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1080p at 60fps vs 4k at 30fps

What will you set your video preference to be?

  • 1080p 60fps

    Votes: 107 70.9%

  • 4k 30fps

    Votes: 44 29.1%
  • Total voters
    151
chimi said:
Can anyone explain if the "soap opera effect" would be visible on any of these iPhone video settings? I can't stand the effect and shut it off on my TV - I don't want my videos I shoot on the new iPhone to look soap-opera-ish. I'm thinking to avoid it, the 1080p at 30fps is best?
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I think you get the soap opera effect around 120hz and when "smart" TVs start adding image processing effects that are intended to make motion smoother and more fluid. Shouldn't be a problem on your iPhone.

Edit: Unless you then try to *watch* said video on a TV with those annoying settings turned on.
 
I will probably run a camera test in an open environment in order to see if there are any noticeable differences suggesting the 1080P60 to be superior to the 4K30. If not, I will probably opt for 4K.
 
Here's my opinion on the options on the iP6s

720/30 - Meh. This is 2015
1080/30 - Good for those who don't like the look of 60fps video and don't have a lot of space
1080/60 - The best option IMO. Decent enough resolution with a great frame rate and also digital stabilisation so the image won't be as shaky
4K/30 - Good for test videos and professional shoots, but only on the 6s+ because of the optical image stabilisation.
 
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chimi said:
Can anyone explain if the "soap opera effect" would be visible on any of these iPhone video settings? I can't stand the effect and shut it off on my TV - I don't want my videos I shoot on the new iPhone to look soap-opera-ish. I'm thinking to avoid it, the 1080p at 30fps is best?
Click to expand...
Very complex. Your TV is up-sampling to 120 or 240fps. There are basically 2 types of TV content, Film (and digital 'film')/24fps and video /60fps. 24fps content has blur since it has so few frames. While this is actually unnatural our brains are wired from watching 'film' content all our lives to expect this. Our brains switch to non blur when watching 'video' content like sports, game shows, news and soap operas (hence the name). Up-sampling TVs try to reproduce the 'video' look from 'film'. However the blur is still there and this causes a conflict in what we see and IS unnatural.
 
For me, I will go for 4K 30FPS. Because I can easily downgrade it to 1080P 30Hz, and if required I can convert it back to 1080P 60FPS (without significant difference than real 1080P 60FPS recorded video).

However, there is no way to upscale a 1080P 60FPS video to 4K 30FPS but still shows more or less the same details as the real 4K video.
 
h9826790 said:
For me, I will go for 4K 30FPS. Because I can easily downgrade it to 1080P 30Hz, and if required I can convert it back to 1080P 60FPS (without significant difference than real 1080P 60FPS recorded video).
Click to expand...

Just... no.

If you're taking footage of anything that has a lot of fast movement, and vibration in particular (e.g., motorsport in my case) 30 fps gives you nasty artefacts where the vibration makes things difficult to see due to being of a frequency that doesn't work well with lower frame rates whereas with 60 fps enables the video to show more of the movement of the vibration better so it looks more clear.

30 FPS is probably fine for nature, people, etc. but if you're dealing with anything with higher frequency motion it sucks.
 
30fps sucks in every condition.

Record a video and move your hand slowly. Your video is full of artefacts.
 
I have run a test outside and it is evident, the 4K has a substantially better image quality. Although, the fluid nature of the 1080P60 makes it appear a far supreme format on the phone in both portrait (A sin people will commit) and landscape. So if you plan on moving the phone, definitely use 1080P60. But if you would like to keep the phone still and be filming something that is moving you would probably be fine with 4k, yet I will be using 1080P 60 in most cases.
 
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Why not just record with slo-mo 1080P at 120 and then don't play it back in slo-mo ? Serious question. If everyone believes that 60 > 30 then wouldn't 120 > 60?
 
kbuck1984 said:
Why not just record with slo-mo 1080P at 120 and then don't play it back in slo-mo ? Serious question. If everyone believes that 60 > 30 then wouldn't 120 > 60?
Click to expand...

Yes, 120 would possibly be > 60, but most TVs and monitors don't do 120 FPS (most LCD are 60Hz refresh rate so playing 120 fps content on them will just drop every other frame anyway).

If i had gear capable of playing 120 FPS i'd be using my Hero3 Black in 720p120 rather than 1080p60 for sure.

Or at least trying it out to see whether i can tell the difference. But in my experience, 30 FPS is just too slow for what I shoot. If i had gear capable of doing 4k 60 fps of course 4k would be better but...
 
Mine would be if i had the 6S Plus: 1080p@60FPS but i would jump to 4K if it could do 60FPS which is what i'm hoping from the 7. File size doesn't bother me since i'll have the 128GB version.
 
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throAU said:
Just... no.....

30 FPS is probably fine for nature, people, etc. but if you're dealing with anything with higher frequency motion it sucks.
Click to expand...

I didn't say 30FPS looks more or less the same as 60FPS, but AFTER CONVERSION (properly), it can looks like native 60FPS video without significant different.

I did that many times in FCPX (use optical flow analysis). I can even convert a 24FPS video (from the very old iphone 4) to a 60FPS video which looks like record at 60FPS natively. Of course not all video works, especially if there is a sharp straight line in a very fast moving scenes. That straight line may shows artifacts after conversion.

May be because I am just a normal user. Most of the time, I am just making home video, but not recording something like motosport. So, I prefer more details than higher FPS. Especially there is an effective way for me to "fix" a 30FPS video to 60FPS, but no "fix" for 1080 to 4K.

Therefore, if I can only choose one format (and no idea what kind of video is going to record), I will choose 4K 30FPS over 1080P 60FPS. This is mainly based on the "possible fix". However, if I know that I need 60FPS in the end (e.g. recording motosports in your case), I will still prefer to record the video at 60FPS natively, so that I don't need to do any conversion afterward.
 
I wish the Camera had the setting/toggle on top to choose between the 2 options real fast in the app

I will leave mine at 4K just because of that , if I'm out walking and I see an alien space ship I want to get the best quality before it moves away

But people here say 60fps is better for motion

Tough decision
 
60fps is better for alien ships in case you need to freeze frame ;)
 
I wish iOS had a setting to natively shoot in 24fps. I love the TV-show look for home movies. I have apps that will shoot 1080p 24fps but they take forever to save the video once you're done shooting. Multiple times have I missed shooting video of something I was expected to shoot because of the delay.
 
I just wish I could shoot at 1080p/24. Looks much more natural. Problem with the phones though is that there's no built in neutral density filter to keep the shutter speed locked at 1/2xframerate, which provides the most natural look.
 
Jman13 said:
I just wish I could shoot at 1080p/24. Looks much more natural. Problem with the phones though is that there's no built in neutral density filter to keep the shutter speed locked at 1/2xframerate, which provides the most natural look.
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Natural? I think not. "More like a regular movie or TV" (i.e., what you're used to) maybe.

Your brain runs at more than 24 fps.... the things you see in real life are not capped at 24 fps.
 
throAU said:
Natural? I think not. "More like a regular movie or TV" (i.e., what you're used to) maybe.

Your brain runs at more than 24 fps.... the things you see in real life are not capped at 24 fps.
Click to expand...

Of course not, but our brains also see motion blur when things move, and something shot at 24p at 1/50s feels much better to me than something shot at 30 or 60fps. The cinematic feel is way better to me than any of the others.
 
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