What is it with these TVs with super smooth framerates?

[neorichieb1971]

Perhaps, but compatibility with pre existing equipment is important.

Do cinemas still use reels? I know the movie makers do, but I am not sure if cinema tech has reached the digital age yet, or at least mainstream wise.

[StarCreator]

Both film and digital projection are in use in theaters, last I checked.

[Strider77]

Do cinemas still use reels? I know the movie makers do, but I am not sure if cinema tech has reached the digital age yet, or at least mainstream wise.

most in my area do now....

The reason interpolation makes film look like broadcasted material is because its inventing something out of nothing. The interpolation process has a "look" in mind with its algorithm's and such.

I've seen live broadcast like concerts, documentaries and sports casts that run @ 60 frames native. I'm not sold that film is a 24 frames these day due to restrictions, it's a choice and most film makers go with 24 on purpose... not b/c they have no choice.

[njiska]

I've seen live broadcast like concerts, documentaries and sports casts that run @ 60 frames native. I'm not sold that film is a 24 frames these day due to restrictions, it's a choice and most film makers go with 24 on purpose... not b/c they have no choice.

The problem I have with 60fps is that it creates an uncanny valley sensation. At 24fps there's just enough of a feeling to create a separation from reality. Documentaries and concerts are fine when they look real because they are. For fiction it can create an unsettling feeling.

[Ed Oscuro]

For me the 24 frames versus 60 frames argument is about intended use and the artistic considerations.

Consider the following: Above the fold of my local paper, there is a digital camera shot of a guy speaking about plans to take over the local hospital and merge with them to create a regional provider. To his left there is a white folding table - apparently a news conference room somewhere - with five bored-looking people sitting there. The last person is starting to go out of focus.

From the news-gathering and artistic perspectives, there is a lot that is wrong with the picture. It's very long, and takes up a lot of space on the paper that should have been filled with type. The bored people to the side and the white table probably didn't need or want their picture taken, or even to be in focus. When you look at news photos, you often see that only the subject is in focus, and the rest goes out of focus, perhaps even starting at the back of their head. This is generally due to the use of "fast" wide aperture prime or telephoto zoom lenses (like the 70-200mm f/2.8 lens standard for many journalists). It keeps annoying cracks and flies on the wall from becoming the subject of attention. Of course, sometimes it's alright if everything is in focus, like these famous news photos of people falling from buildings after fires.

I haven't seen the 24 vs. 60 debate resolved like this, but I think that a similar argument goes to film.

With 24 fps video, action sequences can often seem disjointed, but strenuous actions often take up a few frames. Consider this example: A guy is riding on horseback, and somebody else rides by and collides with him (with the appropriate clothesline / thump sound effect). Up to the point of the collision, much of the visuals were blurred due to the slower film speed - shots of people running across the screen, or arrows flying, have a lot of motion blur. In this case the director decides that being able to make out the wood grain on the flying arrow, or the pattern on the tunic of the running footsoldier, isn't important. What's important is the feeling of speed.

Separate from the question of blur, I find that 24fps gives some really solid feeling of changes from frame to frame, and a disjoint feeling as video can "lurch" around.

60fps obviously can be improved with regard to blur to perform more like 24fps video, but there is only so much blur possible. When your frames are onscreen for less than half the duration of frames shot with 24fps film or video, a subject moving across the screen should blur less than half as much. I suppose this can be "fixed" in post production, at the cost of money and fakery, but I'm not sure about video techniques to duplicate the "blur" of film, outside of making more use of already cliche composition techniques that dramatize speed, like having a fast vehicle move all the way across the film frame, from left to right, askew, with a wide angle lens, etc.

With regard to games, I generally hate blur, and I especially hate depth-of-field effects, although these are qualities that I utilize now and then in my photography. There's always a danger of using new technology poorly, and perhaps it could be considered one of the ironies of our time that movies are starting to look more like bad video game footage, and video games are starting to look like bad film. But these effects can be used properly in any medium; it's up to the producers of games and movies not to abuse them.

[neorichieb1971]

Going back to the concert argument. They don't run at 24fps because they are not filmed on film. As far as I can tell using my blu ray library of 250+ discs as the source of data. I can testify that everything film based runs at 1080/24, with the very odd exception that some are 1080/60.

However, any thing concert related is 1080/60, but its 1080i, not 1080p. Anything 1080i like a concert is not shot on film at all. Its a digital camera. Blu ray supports 1080/50 1080/60 1080/24 and possibly 1080/48 (for 3D). I have never seen 1080/60 progressive before. Only 1080/24 progressive.

I suppose we will have to wait for Avatar 2 to really see the differences.

If you want to see the differences today you will have to watch those slow motion cameras that do up 10,000fps.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX6aerxQPOs

[Pulsewidth]

However, any thing concert related is 1080/60, but its 1080i, not 1080p. Anything 1080i like a concert is not shot on film at all. Its a digital camera. Blu ray supports 1080/50 1080/60 1080/24 and possibly 1080/48 (for 3D). I have never seen 1080/60 progressive before. Only 1080/24 progressive.

Interlacing is another thing that needs to die. It's incredibly stupid that digital cameras actually support it. Interlacing was designed to make shitty CRTs look slightly less shit. It has no relevance to modern display systems. I'd rather watch 480p than 1080i.

[neorichieb1971]

LCD's, plasmas and DLP's will probably convert the signal to progressive by the time you see it. I doubt anything you can actually see with your own eyes is interlaced anymore.

Interlaced is used to save bandwidth and storage in these times.

[Pulsewidth]

LCD's, plasmas and DLP's will probably convert the signal to progressive by the time you see it. I doubt anything you can actually see with your own eyes is interlaced anymore.

And that conversion introduces visible artifacts.

Interlacing is not needed to save bandwidth/storage anymore. Just increase the lossy compression. Compression artifacts from any modern lossy codec are less annoying than deinterlace artifacts. And interlacing makes lossy compression less efficient, so it's doubtful that it saves much space anyway.

[neorichieb1971]

well I do not totally agree with your statement. Most Satellite and Cable companies do not transmit 1080p that I know of. 720p and 1080i are the preferred methods. If your statement was true why would they use inferior codecs?

[Pulsewidth]

If your statement was true why would they use inferior codecs?

Because back when HD TVs were first made they used CRTs, and 1080p CRTs were much more difficult and expensive to build than 1080i CRTs. "1080" is a big number so it sounded impressive to ignorant people, so they bought a lot of overpriced 1080i CRTs. Of course the industry couldn't admit that they'd been scamming people, so they had to pretend that 1080i isn't complete shit, and they kept using it. Some might have even been genuinely fooled themselves.

[Ed Oscuro]

However, any thing concert related is 1080/60, but its 1080i, not 1080p. Anything 1080i like a concert is not shot on film at all. Its a digital camera. Blu ray supports 1080/50 1080/60 1080/24 and possibly 1080/48 (for 3D). I have never seen 1080/60 progressive before. Only 1080/24 progressive.

Interlacing is another thing that needs to die. It's incredibly stupid that digital cameras actually support it. Interlacing was designed to make shitty CRTs look slightly less shit. It has no relevance to modern display systems. I'd rather watch 480p than 1080i.

For what it's worth, I'm not aware of there being any interlaced image support in the new crop of "HD" digital SLR cameras. They all record progressive resolutions, although often at wacky framerates (mine does 720p30 - not 29.97Hz but 30 - and 1080p@20Hz. Unfortunately the replacement for my camera does 720p60Hz only, no 30Hz mode, which hurts recording times. The new crop of digital cameras either can do 1080p30, and the next generation of chips (like Nikon's Expeed or Canon's DIGIC...currently at number IV and maybe soon to be DIGIC V) and media (SDXC on the consumer side) may get to 1080p60 soon enough, and they may be able to also send output via HDMI as well. (It would be nice to use a DSLR and record the video via HDMI, getting rid of the need to constantly swap cards.)

Of course, once we've gotten rid of interlacing, we get moire from undersampling the sensor...there's a legitimate technical reason for it though.