Film framerate

[slapnutz]

Are films still being captured at 24frames?

What about digital (e.g. Revenge of the Sith, Once upon a time in Mexico)?

Lastly, whats to stop them from increasing the rate to say 60fps and can Blu-ray playback 1080p @ 60fps?

I'm guessing the main negative of doing 60fps on analogue is the cost of extra film?

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Is there actually any effect if you'd have 60fps?

 

[AlNom]

You may want to peruse this thread. There was much... *heated discussion* towards the end there regarding the framerate and market adoption and many other interesting things.

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=50646

 

[Sdw]

The main negative of filming @ 60fps is that every movie would look like a cheap home video or TV-series - the same effect you get with those awful new 100/120/200 bazillion Hz interpolating crap that many TV-manufacturers put in nowadays.

 

[dizietsma]

Rather than the flickery overloud mess they throw at you in the cinema ... and you pay over the odds to get a crappier experience.

 

[green.pixel]

Rather than the flickery overloud mess they throw at you in the cinema ...

Don't projectors in theatres open shutter twice per frame or something like that to eliminate the flicker ?

 

[Xmas]

Don't projectors in theatres open shutter twice per frame or something like that to eliminate the flicker ?

They do, but going from 24 to 48 Hz hardly eliminates flicker, it just means that it's not entirely unwatchable.

 

[green.pixel]

Well, I only have problems with it when long pans show up. Everything else is ok.

 

[MfA]

Is there actually any effect if you'd have 60fps?

You can have detailed action sequences without Saving Private Ryan style disjointedness.

Higher and higher resolutions are a bit of a waste if all they are showing is blurred pixels.

 

[Blazkowicz]

I saw 60fps cinema about 15 years ago in a theme park based on audiovisual and film techniques such as 3D, "moving chair", etc.

It looked very lifelike, like looking through a window. I've never seen anything like it.
It's like playing quake at 100fps instead of 30fps, a very different experience.

 

[WhiningKhan]

Last sunday, I watched a movie in a theatre with digital projector equipment. I think this was the first time for me (haven't been much to theatres for the last few years, having two small kids and all that...). I didn't know about the theatre's equipment in advance, but noticed it in the first second - the clarity and absence of noise in the picture looked pretty awesome.

But the background of opening credits showed a panning scene shot from an aeroplane or helicopter. Holy crap, that jerkyness could have triggered an epileptic seizure even on any healthy person, had it continued a little longer. What the hell? Are they really showing 24 discrete pictures without any interpolation in between? WHY?

It took about half an hour before I could stop being distracted all the time by the jerkiness that occurred on every panning shot. Maybe one can get accustomed to it, but to me, it was horrible.

 

[MfA]

"Interpolation would make it look like cheap video." Seriously that's how a lot of people think about it ... if you want to look at movies with motion compensated interpolation the only way to do it is at home.

Maybe part of the problem was simply a poorly adjusted projector though, if the projector doesn't put any black between frames you will get maximum judder (you can trade off judder for strobing to a certain extent).

 

[I.S.T.]

Last sunday, I watched a movie in a theatre with digital projector equipment. I think this was the first time for me (haven't been much to theatres for the last few years, having two small kids and all that...). I didn't know about the theatre's equipment in advance, but noticed it in the first second - the clarity and absence of noise in the picture looked pretty awesome.

But the background of opening credits showed a panning scene shot from an aeroplane or helicopter. Holy crap, that jerkyness could have triggered an epileptic seizure even on any healthy person, had it continued a little longer. What the hell? Are they really showing 24 discrete pictures without any interpolation in between? WHY?

It took about half an hour before I could stop being distracted all the time by the jerkiness that occurred on every panning shot. Maybe one can get accustomed to it, but to me, it was horrible.

It's not that bad at the DLP theater in town... I think that screening had a poorly adjusted or crappy projector.

 

[Simon F]

Don't projectors in theatres open shutter twice per frame or something like that to eliminate the flicker ?

They do, but going from 24 to 48 Hz hardly eliminates flicker, it just means that it's not entirely unwatchable.

Apparently, at least one of the new 3D digital projectors are doing 3 repeats per frame per eye.

The system used by Odeon - Real D - also reduces flicker by projecting each frame of film three times for each eye - a total of 144 frames per second.

 

[Davros]

The system used by Odeon - Real D - also reduces flicker by projecting each frame of film three times for each eye - a total of 144 frames per second

why dont they just leave the shutter open for 3 times as long?

 

[Xmas]

why dont they just leave the shutter open for 3 times as long?

For the same reason LCD manufacturers are introducing things like scanning backlight or black frame insertion: to avoid the blurring percieved by the human eye when transitioning from one stable image to another, i.e. hold-type displays.

 

[MfA]

At LCD rates you get blurring ... but with really low FPS like film you get judder (and with the multiple strobed exposure you get ghost images).

Film look = QUALITY.

 

[Simon F]

why dont they just leave the shutter open for 3 times as long?

You need to present a pair of images, one per eye, for each frame and having

(L)(R)(L)(R)(L)(R)

every 1/24th of a second is going to be far more pleasant than

(L)(L)(L)(R)(R)(R)

where the right eye would only "see" black during the (L) period.

I would think another reason for 'flashing' the image rather than holding it constant for the entire period, is related to keeping the effect similar to standard film projection.

• Cinema projectors flash the picture 2x per frame. I'm guessing there is both practical reasons (i.e there has to be an off period when the film is advanced) and also a theoretical reason.
• I'm no expert on D to A conversion but I'm led to believe (and this appears to be backed up) that the ideal approach to reconstruction is to use impulses rather than 'held' signals. If the image was thus held 'constant' it probably would look worse than the flashing technique. This seems to make sense given how motion looks better on a CRT than it does on standard LCD.

 

[Xmas]

Cinema projectors flash the picture 2x per frame. I'm guessing there is both practical reasons (i.e there has to be an off period when the film is advanced) and also a theoretical reason.

The perceived flickering would actually be a lot worse if you closed the shutter only 24 times a second for the film to advance, and held the frame constant in between.

And yes, flashing is better than holding for motion perception. The eye tries to follow the motion even while the image is held constant. This means that the displayed object is actually moving relative to the eye during that time, so you can't see it clearly. Hold-type displays will always exhibit some motion blur even with zero response time, unless you feed them with very high framerate content. That's why LCD manufacturers are trying to come up with ideas to create some kind of hybrid hold/impulse displays.

 

[Moloch]

I was playing around with the 72hz thing powerdvd9 has and wow.. do not want! Even on the lowest setting (of 2) it really does make it look like a cheap home video. I believe in 120hz tvs so there is less judder when doing pulldown but not in inserting frames to make it look smoother and more lifel ike.