Why 24fps for film

This is especially important to consider when uploading videos to online streaming sites such as YouTube, Vimeo, and Screencast. Higher quality video is always the most desirable, but larger file sizes require better internet connections and computer hardware to stream at its highest quality.

Download a free trial! Choosing a frame rate requires some thought, and if you take into consideration the four key points outlined above, you should find success. Get out there and make some great videos! Check out the video below for a great walkthrough on making your first video with TechSmith Camtasia. Skip to content.

Why does frame rate matter? How do I choose the best frame rate for my video? What are the different types of frame rates? What is frame rate? Is one frame rate better than another? A few other things on this particular subject:. I love the flicker. Due to technical and cost constraints, we have a standard: 24 frames per second, a three bladed shutter and some dreamy motion blur, all projected as shadow and light on the side of a wall.

We watch movies the way our great-grandparents did, it connects us with a shared ritual. While there have been fads like stereoscopic 3D, extra wide-framing and eardrum-shattering sound systems, most films are still shown the same, simple way.

That is, until recently. Digital cinema, decoupled from the pricey mechanical world of celluloid film stock, has allowed frame rates to explode into a crazy collection of use cases.

High speed meaning slow motion used to mean shooting film at frames per second and playing them back at Now it means using an array of digital cameras working together to shoot a trillion frames per second and record light beams bouncing off of surfaces. That means, Stereoscopic a separate picture for each eye 3D creating the illusion of 3 dimensions HFR high frame rate, like frames per second.

Peter Jackson did this on the Hobbit films, the reviews were mixed. Stepping into a movie, which is what S3D HFR is trying to emulate, is not what we do at movie theaters. This new format throws so much information at your brain, while simultaneously removing the 2D depth cues limited depth of field and temporal artifacts motion blur and flicker that we are all accustomed to seeing. But there is a medium where high frame rates are desired and chased after: the modern video game.

From photorealistic, real-time rendering pipelines to supremely high frame rates, digital gaming systems are pushing the envelope for performance.

Game engineers build systems utilizing massive parallel processing graphics engines GPUs —computers within the computer that exist purely to push pixels onto the screen. Modern video games are a non-stop visual assault of objects moving at high speed, and a gaming POV that can be pointed anywhere at will by the player. All this kinetic, frenetic action requires high frame rates 60, 90, fps to keep up.

A technology pioneered to let you mow down digital zombies at frames per second is also why Siri answers your questions a little better. However, only certain theaters actually showed the higher frame rate versions. As such, even if you saw these films in theaters, you may have seen the converted 24 FPS version anyway.

One of the main problems with moving away from 24 FPS is that everyone is used to it. When The Hobbit was released, many were skeptical. This is a common complaint about a higher frame rate. By applying more realistic and smoother motion, it becomes harder to suspend your disbelief. Sets look like sets, costumes like costumes. In fact, your smartphone can do that and more. However, there are still costs associated with a higher frame rate.

It uses more storage space, which in turn needs bigger capacity devices and more backup space. That might change with new generations of filmmakers, but for now 24 FPS is here to stay. Joe Foster explores why 24fps still reigns and whether higher frame rate films will ever usurp the longtime standard.

No matter how technologically advanced a piece of kit can get, one element that never changes is human perception and comfortable familiarity. Nowhere is this more true than in the world of film. Someone else may also choose to utilise less perfect lenses, like Janusz Kaminski shooting Saving Private Ryan with older, stripped down Panavision Ultraspeeds, instead super sharp and new lenses.

The same is true for the frame rates that we shoot at. There has always been a deeply passionate romance with shooting at 24 frames per second fps for films. While we may marvel at the frames we can record per second on our marvelous new cameras, we still come back to what has been referred to as the 'golden' standard of film production.

So why 24 or The affair started for two quite common reasons why anything is standardised: technological and financial. Ever noticed that, back in the silent film era, films looked jerky and unnatural?

Because the cameras were hand cranked, the rate of each frame could vary from 14 to 26fps, yet were projected at 24fps no matter what.

This variable was eliminated when the Vitaphone process came to town, synchronising sound-to-picture and giving birth to the 'talkies', starting with the The Jazz Singer in which also had the distinction of being the first filmed musical.

The standard frame rate was set to 24fps to make the whole process work. Even though lower budget silent films were still being produced after and newer and better sound recording methods were developed including the addition of recording sound next to the picture along the film strip , filming at 24fps became the standard.

It also made economic sense as well. Film stock wasn't cheap and it was decided that a rate of 24 was the best compromise between how much stock would be needed and creating a satisfactory level of realistic motion. Fast forward a few decades to the invention of the television and broadcast standards, including interlaced and the progressives, and different frame rates came into play.

Meanwhile, cinema stayed faithful to the 24fps standard and audiences grew accustomed to it.