstrating.

It's not useless at all - it's just not "cinematic," and that's only down to 100 years of convention. News, sport, other live events - all are broadcast at 50/60fps. A few years ago a number of BBC and ITV soap operas made the transition from 50 to 25 - and guess what? Everyone complained!

Video games have needed higher framerates because they don't do motion blur, so the frames don't blend together quite right.

Wrong. Games using higher framerates (some do, anyway, a lot of console ones stick at 25/30) are more realistic and easier to play if the framerate more closely matches reality.

You're throwing more frames at the screen than needed to create the illusion of motion. Throwing more at the screen disrupts the illusion.

Utterly wrong. It obviously enhances the illusion of motion. The trouble is, it's different to what we're used to at the cinema. That's all.

For your next trick, try getting a real hobby.

Try not dumping on others just because they don't share your interests, douchebag.

Re:What about YouTube?

[Beorytis]

right now everything gets transcoded to 24fps which is absolutely terrible if you're uploading gaming footage with single frame flash effects

Don't worry. Nobody actually watches the gaming footage posted to YouTube.

how does it "look" different

[zeldor]

not having seen the movie or old enough to remember it if it happened in the golden age of movies..
how does it look different in the theater at 48fps vs normal 24fps movies?

Re:how does it "look" different

[Anonymous Coward]

ever see an LCD running 120 or 240hz with "True motion" enabled? It looks too real, like you're watching a play. Jitter is gone slow movements are lost.

Re:how does it "look" different

[future assassin]

You mean Soap Opera style I get with my 120hs tv? Blah no thanks.

Re:how does it "look" different

[Kergan]

I'm not sure I'm getting this... What could possibly be wrong with any of that?

Re:how does it "look" different

[Boronx]

It's cultural. The look is associated with trashy content.

Re:how does it "look" different

[tooyoung]

It is difficult to describe without seeing it. You become much more conscious that you are looking at actors wearing costumes standing on a set. I've had a similar sense with some movies in blu-ray, although this is different. Now, 48fps is really cool for scenes with perspective motion, as you feel tricked into thinking you are part of the scene.

Re:how does it "look" different

[stanjo74]

> Isn't to look as real as possible the ultimate goal?

Of course not! Otherwise we won't be having paintings and art photography, just reporter style "gonzo" photos.

Re:how does it "look" different

[Black Parrot]

how does it look different in the theater at 48fps vs normal 24fps movies?

Only half as long...

This is about RMS.

[Andy Prough]

The movie has hairy, disgusting trolls.

Re:This is about RMS.

[froggymana]

The movie has hairy, disgusting trolls.

I think it's clear you went to the midnight showing...

Re:This is about RMS.

[Abstrackt]

So does Slashdot, but we try not to discriminate.

Video games have been doing this for years

[wwalker]

When playing a game, I can easily tell if it's running at 30 fps or 60 fps, and I *much* prefer the higher framerate, for obvious reasons. It'll definitely take a bit of getting used to when it comes to moves, but it is no doubt a good thing.

Re:Video games have been doing this for years

[BergZ]

Agreed. The kvetching over the transition from 24 fps to 48 fps reminds me of the transition from incandescent bulbs to compact fluorescent or the transition from records to CDs. It strikes me as nostalgia for a (mostly) inferior product.

Re:Video games have been doing this for years

[Anonymous Coward]

incandescent bulbs to compact fluorescent

Whoa whoa whoa, let's not get hasty here. Having to wait up to 2 full minutes to be able to fucking read after turning on the lights isn't something so easily dismissed.

Re:Video games have been doing this for years

[ojak]

When playing a game, I can easily tell if it's running at 30 fps or 60 fps, and I *much* prefer the higher framerate, for obvious reasons

Games are a bit different with regards to frame rate, since there is no physical camera, so there is no full frame-to-frame motion blur. That's why you need to have higher frame rates for games to look comparable to movies (otherwise games look choppy at 24fps). Movie frames blend into one another since the capture of each frame takes time (based on the shutter speed), and the playback just shows you each frame with the motion blur bakes in (at whatever frame rate). To take that concept a step further, if you were to get a light-sensitive movie camera and crank up the shutter speed while maintaining 24fps, you'll still get similar choppy motion from a movie camera since the increased shutter speed/angle will decrease the frame-to-frame motion blur. Also, if you're panning quickly, 24fps motion blur becomes very extreme and difficult to watch. So, moving to 48-fps isn't really "better" per se in any objective measure, it's just different. You sacrifice frame-to-frame motion blur as the fps goes up, which means it isn't really "smoother", it's just "different".

Re:Video games have been doing this for years

[tgd]

When playing a game, I can easily tell if it's running at 30 fps or 60 fps, and I *much* prefer the higher framerate, for obvious reasons. It'll definitely take a bit of getting used to when it comes to moves, but it is no doubt a good thing.

Strangely enough, I enjoy high framerate film, but I can't manage to stomach PC gaming precisely because of the high frame rate.

Re:Video games have been doing this for years

[BergZ]

It has been a long time since I've cared about the color of light bulbs. I haven't used an incandescent for about 5 years and so far not one of the CFLs has burnt out on me (I was lucky if I could get one year out of an incandescent bulb in the same socket).
As for the mercury: I put the CFLs in the light sockets that are very stable and well protected; I put LED bulbs in the lamps that can get knocked over by accident (I had a cat).

Re:Video games have been doing this for years

[deuterium]

I agree with this for games, but I think it's because you're actually controlling it instead of merely viewing it. It's satisfying to have more immediate feedback to your inputs. Watching a mouse cursor move at 24fps (say, in an instructional screen captured video) isn't as frustrating as operating a cursor at that rate. Feedback is always better when it's faster.

Re:Video games have been doing this for years

[Keith111]

Indeed. When I first saw the high framerate once it got passed the initial surprise I just thought 'This is the future of movies'. It makes it look almost as realistic as video games, its great. Whenever they panned over any scenery (Which they do a lot) it looks very much like it would in real life. Most movies that do that its uber blurry or just very slow.

Re:Video games have been doing this for years

[lilfields]

Except film and video games are entirely different. I too support high frame rates in games, but I absolutely hate high frame rates in film.

Re:Video games have been doing this for years

[Waccoon]

Everyone tells me I'm crazy when I say that windowed games and videos play really sluggish in Windows 7 compared to XP. The reason is because the new window manager uses 3D hardware to do compositing, and for some reason, updates seems to be locked in at 30 FPS (my guess is 50% of the monitor refresh rate). XP updated at full blast and provided much, much smoother games and video. I've noticed a rather huge loss in overall performance on my new Win7 machine, despite it being massively more powerful than my old XP box.

Apparently, I'm the only one who notices or is bothered by this.

Re:Video games have been doing this for years

[smellotron]

...the transition from incandescent bulbs to compact fluorescent... strikes me as nostalgia for a (mostly) inferior product.

CF lighting uses more hazardous materials (must recycle, cannot go into trash), generates poorer-quality light for the consumer price-point (CRI ~80 vs. 95+), and is more sensitive to a dirty power grid (ballast). The tradeoff for CFLs is that you're sacrificing all-around quality for energy efficiency, and kvetching over this transition is completely warranted. It's not nostalgia for an inferior product at all.

Re:Video games have been doing this for years

[serviscope_minor]

I disagree.

I, like many people found CFLs "cold" when they were new. Then I got used to them and now I find incandescents too yellow. Also with CFLs you can get more light out of the same fittings due to less heat being emitted. Finally, they need replacing a lot less often.

For me, I find CFLs have a lot of up sides.

60 or bust

[zppln]

60 fps would have been a good thing. 48 is just as dumb as 24. You'll still have to do a pulldown on most consumer displays with 48 fps. If you're reading this Hollywood, update the DCI spec. to support 60 fps!

Re:60 or bust

[drinkypoo]

60 fps would have been a good thing. 48 is just as dumb as 24. You'll still have to do a pulldown on most consumer displays with 48 fps. If you're reading this Hollywood, update the DCI spec. to support 60 fps!

48 is either dumber or smarter than 24, but not just as dumb, depending on whose idea it was. If it was the display makers' idea, then it's goddamned genius because all the videophiles are going to buy new displays all over again. My TV's panel has a native film mode so it doesn't have to do anything wacky to display a film-mode signal. But it doesn't have a 48hz mode... Not that I'll be buying another TV. Problem is, even if a firmware update would let my TV display that content, it's not going to be an allowable mode, and there never will be a firmware update for that, so it's just another format my player will have to handle, which makes the player more expensive. And it's frustrating from my point of view, because my TV is actually really good at scaling and whatnot, but it's not going to do this at all.

Re:60 or bust

[oic0]

Good way to sell their new 240hz TVs since thats the lowest refresh rate you can buy that is divisible by 48.

Re:60 or bust

[Lucky75]

Hah, and what display technology is this that allows 240hz on a reasonably sized monitor? 120hz is difficult enough, even on DisplayPort.

Re:60 or bust

[Soul-Burn666]

It's not 240hz input. I have recently bought a plasma TV with advertised "600hz". However, the TV accepts up to 60hz input. Where do these x10 frames come into play? In dejuddering. The panel interpolates frames so the motion is smoother.
It also helps with 3d content, faster switching between eyes.

Re:60 or bust

[smellotron]

Where do these x10 frames come into play? In dejuddering. The panel interpolates frames so the motion is smoother.

Even if you have motion-estimation algorithms turned off, the higher output refresh rate can help for a few reasons:

• Higher refresh rate means faster color changes, which means less time "in between" one frame and the next, which means more time is spent showing the desired image.
• Some people are sensitive to the green phosphors on plasma TVs, and they see ghosting. This ghosting should be reduced with a faster panel.
• Some people are sensitive to low refresh rates, period.
• Refresh rates which are divisible by both 24 and 60 allow the TV to detect and undo 3:2 pulldown for material which was originally shot at 24fps and the distributed as a 60fps DVD

I hate motion estimation myself, I find the errors to be disproportionately distracting. But the higher refresh rate is still valuable.

Matter of opinion

[kc67]

I have not seen the movie yet but I believe this news article is very opinionated. Here is an article from Wired that tells a different story: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Failure

60fps with motion blur may provide a solution

[Twinbee]

I'm all for video and motion being at 48fps, and maybe even 100fps+ for super smoothness which will also help cure motion blur (without the use of black flickery interspersed sub-frames). Heck why stop there, 240 or 300fps will help for compatibility, and allow us even smoother motion.

HOWEVER..., critics argue that the Hobbit feels less 'dream-like' and 'too real'. Even though I disagree with them to an extent, I recently played a game called Nitronic Rush (fast free Wipeout clone, with tron-esque graphics, great fun btw). I set it to 60fps, but the graphics are 'enhanced' by motion blur, which 60fps normally doesn't 'need'. We're talking at least a couple of frames worth, and maybe up to 5 frames worth of artificial motion blur. However, I find this actually gets the best of both worlds. You get the smoother motion so that your eyes don't ache, and any fast panning looks convincing. But you also get the cinematic 'blurry' look that 24fps films provide (24fps film techniques employ motion blur naturally, or at least something similar to motion blur).

I think 60fps with this kind of motion blur may have a big future for it.

Re:60fps with motion blur may provide a solution

[Quakeulf]

I cannot agree with you more. Also, with 24 fps you get directors telling actors like Wesley Snipes to punch slower so his movement doesn't appear awkward on the screen. What is up with that? Bullshit, that's what it is.

Re:60fps with motion blur may provide a solution

[avandesande]

I wonder if there is something more to this than just people being used to old technology. Perhaps there is something like a visual 'uncanny valley'?

Re:60fps with motion blur may provide a solution

[ojak]

I'm all for video and motion being at 48fps, and maybe even 100fps+ for super smoothness which will also help cure motion blur

Motion blur can be a very good thing, and is regularly used stylistically in photography, motion graphics, and video. It's used for effect and implies motion, and IMO, doesn't require a "cure."

Re:60fps with motion blur may provide a solution

[Tumbleweed]

The ridiculously high-bandwidth 'ultimate' solution would be to record the original in 120fps, which would be able to downgrade evenly to 24 or 30fps, depending on the format you want to output to.

Re:60fps with motion blur may provide a solution

[thrift24]

As someone who plays a lot of video games, I don't understand.

Firstly, if a game is displaying at less than 60 FPS it is going to play like garbage. I've heard people claim that 30 FPS is fine, but it is absolutely noticeable and makes my eyes water. I have stopped playing and given away games that do this on consoles and on PC I won't attempt to play a game in league unless I can get at least 60 fps stable 100% of the time.

Secondly, motion blur?! Humans have these things called eyes that use light to perceive the environment around them and automatically perform their own "motion blur". Why would anyone want to purposely lose detail in a frame by making it blurry? Especially during movement? It just looks watery and awful. I've played several games that have had this on by default and have tried it, but the games were pretty much unplayable with it on.

Two examples of terrible games due to their graphical defaults. Halo: Reach, I literally gave away because playing it felt like rubbing sand in my eyes. Im blaming this on low fps and low AA which caused a lot of flicker. Amnesia, I heard everyone rave about and due to its collection of graphical oddities including motion blur I literally can't play the game at defaults for more than a few minutes without getting ill. Playing with its graphical settings makes it somewhat better at the cost of the game looking awful and losing all atmosphere.

Re:60fps with motion blur may provide a solution

[ArsonSmith]

I'm guessing you wear Band-aids as fashion accessories.

Re:60fps with motion blur may provide a solution

[idontgno]

"Are you also fond of gratuitous simulated lens flare?" he asked rhetorically.

Re:60fps with motion blur may provide a solution

[Twinbee]

I said my idea was to combine 60fps with motion blur, like Nitronic Rush does. Play that, and tell me what you think.

Re:60fps with motion blur may provide a solution

[vmxeo]

I recently played a game called Nitronic Rush (fast free Wipeout clone, with tron-esque graphics, great fun btw). I set it to 60fps, but the graphics are 'enhanced' by motion blur, which 60fps normally doesn't 'need'. We're talking at least a couple of frames worth, and maybe up to 5 frames worth of artificial motion blur. However, I find this actually gets the best of both worlds. You get the smoother motion so that your eyes don't ache, and any fast panning looks convincing. But you also get the cinematic 'blurry' look that 24fps films provide (24fps film techniques employ motion blur naturally, or at least something similar to motion blur).

I think 60fps with this kind of motion blur may have a big future for it.

Sorry, but while you can do high frame rates with large motion blur values on the computer, it doesn't work like that for film/video. I've written a whole long post as to why it doesn't in a thread below, but the short of it is this:you can't get more motion blur than your frame rate allows. If you're shooting 60fps, that means 1/60 second or less of motion blur, which isn't much. In the CG and gaming world, there are cheats around this. But again this doesn't work for film/video (unless you add it in post, but again that's a CG cheat ).

Re:60fps with motion blur may provide a solution

[Twinbee]

I agree, but it's good to have the option. Monitors with a framerate around say 120fps can support any amount of motion blur or none at all. Apparently, even 60fps isn't 'good enough' (even with a perfect display with no extra motion blur artifacts), because they have no black frames inserted between normal frames (unlike CRTs which sort of have just that).

To sum up:
* Perfect monitor at 60 fps (still forces motion blur)
* LCD-style monitor at a hypothetical true 120fps (motion blur is optional, because it can be inserted directly into the pixels of the frame at the producer stage).

Re:60fps with motion blur may provide a solution

[thrift24]

I think I do understand what you are saying. I'm going to paraphrase what I believe is your central point, and respond to that.

If the movement appears significant between two frames, then the object will appear to jump from one position to another, where as with motion blur you will be able to detect the movement. If this is what you are saying it does shine some light onto what may be an appropriate time to use motion blur. However in any games I have played that use motion blur the blurring effect is used when there is not a significant change in the object between the frames, so instead of being able to focus on the object in it's current position the object is blurred in a way that is just distracting, for me anyway.

Re:60fps with motion blur may provide a solution

[thrift24]

So I booted into windows and tried out the game.

I don't see anyway to set the FPS or report the FPS through the menu items anyway.

The graphics here are pretty simplistic, and as you mentioned very tronesque. I first played it with the motion blur left on, and to be honest while I was picking up the controls I didn't find it very distracting, but after I had the basics down it really did start to annoy me when either I was moving at a decent speed or when taking a lot of turns. It is as I have seen before blurry, watery, and unnecessary.

Playing without the motion blur, just made the graphics "cleaner". Of course this also made the lack of detail a little more apparent as well as any FPS blips (which somehow I got a few of despite have a pretty respectable gaming rig) a lot more apparent.

I only played through the tutorial and the first level, so maybe I'm missing something. I could see how in a screenshot it might look "prettier" with the motion blur, but I can't say I see an advantage during gameplay.

Re:60fps with motion blur may provide a solution

[stanjo74]

You got the science wrong. This has very little to do with FPS and all to do with the stroboscopic effect film camera shutters introduce. Bear with me here for moment while I explain.

It only matters very little whether you capture rapid motion with 30fps or 1000fps - the motion still occurs at its natural speed, it's the amount of motion blur per frame that changes. The eye sends a continuous stream of signals to the brain and the brain "sees". Most people have difficulty registering details about an object that moves faster than 36 degrees per second. So for roughly 180 degrees field of view, anything that crosses your sight in under 5 seconds is blurred. That's not much frame rate, right there. I only give this example to demonstrate that high frame-rate is not that important for action.

When you shoot film @ 24 fps, the photographic shutter does not stay open the whole 1/24 sec. time, because that will be too much motion blur and also too much exposure at, say, F2.8 for the film. Normally film is shot at shutter speeds about 1/50 sec. This means that half of the 1/24 sec. motion is NOT CAPTURED AT ALL. Film creates a stroboscopic effect, and when played back through a projector that displays 1/50 sec. worth of action for 1/24 sec., it looks eerie, artsy.

For the soap opera look, cheap TV shows are shot with cheap video cameras which do not have light shutters. Shutter is open for the duration of the frame - 1/60 for interlaced NTSC TV. The whole action is captured with motion blur similar to film (film at 1/60 sec. shutter). The playback is absolutely realistic, cheaply realistic.

So, there you have it: TV @ PAL/50i and film with "normal" shutter speed 1/48 sec. @ 24fps have similar amount of motion blur. Film has a stroboscopic effect, TV does not.

Re:60fps with motion blur may provide a solution

[Twinbee]

Yes I knew all that. My main point which I think you missed is that the artsy blurred look can be carried over to 60fps through the use of some kind of motion blur, and by doing that you get the best of worlds, a smooth frame rate, and the 'artsy' look. It doesn't have to be a 100% exposure time either. There are a few options:

1: Capture 1/120th of a second of reality every 1/60th of a second (50% exposure time)
2: Capture the whole 1/60th of a second every 1/60th of a second (100% exposure time)
3: Emulate a 150% or 200% exposure time as if the light was captured for longer than each frame was recorded (possible digitally, or a special video camera which is essentially two video cameras in one, where each lens opens and closes alternately)

Re:60fps with motion blur may provide a solution

[Twinbee]

Thanks for following up - I hope you enjoy the game as much as me. My main question is are you sure you were playing at 60fps? I ask because the higher resolutions often slow it down to about 10-30fps which would make it quite eye watering to me as well.

To set the frame rate, boot up the game and click Options (from the main title screen). At the top left, set the 'Resolution' to the lowest available (I set it to 800x600). Also make sure the refresh rate just below is at 60.

Try again, and let me know what you think, with and without motion blur (also available from the Options screen).

Re:60fps with motion blur may provide a solution

[ojak]

I'm guessing you wear Band-aids as fashion accessories.

lol... it's preventative...

Re:60fps with motion blur may provide a solution

[ojak]

Simulated, no.

Re:60fps with motion blur may provide a solution

[fatphil]

> Secondly, motion blur?! Humans have these things called eyes that use light to perceive the environment around them and automatically perform their own "motion blur". Why would anyone want to purposely lose detail in a frame by making it blurry?

Because there is a difference between the continuous and the discrete.

If a hand waving in front of your face is at position x at time 0 and at position y at time 1, then it will also be approximately at position (x+y)/2 at time 1/2 - and your eye *will* receive light from it in that, and all other intermediate positions, and perceive that blur as motion.

If a movie shows a sword slashing in front of the camera at position x at time 0 and at position y at time 1, then there will be *no point in time* where it will also be showing the sword at position (x+y)/2, because it simply wasn't captured. Unless you actually *add* deliberate motion blur to compensate. You're not seeing and perceiving something that you would in reality.

Without very high frame rates (such that there are smaller holes in the motion) or motion blur these so-called "hyper-real" experiences aren't "more real than reality", they are simply "unreal", or "wrong". After seeing the trailer, I can see many places where Jackson has made *horrific* fuckups, but it's *not* in the choice of frame rate (it's the depth of field most frequently). I hope Avatar II comes out in 60Hz, there's no reason to think that better-than-crappy-24Hz should be considered good-enough. Trumbull demonstrated 40 years ago that 48Hz isn't enough.

Re:60fps with motion blur may provide a solution

[Twinbee]

I can pretty much guarantee that seeing 400fps would be very much a natural sensation and noone would get sick. The further up from 25fps you get, the better it becomes. Some people claim even 60fps makes them a little queasy, but by the time you get up to 120 or 200fps, they're fine too.

Re:60fps with motion blur may provide a solution

[thrift24]

I thought it was fun, but I'm more casual with racing games and usually prefer them on the console. Who knows, I'm sure I'll give it a play next time I'm in windows.

By the way, I did have the refresh rate set to 60, however that usually doesn't have an effect on FPS in games unless sync to vblank is enabled... and I just looked into the configuration and vblank IS enabled by default, so you are correct and it was running capped at 60 FPS.

Re:60fps with motion blur may provide a solution

[Twinbee]

Cool. Just to say though that it can be set to 60fps in the options, but can run much slower than that if the resolution is set too high, which is why I suggested running at 800*600.

Re:60fps with motion blur may provide a solution

[stanjo74]

I think you missed my point - it's not about the blur, but about the stroboscopic effect - the motion + variable amount of blur (even no blur) is frozen in time for longer than the natural speed of the original motion. That's all there is to the film eerie. Any other effects may alter the image in an artsy way too, but not the "film" vs TV way.

Re:60fps with motion blur may provide a solution

[Twinbee]

Maybe I misunderstand you, but the stroboscopic effect can only really be seen rarely with things like 'wagon wheels' or elements in the picture which repeat at a set rate like a gate with spokes at n inches apart.

I think a big part of the 24fps 'film' experience that critics talk about is because of the motion blur, not the stroboscopic effect that you speak of.

Re:60fps with motion blur may provide a solution

[Kjella]

Actually the "ultimate" would be 600 fps so the European broadcasts could have a clean 25/50 fps downgrade too. But as a European let me be the first to say screw that, 120 Hz would be great. Perfect for normal LCDs (60 Hz) and if you really wanted to then you could run all 120 Hz on a 120 Hz TN panel. Personally I have a 60 fps camera that I think is great, but I understand that when you're dealing with a huge installed base of 24 fps cinemas then 48 fps is an easier sell.

Low expectations amplifying.

[ehiris]

I had really low expectations for these movies ever since I've seen the trailer and found out they will have 3 movies out of one book.
Those expectations are now even lower. The soap opera effect is awful.

Awkward...

[ClayJar]

Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of the Hogfather (specifically from the movie).

While I enjoyed this first Hobbit movie, I found the Radagast scenes awkward (like an old family photo with too-large glasses and sisters with poofy bangs). Radagast and his bunny sled seemed too much like something right out of Discworld, which would be delightful except that combining Discworld and Middle Earth yields a very large impedance mismatch.

Re:Awkward...

[omnichad]

Yes, the Radagast sled scenes were the worst. I don't think it was the 48fps, just bad compositing and motion blur mismatch.

Some people want to see ass

[tepples]

Blu-Ray of old movies are still 24P, they don't magically add more frames that don't exist, and interpolation generally looks like ass.

But some people want to see ass, especially when voiced by Eddie Murphy. If DreamWorks Animation wanted to rerender Shrek at twice the frame rate, could they?

Re:Some people want to see ass

[tnk1]

Given that the entire film was digitally animated, they probably could. However, that might mean they'd have to pay for at least double the computer time to do it. So, while possible, probably not worth it.

That's assuming that they haven't lost parts of the needed data, of course. It's amazing when you hear how casual studios can sometimes be about deleting their archives after they no longer have a sequel planned.

Re:Some people want to see ass

[dinfinity]

Given that the entire film was digitally animated, they probably could. However, that might mean they'd have to pay for at least double the computer time to do it.

Because performance per second and performance per dollar haven't dropped at all since 2001.

Re:Some people want to see ass

[omnichad]

Right - given the amount of effort Pixar put in on the 3D re-release of Finding Nemo (e.g., resurrecting dead software), computing power didn't even factor into it.

Obligatory xkcd...

[Dr. Manhattan]

https://www.xkcd.com/732/. Especially the alt-text.

Re:Obligatory xkcd...

[wonkey_monkey]

I'm not a big fan of the singular use of the word "this," but...

This.

Re:Obligatory xkcd...

[Tore S B]

That xkcd misunderstands an important point: Resolution should be measured in arc-seconds at typical viewing distance. You have a phone right up against your face. You have a television at one meter distance, at least.

so

[grenadeh]

Having just left the movie about 9 hours ago: 1) It is a good thing. 2) To anyone who plays PC Games this is utterly unnoticeable. Bfd.

What planet do you live on? 60 FPS or go home.

[Overzeetop]

60fps is probably the "best" standard we have that also matches a lot of existing hardware. 30 if you're you're an ATSC weenie, 29.97 if you still live in America in the 1960s. As to the GP, 50 is only there to be compatible with 25FPS PAL. And the goffy geekish need to have time domain frames come out in hundredths of a second.

Re:What planet do you live on? 60 FPS or go home.

[X0563511]

48 or 50, you could still drop frames for NTSC or PAL without doing silly shit like 2/3 pulldown.

Re:What planet do you live on? 60 FPS or go home.

[iluvcapra]

29.97 if you still live in America in the 1960s.

NTSC television to the bitter end was 29.97. Many hidef television broadcasts are actually at 23.976 fps, and most feature films shot on digital equipment are at this rate as well, because it converts to 29.97 with fewer artifacts.w

Re:What planet do you live on? 60 FPS or go home.

[X0563511]

Seems to me it would be both easier and better to shoot fast and drop frames, than do strange shit like doubling every third frame.

Re:What planet do you live on? 60 FPS or go home.

[iluvcapra]

Sometimes we do, but that's definitely a visible artifact. You can't just delete every other frame, you have to add blur and interpolation to get the same level of motion blur the 2x picture had -- the cameras can't shoot overlapping frames.

Another factor with shooting "fast" is that it halves your available light, so if you have an ISO 800-equivalent gain factor at 24 fps, it becomes ISO 400 at 48; so then either your f/stop (and thus depth of field) has to give, your shutter angle (and thus motion blur) has to give, or you gotta spend time and money putting up more lights.

Re:What planet do you live on? 60 FPS or go home.

[X0563511]

Or better sensors/film (sensors most likely these days).

Re:What planet do you live on? 60 FPS or go home.

[iluvcapra]

They're never good enough -- a DP is always likely to trade a stop of sensitivity if it means higher image quality or lower noise. Just because a Red Epic can do ISO 800 + 2 stops of gain doesn't mean that setting will actually give you something you can actually use in a theatrical film, or would prefer to a less noisy image.

Remember these guys are competing with other DPs too, and you win Oscars for having the best image quality, the most brilliant colors, and the most dynamic lighting; cutting your sensor sensitivity in half compromises this.

Re:What planet do you live on? 60 FPS or go home.

[X0563511]

Huh.... good information. Anything I've ever touched beyond some basic macros has been digital from the get-go. No worries about sensor noise/sensitivity when you're doing raytracing or photon mapping.

Re:What planet do you live on? 60 FPS or go home.

[adolf]

NTSC television to the bitter end was 29.97.

No. NTSC television is (as there are still LP NTSC transmitters broadcasting), as best as anyone can figure, 29.970026164311878597592883307169 Hz. (And yes, it matters.)

Explanation from this posting:

Horizontal Scanning Frequency (lines/sec) / 525 (lines/frame) where

Horizontal Scanning Frequency = Chrominance Sub-Carrier * 2/455

Now, since Chrominance Sub-Carrier for NTSC is exactly 3,579,545Hz, then doing the arithmetic one ends up with:

( 3,579,545Hz * 2/455 ) lines/sec / 525 lines/frame = 29.970026164311878597592883307169 frames/sec

Note that this is still not quite 29.97002617, which seems to be a result of rounding up at the 10 parts per billion resolution.

So I guess the final conclusion is that the exact frame rate for NTSC turns out NOT to be 30000/1001, but rather to be 7159090/238875, which can be reduced to 1431818/47775.

Re:On the film itself...

[alen]

more like jackson went all PT on the hobbit

i remember before the star wars PT came out all the SW fan boys on the internet were creaming themselves at having all the little details revealed to them. the kinds of details that are supposed to be minor in a story

same here. all the nonsense most people don't read jackson used it to make a somewhat crappy 300 page book into a 9 hour movie

Movie is a disgrace

[avandesande]

Peter Jackson could have challenged himself by directing a well made children's movie that adults would enjoy too. Instead we get Phantom Baggins....

Even Lucy can't 'splain it.

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Ok, I wanna go see it in 3D and with 48 FPS and with Imax, if possible.

WHAT THE FUCK ARE THESE:

- The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey DBOX (PG13)

- The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey E3 3D HFR (PG13)

Movie people, fucking make some god damned sense!

Re:Even Lucy can't 'splain it.

[jaskelling]

DBOX is a special auditorium that has motion enabled seats that are coded to move/vibrate etc. with the movie. http://www.d-box.com/en/movie-theatre/ E3 is that chain's particular "big screen" just like Regal has RPX, Cinemark has XD, etc. High end luxury auditorium.

Re:Even Lucy can't 'splain it.

[creedfeed]

haha the theaters in my area are saying: - The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey 2D - The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey HFR 3D So does that mean the 48fps version is only 3D?

Re:Even Lucy can't 'splain it.

[Legion303]

I think I can help. "DBOX" is industry shorthand for "DoucheBox," which is technology marketed at pretentious assholes.

Re:Why? / One more thing

[Bill_the_Engineer]

1080p still follow the 25 or 30 fps conventions. You've seem to have confused frame rate with monitor refresh rate.

It's a good thing

[phantomfive]

If you have watched any 3D action movie lately, you will see that the action scenes are less clear than even youtube videos. The framerate is just too low to handle such fast moving objects clearly, and 3D reduces resolution making it even less clear.

After we get used to this change, I think the end result will be a lot better, especially for action movies.

Re:It's a good thing

[pavon]

Agreed. Which is why I don't think the Hobbit was the best film to introduce high framerate. Transformers or any other action flicks with "jumbled mess of motion that you can't follow" scenes would have done a much better job of showcasing the technology.

Re:It's a good thing

[phantomfive]

Fascinating. I haven't seen the hobbit yet, but I would have imagined it had some scenes with potential to be a jumbled mess of motion.

Re:It's a good thing

[pavon]

I hadn't seen it at the time of posting either, but have now. It did have longer action scenes than I was expecting, but I didn't have trouble keeping up with it at 24fps (the 3D 48fps showings around here have been sold out).

Re:It's a good thing

[phantomfive]

Did it live up to its potential?

48 fps for everything!

[MobyDisk]

I watched Breaking Dawn part 2 (yes, snicker if you must) and there is a scene where Bella and Edward go into their new house, and the camera sweeps across the rooms as they first look in. My wife turned to me and watched my reaction during that scene. Afterwards, she explained "I knew the stuttery video would bother you so I wanted to see if you winced." I've been harping on low frame rates for years, and this confirms for me that my perception is different. Everyone sees it, they are just used to it. Now that I've explained it to her, she sees it too.

We really need to move beyond 24fps though. Take any single frame of that scene and just try to make out what is in the house. Is that a lamp? Or a table? Or wait, maybe it's a vase with a funny flower coming out of it. You can't tell. It's a blurry mess. All you can tell is that is was a sweep of the inside of a house. No detail. This probably makes it easier for filmmakers. 48fps is a real test of set and costume designers.

24fps is not video - it's a cartoon. 30fps is video. 60fps is perfect video. People are just so used to cruddy quality that seeing something new is distubring.

Re:48 fps for everything!

[Nkwe]

We really need to move beyond 24fps though. Take any single frame of that scene and just try to make out what is in the house. Is that a lamp? Or a table? Or wait, maybe it's a vase with a funny flower coming out of it. You can't tell. It's a blurry mess. All you can tell is that is was a sweep of the inside of a house. No detail. [...]

That of course assumes that viewing all the detail is important. In many cases "viewing all the detail" is not what you want. It can be distracting from the message that the writer and director is trying to convey. At times the blur in the background can help support the in focus stuff in the foreground and the elements that are actually important to the story.

Re:48 fps for everything!

[stymy]

But why not give the directors more options? If 120fps or something becomes the new standard, the director can just add some blur during post-processing if he wants to take attention away from something. However, now they'll be able to make proper pans and fast action scenes that aren't a blurry mess.

Re:48 fps for everything!

[chrismcb]

Why is 60fps "perfect video?"

Re:48 fps for everything!

[MobyDisk]

And having just seen the Hobbit in HFR 3D, I can now agree with the pundits. There are some details you just aren't meant to see. Like the fact that most of Rivendell was a painted backdrop. Or when someone swings a weapon then stops short or misses to avoid hurting another actor. Unless it was a CG character, in which case they slice right through with no loss of momentum. Now I know why they always chop-up fight scenes so much. On the other hand, flying around and panning was wonderful.

Blurs the imperfections

[tepples]

I guess a low frame rate blurs the imperfections in the sets and in the acting. It's sort of like how porn struggled at first with high definition formats.

Why we have to justify this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's what I get out of all these discussions we keep having out on the net:

Pundits, media, theater owners, film majors, digital projector manufacturers: It's better... no really it is!
Viewers: Er.... No it isn't.
PMTOFMDP&M: Yes, no you don't understand it's B E T T E R
Viewers: Er... I think I know what you're saying, but... yeah it's not better
PMTOFMDP&M: But really you'll come to see this as better soon. you're realize that it's sharper and more like real life!
Viewers: It's not sharper. In fact most digital cameras used to capture this have lower resolution than native 35, 60 or 70mm cameras, not to mention your low resolution projectors.
PMTOFMDP&M: Yeah but .... it's mor elike real life!
Viewers: I don't want things to be more like real life. If I wanted that I would watch Reality TV.
PMTOFMDP&M: It's better. Trust us.
Viewers: OK... fine. Do I get to pay the same price for the film?
PMTOFMDP&M: Er... no because it's BETTER. You need to spend more money because it's BETTER
Viewers: Hmmm... ok, I'm sure you're right. After all you were totally right about the mass appeal of 3D!

Tired of Luddites calling higher FPS "soap opera"

[guidryp]

Most of the time you can't even tell the difference between frame rates, except when it emerges as artifacts at 24 fps.

24 fps movies are purposefully shot with more motion blur to hide the jerkiness. But nothing really gets around it when panning.

So 24fps primarily equals artifacts: Blurring, jerky motion, and juddering pans.

How nonsensical is it, and how resistant change do you have to be, to worship these artifacts. They are no more beneficial than ticks/pops were on Vinyl. There is certain nostalgia value to listening to something with ticks/pops sometimes, but it isn't something we put everywhere because we can't do without it.

So these resistant to change, Luddites in love with quite irritating artifacts have taken to calling superior motion video with less blur, less judder and less jerking: "The Soap Opera Effect".

Do a freeze frame on a soap opera and good movie. You can still tell which is which when frozen. Soaps look like crap, because they have crap production values. Poor sets, poor lighting, poor cameras, shot without any flair.

Shoot 48fps (or 60 fps or 120 fps for that matter) with great sets, great lighting, great cameras and great flair and it will be amazing and have nothing in common with soap operas.

Better 3D

[willie3204]

Saw it last night at midnight. Once they got out of Bilbo's house and got into the scenery it was very easy to get used to the speed and clarity of the surroundings. Within the house it did seem a bit strange. A lot of the whining about the 'soap opera' affect was just FUD.

Pseudo spoiler alert the last flyover scene with the eagles was amazing!

I highly recommend everyone to see the high frame version first and be blown away. You won't want to go back.

Re:Better 3D

[rjejr]

Thank goodness. Already pre-purchased 2 tickets for Sunday and I was starting to get a little worried. I already figured the first 20 minutes or so I would hate the look - because I do hate the video look - but after the boring intro 20 minutes I figured I'ld stop caring about the look and start caring about the movie.

Distracting?

[lattyware]

Really, I don't get this, me and two friends went to see it at 48fps and didn't find it distracting in any way at all. No one I know who has seen it in the HFR version has said it was.

Re:Why is it weird?

[Omestes]

Most of it is expectations, we expect 24fps, and associate it with movies, where we associate 48fps with trashy TV. The only real difference I can see involves light. You need more lighting for 48fps (faster rate = less shutter = more light), which could effect the aethetics. I've heard people say the Hobbit looks "plasticy", and this could be related to different set lighting than we are used to.

Re:Why is it weird?

[lattyware]

It really isn't, in my and my friend's experience in any case. As far as I can tell, it's a giant myth (or affects very few people) being perpetuated by everyone parroting it. Either way, even if you do have that association, 10 minutes into the film you are going to forget it.

Only in 3D

[asmkm22]

Something that hasn't been mentioned is that the 48fps seems to be only for the 3D release. So unless you are really into that particular experience, none of this really matters right now.

Re:Only in 3D

[gtirloni]

Agreed. 3D rarely adds anything and good movies don't need distracting visual effects: they have a good story.

But I'm intrigued by 48fps so I might watch the 3D version just in case.

Re:Only in 3D

[steveg]

Yup, that's my problem. I'd love to see 48fps, but I've seen maybe a half dozen 3D films, which is about 5 more than my lifetime quota. No need to subject myself to that again.

I think that 48fps (or higher) *would* be a good thing for the motion picture industry, but 3D is not. If I have to have one to get the other, I'm going to have to pass.

To be fair, some people like 3D. That's fine for them, but glasses over glasses gives me a headache. No thanks.

High frame rates solve a problem (for me) in the cinematic experience. 3D introduces one (to me.)

The complaints about 48fps are really stupid

[DrXym]

24fps was chosen as a framerate that the human brain could tolerate while still working within the limits of a mechanical projection system. 35mm projectors are becoming obsolete so it's completely reasonable to hike the frame rate now that the restriction is no longer there. It's not like 24fps doesn't have serious problems like judder, motion blur which are especially pronounced in CG and 3D but even just fast action.

It may be The Hobbit doesn't seem "cinematic" for one reason another but that could be the manner in which the post processing was done. E.g. the lack of "grain", or the colour gamut might jar with people's expectations as much as it is the frame rate.

Re:The complaints about 48fps are really stupid

[DrXym]

It's not a myth. It is quite easy to notice judder and excessive blurring in a 24fps movie. This is especially pronounced in new movies which tend to move the camera more freely since they are less restricted by the weight of the equipment - CG doesn't even have physical equipment. And so the scene pans so fast the screen turns to mush. And image has blur since it contains everything that occurred in 1/24th second. Doubling the frame rate has obvious advantages for fast motion and CG and 3D.

Now perhaps Jackson is a cynic but pretending 24fps is the end of the matter is complete and demonstrable nonsense. Also, as I pointed out there could be other reasons for people not reacting too well, most likely to do with the post processing making which makes the picture too bright / sharp / clean and therefore somehow uncanny or unfamiliar without bringing frame rate into it. Funnily enough it brings to mind the exact opposite situation that happened on UK TV a few years ago when a TV show called Casuality slapped a shot-on-film effect and people complained it didn't look like the TV show any more.

What is certain to me is most of the 24fps defence is snobbery rather than anything rational. People are used to it one way and are not prepared to tolerate anything else. I wonder if there were people like that when "talkies" came in, or stereo, or technicolor, or 60mm, or cinemascope, or IMAX etc. Cinema has always been experimenting. The choice of 35mm and 24fps is more down to it being "good enough" than the best presentation. More frames or wider film (e.g. 60mm) means reels take up 2-3x the space and they break more. None of that is especially relevant in the age of digital projection.

Unfortunately, it's in 3D

[Cinder6]

I would be willing to see it in 48fps (as a second viewing), but likely never will get the chance to see it, because that version is only offered in 3D. Beyond the fact that I don't see any benefit to 3D, it gives me a massive headache within minutes.

I still don't understand the industry's obsession with 3D. Even my young nieces and nephews don't care about it. Never mind...I do understand. They get more money for it. I wonder if that actually makes 3D a boon for theaters too small to afford the new projectors.

Re:Unfortunately, it's in 3D

[Dekar]

I would be willing to see it in 48fps (as a second viewing), but likely never will get the chance to see it, because that version is only offered in 3D. Beyond the fact that I don't see any benefit to 3D, it gives me a massive headache within minutes.

I still don't understand the industry's obsession with 3D. Even my young nieces and nephews don't care about it. Never mind...I do understand. They get more money for it. I wonder if that actually makes 3D a boon for theaters too small to afford the new projectors.

3D gives me headaches at crappy theaters too, but a good 3D movie at a good theater (iMax in my case) is wonderful.
It's very distracting in a movie like Transformers, however, where most scenes are cheap fake 3D, but scenes that are purely CGI (mainly robot fights) look very nice.

I'll watch The Hobbit there, and meanwhile, I hope the fake 3D crap and cheap "3D" theaters die out.

Re:Unfortunately, it's in 3D

[B1oodAnge1]

You should try the HFR 3d, it probably will help with that.

Re:Unfortunately, it's in 3D

[Psyborgue]

Perhaps it's the kind of glasses. Active glasses give me headaches. Passive, polarized lens, glasses i'm perfectly fine with.

Re:Unfortunately, it's in 3D

[omnichad]

Make yourself a pair of "2D" glasses. Get 2 pairs of 3D glasses, and stick 2 left lenses in one, and 2 right lenses in the other. Don't flip the lens to make it fit better, or the polarization will be off. You'd still be paying the HFR 3D upcharge.

You can also order 2D glasses online.

Of course, 48fps was also done to try to reduce the headaches people were getting with 3D at 24fps.

Re:Unfortunately, it's in 3D

[omnichad]

When I say "get" 2 pairs of 3D glasses, have a couple friends bring back their 3D glasses instead of recycling them when they go to see it. It's also a great way to get extra pairs of glasses for a home 3D TV.

In other news...

[cynop]

...P.R. departments have managed to argue that down "is, in its way," the new up, black " is, in its way" the new white and that a weird, distracting, unsettling and akward experience is a good thing. Yay!

Doug Benson

[ThatsNotPudding]

In Doug Benson's opinion, it works well for action scenes and CGI, but in the 'normal' parts of the movie, it came across as being at a cosplay convention (too real = literally not fantastic).

Re:Doug Benson

[chrismcb]

(too real = literally not fantastic).

Heaven forbid that our movies are "too real." Isn't that the point? To be realistic?

Re:Doug Benson

[bytesex]

No. This is what you have to learn about art. Art doesn't strive to be realistic. It strives to resonate a message with you in a satisfactory manner.

Good for whom?

[AikonMGB]

Amongst other concerns (such as splitting it into three films), this is one of the main reasons I'm not going to watch The Hobbit, even though I love The Lord of the Rings.

Re:Good for whom?

[chrismcb]

Considering "The Lord of the Rings" was 6 books, and probably should have been at LEAST 6 movies, I don't have a problem splitting The Hobbit up (it was done before, or almost done before) 3 Movies may have been pushing it, but one movie was definitely not enough.

Re:Good for whom?

[Psyborgue]

Plenty of theaters are showing it in 24. Even 24 3d. I saw it that way and quite liked it. I also fee it's a good idea to spread it across three films. He would have had to throw out too much, and it covers more than just the main content of the book (such as the appendix). Lots of people are hating on the film for the 48fps thing, but you can still see it in 24 if you like. It's a great movie, I felt.

Re:Everyone should be happy about this.

[steveg]

Well, 3D gives *me* a headache. I wear glasses, and glasses over glasses translates to my brain as a smudge I can't remove. It's really irritating.

On the other hand, I'd love to see this at 48fps -- I just saw Skyfall on an Imax screen and the pans during the action sequence at the beginning made me want to rip my eyes out. I thought to myself that it would have been nice to have 48fps on *that* film.

I doubt that any theater is going to show 48fps Hobbit in 2D, however, so I probably won't get to see it.

Wow, sign me up.

[roc97007]

> The 48 fps version of The Hobbit is weird, that's true. It's distracting as hell, yes yes yes.

...because Lord knows, that's what I always look for in a movie. A presentation that is weird and distracting as hell.

That said, like 3D, you do get a choice, so no harm, no foul. We will be seeing the film in 2D, 24 FPS, because 3D gives my wife migraines and because of reports in New Zealand of motion sickness - like symptoms amongst viewers there.

Parenthetically, I predict that of the people who love 48 FPS will contain a high percentage of people who can play first person shooters for hours without motion sickness, and conversely, the people who don't like it will be those who can't. Although I don't think anyone is collecting this metric, sadly.

I will see the film at the faster frame rate (and in 3D because I believe that's your only choice at 48 FPS) but I want to see it "normal" first.

I don't feel qualified to judge the technology not having viewed it yet, but the most interesting criticisms that have come out of advanced showings so far is that the sets look more like sets, which disrupts one's ability to suspend disbelief, and that the depth of field tends to be very deep, with everything in focus, which makes things look weird (because the human eye doesn't see that way). Speed Racer did the same thing, intentionally. (Speaking of which, it appears that I'm the only one who liked Speed Racer.)

...which brings me to my point. This doesn't make the film any less artistic. In actual fact, Jackson's use of the technology is an artistic choice. It may not be a choice that everyone likes, and it may disrupt what we've come to believe are common artistic choices (directing audience attention through depth of field, motion blur to indicate movement, softer focus for effect) but that doesn't make it any less artistic. Now, whether it's a *commercial* success, that remains to be seen. I strongly suspect that the 48 FPS showings will be crowded because it's a new thing. Whether people will flock to the next film in that forum remains to be seen.

Re:Wow, sign me up.

[LanMan04]

...because Lord knows, that's what I always look for in a movie. A presentation that is weird and distracting as hell.

Yeah, I hate those new Talkies as well...

Re:Wow, sign me up.

[roc97007]

...because Lord knows, that's what I always look for in a movie. A presentation that is weird and distracting as hell.

Yeah, I hate those new Talkies as well...

It's not clear that you even read the rest of my post, but oh well.

There's this old old musical called "Singin' in the Rain". It deals with the transition from silent films to talkies, and although the examples may have been exaggerated a bit, it does demonstrate some of the issues encountered when transitioning to a different method of presentation.

It comes down to why one is there, in the seat, munching on stale popcorn-like substance covered in butter flavored oil. Are you there to see a movie; to have a cinematic experience, or are you there to see what new geeky technology is being used? (It's ok to say "both", but just be aware that you're twice as likely to have feelings of disappointment.)

A new technology may be a novelty or may be the next big direction of cinema. It's hard to tell from first efforts. As geeks, we tend to embrace first technological efforts even if they largely fail. It's important to be aware that not all cinema fans are geeks. They are there to see a movie, not drool over the specs of the latest Red camera.

Re:Why? / One more thing

[Dahamma]

I think you may have been meaning to reply the the GP? The parent post was mostly correct (except that PAL and NTSC are really more like 50/60 FPS at 1/2 height than 25/30 FPS at full height...)

Re:Why? / One more thing

[lloydchristmas759]

Not exactly. You can have 1080p24, 1080p25, 1080p50 and 1080p60, each corresponding to a certain frame rate.

Stop

[grenadeh]

Stop bitching about what parts were cut out of a 1200 page book to movie. I'm not happy either, the majority of ROTK was left out. Im not happy about shelob, or Saruman, or Grima, or a lot of the things in LOTR the movie. I'm not happy that jackson turned the first chapter of the hobbit into 20+ minutes of singing and bullshit. However, the movie was so much better than the entirety of LoTR trilogy already that theres no way part 2 and 3 won't make this waaaaaay better.

Re:Tired of Luddites calling higher FPS "soap oper

[Alastor187]

Most of the time you can't even tell the difference between frame rates, except when it emerges as artifacts at 24 fps.

24 fps movies are purposefully shot with more motion blur to hide the jerkiness. But nothing really gets around it when panning.

So 24fps primarily equals artifacts: Blurring, jerky motion, and juddering pans.

How nonsensical is it, and how resistant change do you have to be, to worship these artifacts. They are no more beneficial than ticks/pops were on Vinyl. There is certain nostalgia value to listening to something with ticks/pops sometimes, but it isn't something we put everywhere because we can't do without it.

So these resistant to change, Luddites in love with quite irritating artifacts have taken to calling superior motion video with less blur, less judder and less jerking: "The Soap Opera Effect".

Do a freeze frame on a soap opera and good movie. You can still tell which is which when frozen. Soaps look like crap, because they have crap production values. Poor sets, poor lighting, poor cameras, shot without any flair.

Shoot 48fps (or 60 fps or 120 fps for that matter) with great sets, great lighting, great cameras and great flair and it will be amazing and have nothing in common with soap operas.

The Soap Opera Effect originated from TV performance not theater performance. Modern LCD TVs have refresh rates between 120-240Hz in addition to built in motion correction hardware. You can take the any source and basically make it look like a Soap Opera, smooth and fluid. For many people, myself included, this is very distracting. Maybe I am just old, and use to seeing certain types of formats, but when I see a smooth and fluid movie it looks odd.

Personally, I turn off all the motion correction hardware on my TV. I choose to watch TV has it was intended by the creator. General Hospital is smooth and fluid while Hawaii Five O not so much. I have a PS3 set to output 24p, so it also will not perform any video processing, and I can watch a movie in it's most raw form.

On a 120Hz LCD TV there are not juddering pans, painful transitions, or any other negatives associated with watching a movie in the theater. If you have never watched a 24 FPS movie on a properly configured modern entertainment system then don't be so quick to judge the desire to retain the ‘film look’.

Re:Tired of Luddites calling higher FPS "soap oper

[AmiMoJo]

To be fair there is more to it than just "24fps has unwanted artefacts". Most people will probably remember when they first saw Saving Private Ryan because the film stock and shutter speed used gave it a very realistic, un-blurry and gritty look. One of the biggest reasons it has taken so long for digital cinema cameras to become popular is that the early ones were unable to replicate the effect of using particular well known film stocks and camera techniques.

Star Wars is another good example to look at. Part of the charm of the original movies is that they were a bit rough around the edges. The film had a fair bit of grain that made the Star Wars universe look a bit grubby and used, rather than sleek and clean like Star Trek. The later trilogy was crisp and clean, and ended up looking more like generic sci-fi than the Star Wars we loved.

48fps is still in its infancy and it will take some time for cinematographers and directors to figure out how to get the effect they want from it. In the end the result will be better than 24fps, but that doesn't automatically mean that the early examples will be particularly good. 3D was the same; everything looked terrible until Avatar finally figured out how to use it and still look like a movie and not give you a brain aneurysm.

Re:Tired of Luddites calling higher FPS "soap oper

[vmxeo]

Hi there. Technical director here. Just need to step in a clarify the relationship between frame rate and motion blur. I'm seeing a lot of posts that are calling for higher frame rates with more motion blur, as if they are two completely independent things. They're actually closely linked. Let me explain:

Motion blur is the effect of a moving object in the frame while the shutter is open. In photography, the time the shutter is open is called the shutter speed, and is used along with iso and aperture to control the overall exposure. If you know anything about photography, this is pretty basic stuff.

In the film world, the equivalent of shutter speed is what's known as shutter angle. This is because the shutter for film camera is a spinning disk, of which a portion lets light through and a portion blocks it as it spins. The portion, measured in degrees, that lets the light in is the shutter angle. Typically, the shutter angle used in film is 180 degrees, meaning during half that 1/24 of a second frame rate, the film is being exposed. In photographic shutter speed terms, that would be the same as 1/48. Again, not too complicated.

Here's the catch though: because your film stock is rolling by at 24 frames per second, each frame can only be exposed for 1/24 of a second or less. If you use a smaller shutter angle, or faster frame rate, you get less motion blur. What this means is there's no practical (the film industry definition of practical) way of getting more motion blur than your frame rate and shutter angle allows. The faster you go, the crisper the action will be.

So at this point you're probably wondering who cares about the amount of motion blur in a movie? The answer is: the audience. The industry has shot film at 24fps with a 180 degree shutter angle for so long that's what everyone is used to. The last thing you want is to distract your audience away from enjoying the movie because there's know there's something different about the picture quality but they can't figure out what.

Finally, I'd like to point out that this choice of frame rate, like many other subjective decisions that are made during a movie production, are made at the director's discretion. Peter Jackson is going out on a limb by shooting a movie at this frame rate, and doubtless he has his reasons for doing so (mostly due to it being shot in 3d as I recall) but it's still his call. The industry talk I hear views it as an experiment, and everyone's curious as to how it will work (or won't). If audiences do get used to it and like it, expect to see more movies shot like this, and in enough time it will be the new standard.

Yar

[tgd]

I would be willing to see it in 48fps (as a second viewing), but likely never will get the chance to see it, because that version is only offered in 3D. Beyond the fact that I don't see any benefit to 3D, it gives me a massive headache within minutes.

I still don't understand the industry's obsession with 3D. Even my young nieces and nephews don't care about it. Never mind...I do understand. They get more money for it. I wonder if that actually makes 3D a boon for theaters too small to afford the new projectors.

Wear an eyepatch.

Re:Why is it weird?

[jeffasselin]

I saw it in IMAX 3D @48fps yesterday evening. I enjoyed the movie a lot, and the 48fps didn't bother me much after the first few minutes. It made 3D seem much better, I think.

My only problem was what it did to the light in the movie. Although in soft light areas, it seemed a lot more realistic, in brighter areas (like the sun on the landscape or the braziers in Goblin Town for example), the light seem too harsh. Especially since I was expecting a digitally graded movie like LotR was to offer perfect coloring. It also made a few special effects seem a bit fake.

The first is probably an editing and a filming issue. With better lenses, filters, and adjustments to lighting conditions it will help, and with better adjustments of the color values in editing it can be fixed. The second will get better as digital technology improves.

I'm going to go see it @24fps this weekend if I can to compare.

Re:48fps? COOL! Hobbit (Movie) Plot...?

[captjc]

First 300 pages? My copy of the Hobbit is only 275 pages and I'm pretty sure it isn't abridged. (1996 Restored Third Edition)

Refresh rate vs frame rate

[tooyoung]

I'm shocked by the number of comments on this story where people are confusing refresh rate with frame rate. On slashdot of all places. Maybe the "my phone is better than your phone" stories have really started to shift the demographic.

Re:Why is it weird?

[HeckRuler]

Ever flipped to a soap opera and could tell right away because of something to do with the video quality?
That's why.

I bought a 48 FPS ticket.

[TheSpoom]

I'm very excited to see this film in 48 FPS tomorrow. I don't particularly care whether or not it looks good. As a geek, the primary thing I'm interested in is a technology which has not been upgraded since the 1920s. If that doesn't excite you, I may have to personally revoke your geek card.

Re:No, 24 is more realistic. Really.

[avandesande]

I am not sure that I buy your argument- I think that the brain perceives more detail from more frames much like you can composite several images in PS to create a higher resolution image (very common in astro photography) However if the extra frames reveal issues with props, make up or digital animation than they are self defeating.

Re:Tired of Luddites calling higher FPS "soap oper

[guidryp]

I understand your points, but eventually we have to take some small risk to move beyond a nearly century old frame rate and it's artifacts just because people are used to them, toward something better.

The killer for me, is that I can stand juddering pans, they look horrid. I can't believe we are stuck on century old frame-rate that traps us with this artifact.

I find it particular galling when people get snobbish about those artifacts as the only way to shoot movies (which thankfully you haven't done).

For me it is just unfortunate that Edison didn't win his 46 FPS argument in his day.

new fee to add on top the 3d fees and Dbox fees

[Joe_Dragon]

new fee to add on top the 3d fees and Dbox fees whats next a 22.2 or 10.2 sound fee?

Re:Tired of Luddites calling higher FPS "soap oper

[AttillaTheNun]

So could one film at 48fps with a higher shutter rate to get a smoother (i.e. more motion blur) effect?

I don't buy that.

[pavon]

Lets consider two scenarios here.

In the first case, the camera is not panning, but just filming the scenario as it is, and projector playing it back at the filmed rate. Thus viewing the projection is the same experience as looking at the scene in real life, to within the fidelity of the playback. Notably, there is no depth (or a poor simulation of depth with forced focus), but apart from that higher fidelity should be more realistic. The viewer's eyes will be jumping around the big screen and blinking just like normal so there is absolutely no reason to try to "simulate" that; you have the real-life effect already occurring. Same with motion blur; the eye will supply the same amount of blur that it does in real life, so there is no reason to simulate it, beyond compensating for too *low* of a frame rate, which requires a longer integration time to avoid appearing choppy.

And yet it is exactly this sort of scene that was causing people to deride 48fps as being "soap opera like". They talked about how watching the Hobbits slowly walk down the hill towards them looked epic in 24fps, and looked like a documentary in 48fps. It destroyed the suspension of disbelief for them, and made them think they were looking at actors not Hobbits. That has nothing to faking limitations of human vision. It is completely psychological; whether that psychological effect is inherent in the medium or the result of prior conditioning is debatable, though.

The second scenario is where the camera is panning, and thus forcing visual motion on the user even though they didn't initiate it. This is identical to being smoothly flown around a scene, and how "realistic" it is will depend on whether that would actually happen in real life. In situations where it is realistic my argument above would apply; the eye will be looking around the moving scene just like it would be when looking out a train window.

On the other hand, in situations where panning is being used to simulate human motion, I would argue that 48fps could allow the filmmaker to have more realistic view changes if they want them. Low rate 24fps forces the director to have slow gradual pans less they create a choppy or blurry mess as a result in the limitations of the rate. However, as you pointed out, the eye doesn't work that way. It jumps around, taking time to settle and focus each time. If you tried to do that at 24fps the viewer would get lost, unable to follow the transitions. In large part this is because in real life they are controlling the transitions so they know in advance where the view is changing to, but to a lesser extend this is due to the limitations of the frame rate. Faster frame rates will allow for more abrupt translations that are still possible to follow.

Re:Tired of Luddites calling higher FPS "soap oper

[UnknownSoldier]

Informative post but you forgot one _tiny_ detail about The Hobbit.

They are shooting everything DIGITAL.

--
Classmates.com are a bunch of scammers.

An Interesting Experiment

[AttillaTheNun]

What is the practical range of fps that a director of photography could theoretically use for artistic effect?
Have any experiments been done to suggest at what fps the human eye and brain is no longer able to perceive any difference?

Re:An Interesting Experiment

[Thagg]

Yes. Most people can see the difference between 240 fps and speeds below that. Some people can perceive differences up to 360 fps. Note that these values are way above the frequencies that we can detect flicker -- around 75 fps.

Re:Tired of Luddites calling higher FPS "soap oper

[gknoy]

I remember Saving Private Ryan for the graphic and thorough depiction of the brutality war and sudden-ness of death. The cinematic effects I'm sure contributed to this, but what I consciously remember is the content.

Re:Tired of Luddites calling higher FPS "soap oper

[pavon]

What this means is there's no practical (the film industry definition of practical) way of getting more motion blur than your frame rate and shutter angle allows.

Post processing by averaging frames is definitely practical, especially as these were shot on digital cameras to begin with. Of course, you loose most of the benefit of the higher frame rate if you do that, but it is entirely possible if they decide they don't like the raw results.

Re:No, 24 is more realistic. Really.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not sure that I can accept your argument: For example, let's say that we change the definition of visual "reality" (the world as you perceive it) and consider what you see when you look about as projected analog image of essentially INFINITE framerate (the gap between frames being, essentially the distance between photons as they strike the retina).

Your brain nevertheless perceives this just as it was designed to do.

Your discussion wrt to looking about and blinking, while interesting, nevertheless remains true whether what I'm looking-at is a video (24/48/72 fps notwithstanding) or if I'm just looking out my window (again, effectively infinite fps). In either case, the rods and cones of the retina still perceive the information in the same way. Since none of the discussed framerates exceeds that of "reality", I cannot understand your premise of "overloading" the eye/retina/brain with information?

What is different, though, is the way the brain interprets the information it gets. It's not that it's LESS realistic, it's that it's less movie-like as your brain has been trained to view it. -- You (and I) have watched 24fps video for our entire lives, so our brains EXPECT 24fps video when we watch movies, and thus consider it's limitations and deficiencies as part of the normal, "I'm-watching-a-movie" experience. But now, at 48fps, when the brain goes into "I'm-watching-a-movie" mode, the higher frame-rate video is perceived as being "wrong" against the background of your visual cortex's movie-viewing history and training. This "wrongness" is certainly jarring to your perception, and I think THAT is the reason people are having such a hard time with it. Your brain doesn't like discordant experiences, and it has evolved to make them stand-out and be memorable and though people may not be entirely, consciously aware of *why* the movie seemed "wrong" to them, they still leave the theatre with that perception (and thus relate that sense when asked about the experience).

I cannot help but wonder if people had the exact same reaction in the 20's and 30's as 24fps starting coming into the mainstream and the older movies with their herky-jerky, C.Chaplin-esque movements faded into the background. I somewhat expect that, in 20-30 years, people born today will look back at 24fps with the same sense of disdain that would eschew a modern-era movie if it was shot in 14fps...

-AC

An example of better being worse...

[Thagg]

I've been doing computer animation for 35 years, as long as it has existed. Back in the early 80's, I worked on some early 60 field-per-second animation; and I was a convert to high-frame-rate footage since then. (The opening to the PBS show NOVA was perhaps the first 60fps animation ever done.) When we started doing broadcast graphics (show openings, things like that) for TV, we naturally did them at 60fps, and that looked right as it worked with the rest of video. Finally, though, we moved into advertising, and TV advertising was (and still is) typically 24fps. And it bothered me!

But then, something changed my mind completely. We were doing an ad for Snacky, a Japanese snack food company. There was the required silly animated spokespuppet, and we modeled it and made it perform. Part of doing animation is doing the lip-sync, and the company gave us the dialogue in English to animate to. We did this, although it didn't seem right -- expecting them to give us the Japanese soundtrack eventually.

But no, it got to a couple of days before delivery, and the character was still speaking English, and we asked the customer when he came to review the work. "This is only going to be shown in Japan, right?" "Oh, yes, yes!", "And you're going to dub it into Japanese, right?" "Of course! Yes!" "But the lip sync is to an English sound track, the lips are not going to match the dialogue!" "YES! JUST LIKE ALL GOOD ANIMATION!"

Because in that day, lip-sync that was correct in Japanese meant it was low-quality domestic animation; where if the lip-sync didn't match it was high-quality American animation. Nobody can tell me that wrong lip-sync is in any way superior -- except that there were 150 million people in Japan who would see it that way instinctively and immediately.

So, I became a happy convert to 24 fps animation. I applaud Peter Jackson for his incredibly audacious experiment, and I hope he succeeds, but he has to fight the near-instinctive reaction from a lot of people who see 48 fps as video.

I think that part of the problem with The Hobbit at 48fps is that the screens are so terribly dark that you just can't appreciate the high frame rate. Your eye integrates dark scenes over a long period of time, and at 48 fps with the very very dark 3D screens, I believe that your eye smears the frames together. On Transformers III, I removed all the motion blur from the very dark scenes, because even at 24 fps they got smeary.

Re:An example of better being worse...

[Tore S B]

That's funny. When you see lip-flap in dubbed commercials here in Norway, it's almost always a painfully tacky German ad. Probably for shampoo, or a domestic cleaning product.

Re:Tired of Luddites calling higher FPS "soap oper

[DreadPiratePizz]

That's irrelevant. The CMOS sensor on the RED works the same way as a frame of film - it is activated and exposed to light in exactly the same way, for a fraction of a second depending on the desired shutter speed. The only difference is that the shutter is electronic (turning the sensor on and off) vs mechanical, and even new digital cameras like the Sony F65 have mechanical shutters exactly like film cameras.

Went and saw it at 48fps

[ducomputergeek]

And two things I have to say:

1) If you get the least bit motion sick, don't go see it at the high frame frate in 3D. Normally I don't, even when seeing IMAX/OMNIMAX, but this film I did.

2) The 48 frames per second and 3d makes certain parts of the film like watching a live stage production. The problem then becomes with the post production. There were a lot of scenes when you could tell the background was composited and with so much CGI some of it was like going back and watching CGI from 15 years ago.

That was one of things I liked about the LOTR movies and especially by the third movie, the CGI had gotten so good that it was largely seamless. You didn't notice it, it was just part of the story. In this one I noticed it and often found myself cringing.

Re:Went and saw it at 48fps

[Brulath]

You may be suffering a little from rose-coloured glasses. The third LOTR movie still had some pretty obvious CGI issues that were a bit jarring, such as the beacon flames (distant ones), Pippin climbing down the beacon tower, the lava behind Frodo and Sam whilst they exited Mount Doom, and others; most of the CGI worked really well, but some parts were immersion-breaking at critical moments. That its latest installment continues to have the problem in parts is probably to be expected, and not necessarily the fault of the frame rate.

Re:Went and saw it at 48fps

[TimTucker]

And two things I have to say:

1) If you get the least bit motion sick, don't go see it at the high frame frate in 3D. Normally I don't, even when seeing IMAX/OMNIMAX, but this film I did.

As a counter point, I went on Friday with my sister and another friend who are prone to feeling motion sickness when watching 3d movies.

They both found that with the HFR actually made the movie as a whole easier to watch. (For my sister in particular, it was the first 3d movie she'd been able to watch without feeling motion sick throughout.)

They did, however, have some vertigo from some of the pan shots looking downward.

Edison advocated 46 fps a century ago

[peter303]

At that time film was very expensive. Producers then preferred a minimal frame rate to save cost. Some Nickeldoleans were 10 fps. The guy in Hugo used 16 fps. Since Edison was one of the inventors of motion pictures, he may have wanted to sell more film stock.

Re:Tired of Luddites calling higher FPS "soap oper

[vmxeo]

Hi there. Technical director here. Just need to step in a clarify the relationship between frame rate and motion blur... Here's the catch though: because your film stock is rolling by at 24 frames per second, each frame can only be exposed for 1/24 of a second or less. If you use a smaller shutter angle, or faster frame rate, you get less motion blur.

That sounds like it used to be true for old-fashioned film photography, but is surely irrelevant in a world where we can post-process to get any effect we want, and can use CCDs on digital cameras to be exposed for as long as we want.

Not at all irrelevant. I can't expose frames for a full second if I expect to be filming at 24 frames per second. In fact, to actually record 24fps, I need to expose and record 24 frames per second. I can of course, lower the frame rate in post through a variety of methods, and there are even some tools for interpolating higher frame rates (e.g.Twixtor for AE). But there are no straight forward ways of exposing longer than your frame rate allows.

Re:Tired of Luddites calling higher FPS "soap oper

[vmxeo]

It sounds like you're saying that this formula holds:

disk spin rate ~ (proportional to) shutter angle * frame rate ... and that if you keep the speed at which the disk spins fixed, then as you bump up the frame rate, the shutter angle falls.

Why not simultaneously make the disk spin faster, and increase the frame rate, so can keep the same shutter angle?

Ehh... its more like (1/framerate) / (shutter angle/360) = shutter speed. So at 24fps at 180 degree shutter angle you'd have a shutter speed of 1/48 of a second. Compare that to 48fps, where you have 1/96 of a second exposure. You now have twice the FPS with half the motion blur. You wouldn't think it would look much different but it does. That's the difference between "dreamy" 24fps and "more realistic" 48fps.

Though since you brought it up, you could theoretically shoot at 48fps with a full 360 shutter angle and would have the same motion blur as 24fps at 180. I have no idea of how it would look, or if thats even possible with any camera, but it'd be interesting to try.

Re:Tired of Luddites calling higher FPS "soap oper

[vmxeo]

What this means is there's no practical (the film industry definition of practical) way of getting more motion blur than your frame rate and shutter angle allows.

Post processing by averaging frames is definitely practical, especially as these were shot on digital cameras to begin with. Of course, you loose most of the benefit of the higher frame rate if you do that, but it is entirely possible if they decide they don't like the raw results.

"Practical" in film terms has a very precise meaning which I kinda glossed over. It means something that can be done in camera. What you're referring to is what would be referred to in the past as a "special" effect. Today I mostly hear it referred to as a post effect, digital effect, or more commonly, expensive. :)

but yes it is possible

Re:Tired of Luddites calling higher FPS "soap oper

[vmxeo]

So could one film at 48fps with a higher shutter rate to get a smoother (i.e. more motion blur) effect?

Theoretically 24fps with a 180 shutter angle and 48 with a full 360 shutter angle would have the same amount of motion blur, as they'd both expose the individual frames at 1/48 second. I'm not sure how'd that'd look, or if its even possible to do with a camera. Might be fun to try.

Re:Tired of Luddites calling higher FPS "soap oper

[vmxeo]

What this means is there's no practical (the film industry definition of practical) way of getting more motion blur than your frame rate and shutter angle allows.

You'd know better than me, but I suspect recording at higher frame rates then digitally down converting the rate down would allow you to get more than 360 degrees of shutter angle. So you could get a blur like 24 fps with 24 fps speeds. Of course that would be expensive today, but in a few years, I wouldn't be surprised if it become common place.

I've done the same thing with our radar system. Our raw "frame rate" is 1/200 of second at a 348.75 degree shutter. Post processed we usually use 1/5 of a second and the shutter angle varies depending on what we're trying to see.

You're right, there's ways of cheating around it after it's been filmed. You have the luxury of simply needing it to be accurate rather than just look good to someone else though ;)

Hobbit 48fps footage lacks motion blur

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello, I am an animator and I would like to share my personal theory about the 48fps weirdness issue. I do not claim that I'm 100% right, but this seems the only logical explanation to me.

Okay, let's start with a little experiment that you can use to test how motion blur works: place your hand in front of your face and wiggle your fingers as fast as you can. Now take a closer look at your fingers while doing this and you'll see... motion blur. Do it in a dark, poorly lit place and you will see even more of motion blur happening. Traditional animators create animation by drawing each individual frame. Let's say an animator wanted to animate a quick finger movement moving up and down. The most important frames to be drawn would be: two positions of the finger. In one frame the finger would be raised up, in another lowered down. The thing here is that you wouldn't draw finger in-between those two positions because you can't really see it when it's moving so fast. The only thing you can see is some motion blur (just like in the experiment that I described earlier). So when I was watching a 48fps screening of Hobbit today, what really looked weird was the lack of motion blur. Some scenes looked as if some sort of SPEED UP effect was applied to the footage. I think that happens because so many frames get captured and the movement becomes TOO FLUID that it seems just unrealistic. And it's true that people got used to a frame rate of 24 frames per second, but the real reason why 48 looks weird is that it's not how humans see.

The new vinyl

[Relic of the Future]

24 FPS is the new vinyl.

We've been trained that low FPS is "cinematic"

[Sycraft-fu]

So people have come to associate it with that. It will just take some acclimation time.

I've seen people bitch about HD, claiming it looks "too real" (older people mostly). Some people hate change.

Personally I love 60fps (progressive) video. We have cameras that shoot it at work and they look amazing. Such natural fluidity.

Re:We've been trained that low FPS is "cinematic"

[serviscope_minor]

claiming it looks "too real" (older people mostly)

It's true.

This is why I only watch My Little Pony in SD. In HD it just looks too real and I loose suspension of disbelief.

uncanny valley

[KingAlanI]

uncanny valley - in short, not quite real gets a worse response than being obviously fake
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley

Re:Tired of Luddites calling higher FPS "soap oper

[fnj]

Bingo. People think digital is magic or something.

Did Jackson use the right graphics card?

[Provocateur]

Did he use Ati or nvidia? And did he use binary blobs or open source drivers?

I hate 48fps

[lilfields]

Higher frame rates in movies is irritating for some reason, much like 3D I avoid it like the plague. The movie "Public Enemies" also had a higher frame rate and it was absolutely terrible as a result.

Re:Tired of Luddites calling higher FPS "soap oper

[lilfields]

Technically most vinyls have higher quality audio than CDs and their players, since most CDs and players only support 16bit while the vinyl is 24bit and more uncompressed than even FLAC files. So....not really a good comparison.

Re:Tired of Luddites calling higher FPS "soap oper

[Wescotte]

I believe this 360 degree shutter angle is something you do with most digital cameras because they don't have a real mechanical shutter. I'm not sure if cameras actually simulate the rotating disc by reading the sensor in the order they would be exposed by a rotating disc or if they just read top to bottom/left to right. A big issue with digital video cameras is rolling shutter artifacts which can be "sorta" corrected in post. Otherwise using a camera with a global shutter is another solution.However, I believe most high end digital cinema cameras do actually have physical rotating shutters.

Re:Tired of Luddites calling higher FPS "soap oper

[Wescotte]

With a digital camera can't you can essentially get a 360 degree (or would it be 0?) angle. Meaning at 48fps your shutter speed would still be 1/48th thus producing the same motion blur of a 180 degree shutter at 24fps?

Re:Tired of Luddites calling higher FPS "soap oper

[Wescotte]

Are you sure the CMOS sensors (specifically in the RED) actually simulate the same exposure pattern of a mechanical rotating disc shutter? I assume a CMOS reads line by line from left to right. However with a rotating disc shutter it's not exposed in that fashion. For example if the disc was rotating clockwise the first part of the film being exposed in the lower left corner of the frame and the last would be the lower right.

The other reason I believe this is true is because during a pan on a CMOS sensor you will see the "rolling shutter" artifacts. If you actually simulated a spinning disc depending on the direction and speed of you pan you could negate the artifact in one direction and potentially make it worse in the other.

I also believe this to be true because most high end digital cinema cameras still use a true mechanical shutter. Having this seems pointless if the sensor was capable of simulating the exact same exposure pattern as a real shutter.

Re:Everyone should be happy about this.

[chrismcb]

"Gameplay and fun are more important than graphics (therefore some advance is graphics technology is pointless or negative)",

Gameplay IS more important than graphics. A great game is fun to play pretty much no matter what the graphics are. But for a long time it seemed the studios just said "hey, lets improve the graphics, that will make the game better." It might mike a dumb game more palatable, but it is still a dumb game. A movie with a plot is horrible in B&W as well as high definition.

"3D gives everyone headaches and doesn't add anything/is a gimmick/I'm an idiot".

Dunno about 3D, but stereoscopic 3d is NOT real 3d. It leads to a dim film, ghosting of images, and doesn't ADD anything to the movie (except a higher ticket price.) It IS a gimmick.

what.....THE FUCK?!

[slashmydots]

"an article at Slate concedes that it's a bit awkward and takes a while to get used to"
What fucking alternate dimension are these dumbassess from?! Higher FPS = lower notice by the eyes. Virtually all computers are at 60FPS. New TVs are 120 and surprise, they look better. Clearing and old frame faster and adding more total convinces the eyes that it's seeing real life motion, not some skippy playback. When my games suddenly drop to 24 FPS, I want to throw my monitor out the damn window. Who the fuck would say 24 FPS is better than 48?! That's like people who tell me they like AOL mail better than Gmail. They're wrong! For fuck's sake, someone tell their author to get a clue.

Hypnotoad at 48fps

[TheRealHocusLocus]

Establishing Shire vista
Hypnotoad at 48fps
Bilbo opens his mouth to speak
Hypnotoad at 48fps
Brief flash of Gandalf
Hypnotoad at 48fps
That's what Bilbo Baggins hates! So, carefully! Carefully Hypnotoad at 48fps
orc riding a
Hypnotoad at 48fps
Hypnotoad at 48fps
Hypnotoad at 48fps
[theater is silent and empty. I leave]

I liked it. It was nice.
All Glory to The Hypnotoad!

tubes...

[IBitOBear]

Thing about tubes. I generally agree, but there is a warm thing abou tubes that *is* better. Digital sampling vs analog cricuitry is a aurally distingusiable feature. In digital sampling there is no trending, no inertia, to the samples. Tubes provide a continuous representation of the analog waveform where digital apratus (transistors, or god forbid, digitial medial 8-) provide snapshot sampling. The harmonics of each are distinct since the tubes will represent the intersticial times skipped by a digital media.

That said... have I rushed out and bought a tube set? No. Do I care about the difference? Not really. Do I think this is the same as the vinal question? Sort of. Do I care enough? No.

One thing that gets lost to most people is the belief that what they don't preceive is perhaps still perceptiable to others.

I think most "audiophiles" have been duped. Monster cable selling "gold plated HDMI cables to remove digital distorion" is complete and utter bulshit foisted on a fatuous public. On the other hand, I can and do hear a difference in continuously variable analog signals compared to digital signals in many settings. My ex was way more sensitive in the audio range. I do see the difference between motion blur and high frame rate and he cannot. (I have better eyes, he had better ears.).

Distinctions that you personally don't perceive are not _necessarily_ imperceptable to others. People vary.

How much that variance matters compared to a technology is a completely subjective question.

But yes, while I agree that most of the things are completely in people's heads, there are differences.

Don't be too dismissive. There is _some_ baby in that bathwater.

Re:tubes...

[SuricouRaven]

A 48KHz sampling rate can handle all the frequency range humans can hear, even children, with a nice margin for less-than-ideal filtering. Even a sixteen-bit sample provides reproduction indistinguishable from the original, if the equipment is properly configured*. Tubes aren't inherently better: It's just that a lot of digital audio processing and transistor amplification is done really badly, by people who don't know how to use the equipment properly.

*Yet it's amazing how many audio signals, even on profesionally-made and published media, seem to think a peak volume of about -12db is appropriate.

Re:tubes...

[lgw]

A tube amp throws away most of the top octave and much of the next in a very distinctive way. People like that distortion and are willing to pay extra for it. Whatever makes them happy, I guess.

Re:Tired of Luddites calling higher FPS "soap oper

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Come back when you know what the hell you're talking about.

Hint: LPs are analog, hence they are neither 16bit nor 24bit nor any other bitrate. They're analog.

Rising expectations

[tepples]

Because performance per second and performance per dollar haven't dropped at all since 2001.

I see your sarcastic point, but viewers nowadays demand not only double the frame rate but some or all of the other improvements in all-CGI cartoons since then: stereoscopy, higher resolution (Toy Story was originally rendered at about 900p but rerendered at 2160p for the rerelease), and more complex shaders. Is there a lot of overhead between rendering one shot and rendering the next?

Re:Rising expectations

[dinfinity]

That doesn't have anything to do with the following statement: "However, that might mean they'd have to pay for at least double the computer time to do it."

Also, a slightly more complex rendering process is probably not going to offset 11 years of Moore's law by much. Then again, I guess there are plenty of ways to destroy rendering performance. Whether that is required, I doubt.

No soap, no opera

[tepples]

After 48fps becomes more common in movies, and older movies get interpolated the way Turner used to colorize black-and-white movies, it'll become harder to tell it's a soap opera for two reasons: 1. they're not singing, and 2. they're not singing about detergent.

CGI and motion blur

[aNonnyMouseCowered]

"24 fps with low-speed shutter (older analog cameras), where there is motion blur is ok; motion blur approaches what we see with a naked eye."

I'm not sure if it was one of Brendan Frasers's Mummy movies, but I remember watching a sword-and-sorcerers fantasy some years back. What I found jarring was the way the swords slashed the air. Their motion wasn't smooth but "jumped" in a quantum kind of way, as if I was looking at a rapid "sequence of stills". Was this because the CGI swords weren't rendered with enough motion blur? Or was this a side effect of the crappy film to video transfer of the DVD I watched?

We're not used to this level of clarity.

[MtViewGuy]

I think in the end, the problem is that with 48 fps and digital clarity, moviemakers will HAVE to completely rethink the way they do movies.

Most moviemakers are used to 24 fps and film, and they produce the movie to take account of this way of moviemaking. Problem is, at 48 fps digital, it's so clear that you have to essentially "relearn" how to make a movie to take full advantage of the high level of clarity now offered.

In which world do preferences not matter again?

[IBitOBear]

You will note that I said "warmer" not "better". Preferences vary and people can tell the difference no matter what you choose to beleive.

You know why there is artificial hiss added to VoIP? Because perfectly accurate digital silence is "not as good" as fake analog hiss when it comes to working with the human perceptions.

See, we are analog beasts. We evolved in an analog world. And we _like_ analog. Part of analog is signal _loss_ through smoothing. How much of which features of sound an individual _likes_ is an _individual_ taste.

Accuracy is not always king, and "better" isn't a universal place. You keep using "better" to mean "more accurate" so you have a religious-grade opinion over the someone esles' subjective experience. That kind-of makes you the dick pissing on other peoples preferences in the name of an absolute.

So you say accuracy is better, and they say warmer signal is better. Why do you think you are the one who gets to choose for everyone?

Hubris, my young man, is its own punishment. That you are bothered enough by a subjective opinion in others to the degree that it is rant-worthy means that you are suffering your own little mania.

Re:In which world do preferences not matter again?

[metaforest]

TL:DR: art is what you experience. YMMV.

This is really in reference to both you and the GP.

Digital or Analog: it does not matter.

With some exceptions due to cheaply made audio digitizing gear, there is no reason to capture audio with anything but the cleanest path you can manage.

At 96KSPS and 24 bits you can capture everything from a cockroach fart at 50m to a F-22 raptor in full afterburner right on the mic. The real limitation is the microphone. So lets assume that some mic diaphram made of di-unobtanium-obscurium can provide perfect, flat, sensitivity for the full range. It is indestructible, it has no mass, and responds precisely and predictably from 0.1 Hz up to 48Khz in a perfect cardoid pattern with no side-lobes.

We capture a live sound-field in stereo with a nice X-Y config and low and behold we a have a pristine recording of that field. Every single pressure transient that the ears can possibly respond to is perfectly represented in the data stream.

It sounds like hammered shit. Why? Because the ears do not work the way the above recording chain does. Well, ok that is fine. What we want is all there. Everything is there. Or is it? Well, I could go into a massive digression into why a two mic stereo recording setup is not even close in terms of capturing a sound-field as a person hears it, but I am not going to write a book on psycho-acoustics here.

We had a reason for digitizing this particular sound-field. There is a woman singing in the room near the mics. She has headphones on and she is singing to a recording of the backing band that is part of the recording sessions for her next album.

In the recording of this woman's singing we have captured a lot of 'stuff' that really is not part of the performance. And though it is not 'noise' in the classic analog sense of the word, it IS 'noise' in the perceptive sense since it competes with the singer's voice for our attention.

In the older analog recording approach we avoid recording anything we don't want and there are tradeoffs in suppressing some components of the sound field and enhancing others. A large part of what a recording engineer does is sculpting the pre-recording signal chain to min-max the desired elements of the subject.

In the digital recording system we could use the same approach and get the same tradeoffs. The final result will sound like an analog recording. Because the only thing different is the point at which the Analog to digital conversion takes place. We could digress here about distortions introduced by the recording medium ad nausium and get nowhere. At 24 bits the 'noise floor' of decent recording system (and not even a very expensive one) is so low that you could not hear it even if you put isolation-headphones on and cranked the monitor amp to '11' (Do not try this at home!) the damned headphone amp would make more noise!

So we have a (nearly)'colorless' recording system with no distortion in the human hearing regime.. why does it suck ass when we listen to the unaltered output of a perfect recording-chain?

Because we have trained ourselves to accept and interpret signal distortion. Depending on our personal interests, and how we were raised, how we damaged our ears, the types of distortion and quantities of distortion we process are as unique as the shape of our skulls and the meaty bits around our ears, including the various bangles we choose to staple to to them. This, and much more, strongly influences what we hear and how we interpret what we hear.

From the sound-fields we listen to, we try to extract (quite literally) exactly what we want to hear. If what we want to hear does not exist in a recorded sound-field, well guess what⦠we don't like that recording.

So now we go back to the 96KSPS 24 bit signal chain it is as perfect as it getsâ¦. might as well be a block of marble. Because what needs to be done to it is to start chipping away anything that does not support the performance of that woma

Half of the 11 years

[tepples]

I'll assume everything is pixel shader bound, and pixels per second scale linearly with the doubling of transistor density every 1.5 years. Then adding 3D, 4K (3840x2160) resolution, and 48 FPS would only offset 5.5 years: 1.5 for the 3D, 2.5 for the 4K, and 1.5 for the FPS. The more complex shaders would have to take at least ten times longer to evaluate in order to offset the other half of the 11 years.

Re:Tired of Luddites calling higher FPS "soap oper

[pavon]

Jackson has stated that they used post processing to do the 48 to 24 down-conversion rather than just dropping frames. And many (most?) films these days perform color correction in post processing. I would expect that anyone who is making the jump to 48fps digital won't be shy of using modern digital post processing.

I finally got to see it last night

[Andy Prough]

in 24 FPS. Fantastic movie. Once again, Jackson was pretty loose and wild with the story line, but the movie was funny, exciting, and visually amazing. I don't know if I'll ever get the chance to see it in 48 FPS.

Telecine transform

[jhantin]

This is done by way of a process which duplicates every 6th frame.

Not exactly. The telecine 2:3 pulldown conversion is from 24 full frames per second to ~60 interlaced fields (half-frames) per second, which means 4 input frames get converted to 10 output fields. In a straight 2:3 pulldown, film frames ABCD are output as interlaced fields AABBBCCDDD. This transform interacts badly with naïve deinterlacing though: if you just pair off the fields, you get AA BB BC CD DD, leaving you with two mixed-up frames and no intact C frame. Some other pulldown patterns are better behaved when naïvely deinterlaced, such as 2:3:3:2 which produces AA BB BC CC DD.

Many nonlinear editing toolkits, and maybe even a few viewing sets, can recognize when pulldown has been applied and remove it, reconstructing video at the original frame rate.

Definitely not distracting

[HalAtWork]

I've had that 120Hz smooth motion stuff enabled on my TV for a year now, and watching anything without it makes it look stuttery and it's jarring. Once I've gotten used to a smooth frame rate, I've started to prefer it; It looks much more natural and it's easier on the eyes.

Japanese animation is great

[HalAtWork]

Since when is Japanese animation low quality? They have a lower frame rate (15fps) but have much more detail in each frame. The characters are never off model, like in american animation. Individual frames never have mistakes such as using the wrong color in one spot. There is more variety to the color palette. Backgrounds don't repeat as often. Character motion is much more realistic and even when it's not intended to (for a comedic intent, etc), it's modelled more consistently. Shadows are drawn more often and more realistically. I admire and appreciate the quality greatly. It's really funny because as a kid I felt it was much higher quality, and it really made me notice the imperfections in domestic animation.

A little presumptious, aren't you?

[JigJag]

(From the summary) Yet it's also something that you've never seen before

Sorry to burst your bubble, but I've seen this technology about 20 YEARS ago in a theme-park designed for technology and sound/visual effects in France called 'le Futuroscope'. On the same trip I saw a 3D movie using active shutters and a functional VR game (think what The Plague was playing in the movie Hackers).

I have no idea what sort of new stuff they have there, but it was a fabulous destination for any kids sorta interested in techs.

Re:Everyone should be happy about this.

[omnichad]

RealD uses polarized lenses and there's no perceptible ghosting of images at all. The movie was plenty bright, but brighter projectors are on the way.

Re:Why? 60hz power is why

[drkoemans]

Also the same reason PAL is 50hz, Europe uses a different AC frequency. Both NTSC and PAL were synchronized to our respective power systems.

I saw it

[roc97007]

I saw The Hobbit at 48 FPS 3D over the weekend. My thoughts:

That it looks like video tape: Exaggerated. The film was a little too sharp, and that combined with the lack of motion blur makes it look a little video-tapish, but not enough to distract from the film. It took mere minutes to get used to the presentation, not "a half hour" like some have claimed.

Depth of field issues (everything in focus, no visual cues to direct the viewer to the object the director wants you to look at): Partially true, mostly in the indoor scenes. I wonder, though, how much of that was due to the forced perspective used to get the size of the characters right. It did seem like the director sometimes slapped forehead and said to himself "Depth of field! Foreground out of focus, now!" and suddenly it would be so. But I don't think this is necessarily an artifact of the technology. Rather, it seemed to be a director's unfamiliarity with the new equipment, something that should improve with time.

Vertigo: Pretty much the opposite. 3D movies make my wife nauseous, and this is the first 3D movie she could watch without feeling sick. The increased frame rate is a definite win for 3D. However, we were both a little wobbly walking out of the theater. It might be a good idea to wait until the end of the credits to allow one's self to recapture one's equilibrium.

On the lack of motion blur, I don't think we're quite there yet. Yes, there was no discernible motion blur, and the clarity of action scenes took some getting used to. However, there was still an occasional, noticeable judder in the action, (about once every 7 or 8 seconds when a lot of things were happening) that looks exactly like a computer that isn't quite keeping up with the data rate required for the video, or a graphics card suddenly loading a lot of textures, which makes me wonder if the theaters were truly prepared to show this film.

All in all, neither a shining experience nor a total mess, but elements of both. I saw it as an experiment, and won't necessarily pay extra for 48 FPS unless I thought the movie would really benefit from it. (But I'm not a big fan of 3D either.)

As someone who has seen three versions

[MotorMachineMercenar]

I've seen The Hobbit in 3D HFR, 3D IMAX HFR, and plain old 2D 24fps, in that order. Note that I don't have stereo vision, so the 3D part doesn't impact my experience, other than the 3D versions are darker (not really an issue in a darkened theater IMO).

I really, really wanted to like HFR. I went in all gung-ho, looking forward to embrace a smoother future. 48fps took a while to get used to. But even after I got used to it, it looked worse. It's like watching BBC's Life documentary with pasted on hobbits and dwarves in costumes. Just like HDTV brings out flaws in make-up, 48fps makes animation flaws much more visible. As there is a LOT of CGI in the movie, such scenes look even more CGI than they do in 24fps. Somehow also the live action scenes look like they're happening on a sound stage more than they do in plain old 24fps. 48fps breaks the fourth wall, and it's never mended. At least it didn't for me in two viewings.

As an aside, Peter Jackson uses extensive frame rate manipulation: many action scenes are shot in slow motion. I actually thought this was my brain playing tricks on me until I saw the 24fps version and confirmed to myself there are slomo sections.

I sincerely hope that 48fps will take over some day, but not in its current incarnation. My layman but movie buff proposal is variable frame rate: use 24fps where it works, but switch to higher fps for panning shots and otherwise difficult shots which don't really work in 24fps.

To close off, I'm going to see The Hobbit at least once more in the theater, in 24fps and perhaps one more in 48fps. It's a stunningly beautiful movie not only visuall, but aurally as well as story-wise, and PJ has (re)created a rich world that I recognize from the books and LotR movies.

Why 48fps is better

[jotaass]

I'm glad they did this. The movie was already too long, at 3 hours. At 24fps it would be 6! 6 hours of things not happening. Brrr

Re:No, 24 is more realistic. Really.

[drkim]

...24 frames is a compromise that seems to adequately emulate the normal reality of human eye...

???

The "normal reality of human eye" is presented to us at an "infinite" frame rate.

24 FPS was just the slowest rate they could find (saving film stock) that could be used successfully with sync sound systems.

24 FPS was not chosen because it looked good.

And BTW, You've never seen a movie at 24 FPS (unless you watch on a Moviola.) Theaters project film "double-flashed" (to reduce flicker) so every film you've ever seen is blinking onto the screen at 48 FPS, but with every two flashes repeating the same frame information.