The FPS debate..

[Destroysall]

Hi! So I had a simple question to inquire to all those using a DSLR for film making. I consistently run into a debate with my university peers on the best frame rate to shoot short films with. My opinion is 24 frames per second is always the best choice because of how cinematic it appears and because of how commonly it is used within industry. I am usually disagreed with by others who are more in favor for the TV standard 30 frames per second.

Can someone share some light onto this for me? For making short films, is it better to shoot in 24 frames per second or no?

 

[lostless]

30 fsp and 24 look very similar. Tv actually runs at 60fps.,but not all shows run at 60. As far as choosing a frame rate, it's up to you and what you want to see. 24 fps will give you a choppy, blurry look like any other movie. Motion blur is used to give 24 fps a constant motion look. Just pause any fast motion in any movie and see how much blur there actualy is. Some say that the lack of detail gives movies their fictional feel as higher framerates may expose the detail of the fakeness. 30 It gives you a slightly more detail. 60 fps is very detailed and looks like real life. Just think of a soap opera or sports on tv. It's very smooth. Just pick what you find pleasing and don't worry what others say. There is no standard.

 

[acearchie]

30 fsp and 24 look very similar. Tv actually runs at 60fps.,but not all shows run at 60.

Tvs run at 50/60Hz (with higher modes available on special TVs).

In the respective countries this should not change the perception of 25/30 fps content.

 

[ColdCase]

In the days of expensive and slow memory, slow imaging chips, 24fps made a lot of sense.

24fps will provide more of a traditional movie effect.

With todays relatively inexpensive memory and fast chips, one can dabble with 60 or 120fps. Much better for documentaries, science, sports, wildlife video.

As far as 24/30, pick the one that is closer to the intended audience. If folks are watching on a TV, then video with 30 or 60 will go through less processing to be displayed and have less artifacts. I your destination is a 24fps (48 or 96) TV, DVD, or BlueRay then shooting at 24 or some multiple will result in less processing artifacts.

The difference is in the details and subtle look and feel. My kids, who are more interested in superior story than superior technical video, could care less about frame rates.

 

[Unami]

24 (or 25 or 30) will get you closer to the look you know from the movies, 50 or 60 fps will convey more of a videogame/sports/realityshow/soap feeling. if you watched the hobbit in hfr and thought "this looks cheap" then don't shoot in 60fps. but, as usual, shoot some test footage of the same scene in both framerates and decide for yourself. there should not be much of a difference between 24 and 30 fps, maybe 30fps looks a bit smoother. and you can pan faster without a shutter effect. but it's definitely not gonna make or break your film.

 

[Small White Car]

There are "right" answers depending on what you're trying to emulate. There's no debate there.

If you want to look live TV news, 30
If you want to look like a theatrical movie, 24
If you want it to look like a TV drama, 24
If you want it to look like a TV sitcom, 30
etc.

Why I put "right' in quotes is that it's ok to subvert these choices for artistic reasons. If someone has a reason to want their short film to be at 30 fps then they're welcome to do that. Like, if you're doing a Blair Witch styled 'found footage' film it might make perfect sense to shoot that at 30 fps even though you're trying to make a dramatic theatrical movie.

The point is that if your friends are arguing that short films should normally be at 30 fps they are simply wrong. But if they're arguing that they have a reason to make them at 30 then, of course, that's perfectly fine.

This stuff is starting to blend more and more. I really like shooting at 24 fps and then editing at 30 so that my graphics look smoother but my people still look dramatic. An extended version of that might be to shoot documentary b-roll at 30 fps and interiews at 24 fps and then edit them all at 30.

There's a lot of fun possibilities. Don't take anything I said as a hard rule to be followed.

If folks are watching on a TV, then video with 30 or 60 will go through less processing to be displayed and have less artifacts. I your destination is a 24fps (48 or 96) TV, DVD, or BlueRay then shooting at 24 or some multiple will result in less processing artifacts.

Sorry, but I totally disagree with this. The choice should be made for artistic reasons alone. Once the choice has been made it will play fine everywhere. I've been a video editor for 15 years and I've never heard of "artifacts" being caused by watching a movie on a TV.

For example, I often watch Batman Begins on my TV, my computer, and my phone and there's no problem on any of them.

 

[ColdCase]

Sorry, but I totally disagree with this. The choice should be made for artistic reasons alone. Once the choice has been made it will play fine everywhere. I've been a video editor for 15 years and I've never heard of "artifacts" being caused by watching a movie on a TV.

For example, I often watch Batman Begins on my TV, my computer, and my phone and there's no problem on any of them.

You must not be watching on a 60 inch 120hz monitor or large projector If you are watching on a 42 or 50 inch screen... then you may need a keep eye, iPad you would probably would not notice artifacts. The pull down effect can be dramatic to those of us that can tell.... jagged fine lines, not enough shades of grey... but its like the artistic argument, what is artistic to one is nonsense to another.

I think ist more important to consider the intended audience, what equipment they are using, and how you want the video to be viewed, be it technically correct or muddled by artistic license.

 

[Small White Car]

You must not be watching on a 60 inch 120hz monitor or large projector If you are watching on a 42 or 50 inch screen...

So you're telling me that you bought a large TV that all Hollywood movies and dramatic TV look bad on?

That's just odd to me because I've seen plenty of Hollywood films on many different TVs at many different people's houses and they always seem to work just fine.

or muddled by artistic license.

But I guess there's not much point in debating it because you clearly have very different priorities than me if you think the artists' vision is some kind of problem you have to work around rather than the entire point of the thing.

 

[Unami]

there's definitely some processing going on that can make a movie look like crap on a lot of TVs. just watch a movie on a samsung tv out of the box, in all it's 400hz interpolating, contrast enhancing, noise reducing & sharpening "glory".

see also: http://prolost.com/blog/2011/3/28/your-new-tv-ruins-movies.html

but most of the time, as a content producer, you can't control that anyways, so yes, the decision should be made on artistic reasons alone.

 

[joema2]

...I consistently run into a debate with my university peers on the best frame rate to shoot short films with....For making short films, is it better to shoot in 24 frames per second or no?

The #1 thing is shoot at the same frame rate from all cameras on all events for a given project. You don't want to mix 24 and 30 fps material unless it's unavoidable. This is because conforming 24 to 30 requires 3:2 pulldown: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-two_pull_down. It's OK for an entire program -- in fact we watch movies on TV like this. But when rapidly switching scenes on serious material that was shot with intermixed 24 and 30 fps cameras, it doesn't always look right.

Conforming 30 fps to 24 fps is even harder, but with modern digital processing such as optical flow and motion estimation it can be done. However it's ideally best avoided.

The #2 thing is consider the playback mechanism. Traditionally you want your shooting frame rate to match this. Thus 24 fps for cinema and 30 (29.97) fps for TV. However with increasing use of streaming video and computer playback, it's more complicated.

E.g, some streaming video players (inc'l Youtube, I think) formerly played 24 fps material at 30 fps, so they were internally doing 3:2 pulldown. More recently I think Youtube can play 24 fps material at 24 fps, so this is less a factor.

But if your distribution will include Youtube, Vimeo, Blu-Ray, etc, you have to investigate and consider all these.

In general a common practice for mixed (but predominately web) distribution is shoot at 30 fps for shorter form material and 24 fps for longer form subjects.

None of this will make much difference when shooting DSLR video if the camera is set to aperture priority or fully programmed. In that case the shutter speed will be constantly varying, and even though the frame rate may be fixed at 24 or 30 fps, the resultant material often looks poor. IOW if you get so fixated on frame rate and forget about shutter speed, this can negate any artistic or technical goals.

Shutter speed should generally be locked at about 2x the frame rate (e.g, 1/60th sec for 30 fps). This is called the 180 degree shutter rule. https://luispower2013.wordpress.com/2013/03/12/the-180-degree-rule/

This requires shooting DSLR video in full manual or shutter priority.

 

[LethalWolfe]

In the US HDTV is broadcast at either 1080i60 or 720p60 (it depends on which channel you are watching). I think some cable/sat providers are offering some content at 1080p24 and 1080p60 but it's pretty rare in the grand scheme of things.

As others have said frame rate is an artistic choice. If you want to get a more cinematic look then shooting at 24p is a place to start. If you wanted to shoot something that had a 'found footage' look then shooting 30 or 60fps would lend a more 'real' look to the footage.

 

[Rockadile]

The #1 thing is shoot at the same frame rate from all cameras on all events for a given project. You don't want to mix 24 and 30 fps material unless it's unavoidable. This is because conforming 24 to 30 requires 3:2 pulldown: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-two_pull_down. It's OK for an entire program -- in fact we watch movies on TV like this. But when rapidly switching scenes on serious material that was shot with intermixed 24 and 30 fps cameras, it doesn't always look right.

Conforming 30 fps to 24 fps is even harder, but with modern digital processing such as optical flow and motion estimation it can be done. However it's ideally best avoided.

The #2 thing is consider the playback mechanism. Traditionally you want your shooting frame rate to match this. Thus 24 fps for cinema and 30 (29.97) fps for TV. However with increasing use of streaming video and computer playback, it's more complicated.

E.g, some streaming video players (inc'l Youtube, I think) formerly played 24 fps material at 30 fps, so they were internally doing 3:2 pulldown. More recently I think Youtube can play 24 fps material at 24 fps, so this is less a factor.

But if your distribution will include Youtube, Vimeo, Blu-Ray, etc, you have to investigate and consider all these.

In general a common practice for mixed (but predominately web) distribution is shoot at 30 fps for shorter form material and 24 fps for longer form subjects.

None of this will make much difference when shooting DSLR video if the camera is set to aperture priority or fully programmed. In that case the shutter speed will be constantly varying, and even though the frame rate may be fixed at 24 or 30 fps, the resultant material often looks poor. IOW if you get so fixated on frame rate and forget about shutter speed, this can negate any artistic or technical goals.

Shutter speed should generally be locked at about 2x the frame rate (e.g, 1/60th sec for 30 fps). This is called the 180 degree shutter rule. https://luispower2013.wordpress.com/2013/03/12/the-180-degree-rule/

This requires shooting DSLR video in full manual or shutter priority.

Newb question:
Is it possible to shoot in 60 fps or higher and than edit it to play like it was shot in 24 or 30 (not slo-mo)?

 

[LethalWolfe]

Newb question:
Is it possible to shoot in 60 fps or higher and than edit it to play like it was shot in 24 or 30 (not slo-mo)?

Yes. Editing in a 30 fps timeline is easy because the software basically skips every other frame. In a 24 frame timeline is a bit trickery because 60 does not divide easily by 24 so the motion might be jerky as frames are skipped at irregular intervals.

 

[Meister]

Newb question:
Is it possible to shoot in 60 fps or higher and than edit it to play like it was shot in 24 or 30 (not slo-mo)?

Yes, but it will not have the "movie look".
24fps are used to create more motion blur while recording.

 

[Rockadile]

Yes, but it will not have the "movie look".
24fps are used to create more motion blur while recording.

Is it because most people use 1/50 during 24fps compared to 1/120 60fps recording?

 

[Meister]

Is it because most people use 1/50 during 24fps compared to 1/120 60fps recording?

More fps means a shorter exposure for each frame, which means less motion blur. The classic 24fps movies have quite a lot of blurred motion in each frame and our brain has come to accept this as the "movie look".

 

[LethalWolfe]

Besides the motion blur, which can be manipulated by the shutter setting, (ex. the beach scene in "Saving Private Ryan" looks choppy because the shutter was set in such a way as to drastically cut down on the amount of motion blur) there is the motion itself. Shooting at high frame rates provides smoother looking motion than shooting at 24fps and as Meister mentioned we've come to associate the more jittery/choppy motion signature of 24fps with film/cinema and the smoother motion of 30 or 60fps with home video cameras, TV news and soap operas.

Some people don't like how jittery/choppy movies can look and that's why TV makers created motion smoothing settings for their TV sets (which I think make movies look like ass but to each their own).

 

[handsome pete]

Besides the motion blur, which can be manipulated by the shutter setting, (ex. the beach scene in "Saving Private Ryan" looks choppy because the shutter was set in such a way as to drastically cut down on the amount of motion blur) there is the motion itself. Shooting at high frame rates provides smoother looking motion than shooting at 24fps and as Meister mentioned we've come to associate the more jittery/choppy motion signature of 24fps with film/cinema and the smoother motion of 30 or 60fps with home video cameras, TV news and soap operas.

Some people don't like how jittery/choppy movies can look and that's why TV makers created motion smoothing settings for their TV sets (which I think make movies look like ass but to each their own).

Motion smoothing is one of the worst television "features" ever created. I cant stand it when over at someone else's place and their tv has it turned on, usually because it was turned on by default out of the box.

We might be getting more and more higher framerate content in the future and that's fine, even if I don't like that much either. But adding these frame interpolating algorithms to 24 or 30 fps content is garbage.

 

[Destroysall]

Motion smoothing is one of the worst television "features" ever created. I cant stand it when over at someone else's place and their tv has it turned on, usually because it was turned on by default out of the box.

We might be getting more and more higher framerate content in the future and that's fine, even if I don't like that much either. But adding these frame interpolating algorithms to 24 or 30 fps content is garbage.

Are you taking about the refresh rates? If so, I am still a huge advocate of 60Hz displays. Anything higher than that is good maybe for video games or 3D, but nothing else in my opinion.

 

[LethalWolfe]

Motion smoothing is one of the worst television "features" ever created. I cant stand it when over at someone else's place and their tv has it turned on, usually because it was turned on by default out of the box.

Every time I see it at someone else's house I always want to grab the remote, dig into the TV settings and turn it off. I feel like that would be rude though.

 

[handsome pete]

Are you taking about the refresh rates? If so, I am still a huge advocate of 60Hz displays. Anything higher than that is good maybe for video games or 3D, but nothing else in my opinion.

No, we're talking about the artificial motion smoothing (different manufacturers have different names for it) that is common on most newer tvs.

----------

Every time I see it at someone else's house I always want to grab the remote, dig into the TV settings and turn it off. I feel like that would be rude though.

I have the same urge but have also restrained myself. I don't know how people don't notice it.

 

[Destroysall]

Yes. Editing in a 30 fps timeline is easy because the software basically skips every other frame. In a 24 frame timeline is a bit trickery because 60 does not divide easily by 24 so the motion might be jerky as frames are skipped at irregular intervals.

Can I ask this, you can edit 24 fps footage on a 30 fps timeline and no hiccups would be seen?

What are the best import settings (using Premiere Pro) for DSLR footage shot at 1080p/24p?

Thanks everyone for the feedback so far. I'm definitely learning a lot about the subject thanks to the insightful comments.

 

[Unami]

I have the same urge but have also restrained myself. I don't know how people don't notice it.

i usually just take the remote and turn all that crap off. people are glad, when i tell them that i set up their tv to look more "filmic" - although, most won't notice the difference.

 

[Small White Car]

Can I ask this, you can edit 24 fps footage on a 30 fps timeline and no hiccups would be seen?

What are the best import settings (using Premiere Pro) for DSLR footage shot at 1080p/24p?

Thanks everyone for the feedback so far. I'm definitely learning a lot about the subject thanks to the insightful comments.

It's blissfully easy these days. You used to have to do actual math for this stuff but the instructions for any editing software these days is "take the 24 footage and drop it in the 30 timeline and you're done."

Thus you don't need to import it in any special way. Just get the footage in there and the software knows what to do with it.

 

[joema2]

Can I ask this, you can edit 24 fps footage on a 30 fps timeline and no hiccups would be seen?...

Yes you can do this, and the editing software will usually conform the 24 fps material to 30 fps by some method (typically but not necessarily 3:2 pulldown).

If the project is mostly 30 fps and the 24 fps material is visually segregated, it can work OK. E.g, a b-roll cutaway or location shot or flashback.

OTOH if on a two-camera interview one is at 24 and the other at 30 fps, you will be cutting back and forth between them on the same subject. Even after frame rate conversion, the 24-to-30 material will look a little different from the 30 fps material, when viewed back-to-back.

For this reason you ideally want all cameras shooting the same frame rate. What that frame rate is will vary based on artistic preference and delivery requirements. Each network or recipient has their own content delivery specifications.