Frames per second

Reading Olive Stones exceptional book Chasing the Light he mentions that films are today shown on new tv’s at 30 frames per second compared to 24 which was intended.

Never had any idea about this - should i be permanently adjusting my tv for when I watch films pre 2000’s??

Mickeroo

If your tv has a setting called MotionPlus or something like that just turn it off and you should be good.

JimmyVik

Most TVs you can turn it off one nowadays

johnny_ultimate

A lot of good modern TVs do a good job at replicating the original intended image. You just need to go out of your way to turn certain settings on / off.

Motion smoothing should be turned off entirely - it ruins films as far as I’m concerned, and breaks the frame rate. My brain / eyes are incredibly sensitive to it and I simply can’t stand it. Some people like some very limited motion smoothing, but IMO it needs to just be turned off completely. Actual high frame rate stuff like The Hobbit or Gemini Man is near unwatchable for me because the 48+ frames just feel so weird - that’s all I’m going to be thinking about while watching.

On my LG TV there’s an excellent filmmaker mode, but the Dolby vision settings overrule that if you’re watching vision content. Unfortunately, some of the Dolby ‘cinema’ presets contain motion smoothing as default that demands a Google to turn off properly (you have to disable other settings in order to even get the option to disable motion smoothing).

There’s a lot of advice online on how to really properly adjust every setting for the most cinema-like image. With something like filmmaker mode you should have nothing major to worry about - you’ll get a good quality, accurate image. But alas the default settings are often really bad, so well worth googling to make sure you have the optimal setup for your own TV.

afatbollix

Your DVDs are 1080i25, Depending on your internet streaming it would be 1080p50 or 2160p50 in Europe as your high setting.

I wouldn't be changing your TVs as unfortunately you don't get 24 frames except in a film projection cinema and they are changing to digital projection with 2k DCI 2048x1080p48.

As he says in his book maybe we should all get some projectors and film instead of our TVs if you want true 24 frames per second.

Frame rates are chosen to avoid flicker / strobing problems when viewed against electric lighting. So they’re based on the frequency of the electrical supply.

50Hz is used in here in Ireland and all of Europe (and much of the planet).

60Hz is used in North America, Southern Japan, parts of a South American, South Korea etc.

So typically in Europe you’ll have frame rates of 25 or 50 FPS, while in North America you’ll have 30 or 60 FPS.

Some digital cameras and most modern displays can deliver much faster refresh rates and software smooths the image by basically filling in frames using “tweening” techniques - you use the frames as key frames and add filler frames that smooth the motion.

Cinema projectors historically run at 24fps.

On European TV they typically just ran the motion slightly faster, to bring it up to 25fps to match TV systems, while in North America they used a more complex system called Three-two pull down (3:2 pull down).

Modern digital formats and displays are usually capable of handling multiple frame rates, so if you send a modern TV a 1080p30 stream over HDMI, it will usually be able to handle it.

Broadcast TV here is either 25 FPS progressive scan or interlaced at 50 FPS.

In cinema 24fps doesn’t matter much because cinema is never watched in a lit room, whereas television almost always is.

If you’re filming at night with a smartphone that is set to 30fps, you’ll often see Irish or European fluorescent or LED lighting looking like it’s flickering. You’re seeing the frame rate clash with the on/of cycle of the lighting running on AC. Often the most obvious will be things like traffic lights.

Switch your phone to PAL rates, like 25p or 50i and it’ll look perfectly smooth.

PAL and NTSC are long gone analogue television formats in Europe and North America, but the terms remain in use as shorthand for frame rates. Setting your camera to PAL or NTSC doesn’t mean you’re using the old analogue standards, rather just that you’re using rates compatible with European or American power systems.

It would make more sense to call them 50Hz or 60Hz power.

The reason for selection of those systems in the first place is totally arbitrary. In Europe it’s likely down to 50 cycles (peak to trough 100 times a second) being a round metric number and in North America the logic most likely was: 60 cycles per second, 60 seconds per minute, 60 minutes per hour etc etc

There’s no significant advantage to either, they just evolved in parallel. In fact, if you wanted serious electrical advantages, you would use airline power frequencies like 400Hz.

Sad Professor

Frame rates and refresh rates drive me nuts. In the old PAL and NTSC days you had to deal with films shot at 24fps being sped up to 25fps/50hz for their UK and European DVD/VHS releases which resulted in the pitch of music and voices being off. They were supposed to correct for this but almost never did in my experience. Blu-ray (which was nearly always 24p/60hz) mostly did away with this but then you had to deal with the occasional film shot in 25fps HD being slowed down to 24p so once again the pitch was off.

Now days most tvs support a zillion different refresh rates but it's hard to know what they are actually doing and if they are doing it correctly. Even if you get a tv that supports full 24p it doesn't end there because there's also fractional and integer frame rates. 24p could mean 24fps or it could mean 23.976fps. While most Blu-ray content is in 23.976fps, some streaming services have started offering films and shows in true 24fps. Tvs generally don't tell you which is currently playing and some media players support one frame rate but not the other resulting in a stutter every 40 seconds.

My LG tv has a "real cinema" mode which like all their modes they don't explain properly and seems to work differently on different tvs. While it's supposed to just play 24fps/23.976fps content properly I am convinced that's doing something screwy because I really don't trust tv manufacturers.

Very interesting stuff! More complex then I thought. Been messing around with my tv and have a similar experience to Sad Pr.

Frame rates aside, the Stone book is essentially reading for anyone interested in making films. It only chronicles his life up to the awards night when he had his greatest moment - Oscar night for Platoon, perhaps there will be a part 2. The story is inspirational to say the least.