The Hobbit...

[Kris Anderson]

I just heard that The Hobbit is filming at 48fps. I am really sad to hear this. I was hoping to see one of the first films shot on Epic and be blown away. With 48fps it will make Red look like they are just a cheap video camera. It's not Reds fault but Peter Jackson. 48fps should be for slow mo. I won't even go see the film because of this. 24fps is what makes a movie look like a movie. I don't want to watch a film that looks like a soap opera.

I am not putting Red down but am very disapointed in the Directors decision on this. I have also heard they may do the same thing with Avatar 2. I don't know what camera they are using but any film shot the way the news is shot then I won't even go see it.

Why would they decide to do this when LOTR and Avatar were some of the biggest money making movies of all time. Would you change the way you filmed something if it was the biggest money making film of all time?

I still love Red and can't wait to buy an Epic but I will only be using higher frame rates for slow mo or documentary work.

And why would you listen to comments like this when you are the guy responsible for "some of the biggest money making films of all time"? Don't you think the Hobbit guys have been through serious testing to arrive at the 48fps conclusion? Don't you imagine they perceive some sort of considerable benefit that warrants it? Think about it. These guys are hardly amateurs. They know what they're doing and I'm sure they will cope if you decide not to see the film for fear it will look like a "soap opera". (btw... I'd like to know which 48fps productions you have seen that lead you to this conclusion?)

[Lorenzo Straight]

I just heard that The Hobbit is filming at 48fps. I am really sad to hear this. I was hoping to see one of the first films shot on Epic and be blown away. With 48fps it will make Red look like they are just a cheap video camera. It's not Reds fault but Peter Jackson. 48fps should be for slow mo. I won't even go see the film because of this. 24fps is what makes a movie look like a movie. I don't want to watch a film that looks like a soap opera.

I am not putting Red down but am very disapointed in the Directors decision on this. I have also heard they may do the same thing with Avatar 2. I don't know what camera they are using but any film shot the way the news is shot then I won't even go see it.

Why would they decide to do this when LOTR and Avatar were some of the biggest money making movies of all time. Would you change the way you filmed something if it was the biggest money making film of all time?

I still love Red and can't wait to buy an Epic but I will only be using higher frame rates for slow mo or documentary work.

Oh, Mr. Corey. Have you not read Peter's comments on the subject of 48fps. Maybe you should. Cheap video camera, Lol.

[Maik Müller Menendez]

It looks like most people think 48p-movies will look like the upconverted movies they've seen on lcd/plasma-tvs with their crappy interpolation or like (live-)tv or bad daily soaps shot on video-cameras.

And thats a big failure... The framerate is just one single aspect of the whole film-look.

Lots of camera-makers think they can sell 24p-shooting as holy grail to archive cinematic look, but thats just marketing or does everything shot on those cheap videocameras look like film, just because you've set it to 24p?

Just stay open-minded until you've seen real footage. There is enough time for analyzing after you've seen the results. ;)
And keep in mind, it should be easy to generate a great looking classical 24p-transfer from 48p-sources, they'll have to do it anyway (for older cinemas and home-video-releases). You can go back from 48p to 24p, its not a one-way-ticket.

Whatever, i'm sure it will look great, i applaud to Peter choosing the 48p-path, it's about time to leave the old 24p-barrier behind us.
RED finally made it possible, i can't thank you enough, not only as future customer, also as simple movie-lover.

I'm really excited about that new experience, 3D/48p-movie, can't wait to see how it looks. :-)

[Andrew Rieger]

It looks like most people think 48p-movies will look like the upconverted movies they've seen on lcd/plasma-tvs with their crappy interpolation or like (live-)tv or bad daily soaps shot on video-cameras.

And thats a big failure... The framerate is just one single aspect of the whole film-look.

Lots of camera-makers think they can sell 24p-shooting as holy grail to archive cinematic look, but thats just marketing or does everything shot on those cheap videocameras look like film, just because you've set it to 24p?

Just stay open-minded until you've seen real footage. There is enough time for analyzing after you've seen the results. ;)
And keep in mind, it should be easy to generate a great looking classical 24p-transfer from 48p-sources, they'll have to do it anyway (for older cinemas and home-video-releases). You can go back from 48p to 24p, its not a one-way-ticket.

Whatever, i'm sure it will look great, i applaud to Peter choosing the 48p-path, it's about time to leave the old 24p-barrier behind us.
RED finally made it possible, i can't thank you enough, not only as future customer, also as simple movie-lover.

I'm really excited about that new experience, 3D/48p-movie, can't wait to see how it looks. :-)

Not true about the clean 24fps transfer. In order to get the 180 degree shutter look at 24fps, you need to shoot with a shutter speed of 1/96 which means that the 24fps will also have a 1/96 shutter speed giving it that odd Saving Private Ryan stacato shutter look.

I am not a fan of this 48 fps crap. They are boosting the frame rate just to make 3D easier to swallow. It's not about making movies better, it is about selling tickets and 3D allows then to jack up the prices. Simple economics. Oh well. I liked Jackson but he is quickly becoming the next Lucas and let's face it, his films post LOTR have been anything but good. When will Hollywood learn that good stories sell tickets, not 3D 120 fps theme park attractions. What is happening to this industry?

[Lorenzo Straight]

Another argument for increased frame rate shooting.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/new...ds-make-172916

[Emiliano Ranzani]

In the past years, I've been doing some EFP work at 50fps: the hyper-movement works very well for TV (especially when you're shooting sports and animals) and it looks better than interlaced, but honestly, I don't really see why movies should be shot that way. Sure, there will be some minor advantages, like little-to-no flicker - even the infamous rolling shutter would be less frequent, but movies will loose the unreal, dreamlike quality delivered by 24fps.

[Nils Ruinet]

In the past years, I've been doing some EFP work at 50fps: the hyper-movement works very well for TV (especially when you're shooting sports and animals) and it looks better than interlaced, but honestly, I don't really see why movies should be shot that way. Sure, there will be some minor advantages, like little-to-no flicker - even the infamous rolling shutter would be less frequent, but movies will loose the unreal, dreamlike quality delivered by 24fps.

I don't think the rolling shutter changes with the frame rate.
Other than that, I totatlly agree with you when you speak of the "dreamlike quality" of 24 fps. That will definately be lost with 48p, and that's my biggest concern...

[Emiliano Ranzani]

I don't think the rolling shutter changes with the frame rate.

It does. Get a CMOS camera (say the EX1\EX3) and set it to 50p: you'll see that the rolling shutter is highly reduced.

What most people don't realize is that what we now call "rolling shutter" pops out when shooting film as well, because of the 24fps frame rate.

[Terry VerHaar]

It does. Get a CMOS camera (say the EX1\EX3) and set it to 50p: you'll see that the rolling shutter is highly reduced.

What most people don't realize is that what we now call "rolling shutter" pops out when shooting film as well, because of the 24fps frame rate.

Hmmm... it seems to me you may be confusing rolling shutter with motion blur. Rolling shutter is not dependent on frame rate or shutter speed, it is caused by the read-reset time of the sensor; the time it takes to read each line of the sensor, progressively from top to bottom. I believe RED has gotten it down to less than 10 ms in Epic so it has pretty much been eliminated as a visual problem. It is my understanding that some cameras with severe rolling shutter issues have read-reset times of as much as 30 ms.

Film does indeed have a "rolling shutter" as Jim has often pointed out, but it is about 4 ms. and we are so used to it, it seems very "normal." The film "rolling shutter" is the time it takes for the opening film blade to move across the shutter to fully expose the whole film frame. In this 4 ms. time frame, things do "wobble" slightly. This might be why a global shutter seems so sterile.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Rolling shutter is not dependent on frame rate or shutter speed, it is caused by the read-reset time of the sensor; the time it takes to read each line of the sensor, progressively from top to bottom.

Correct. And the read/reset timing is the same, no matter the shutter speed or frame rate. As far as "rolling shutter" or "skew" is concerned, frame rate has nothing to do with it. It's all about the exposure time of each frame (shutter speed) and the speed of the motion of what's being photographed. Same with motion blur, all about the exposure time and subject motion. Longer exposure times can hide rolling shutter skew, because the overall exposure time for the image plane is greater in proportion to the reset or shutter action. Likewise, shorter exposure times can exaggerate the skew because the overall exposure time for the image plane is shorter in proportion to the reset or shutter action period. Film or digital, this applies. If you want to see extreme skew (film or digital) us a very fast shutter speed. Even easier on digital, like the RED One, where you can set insane shutter speeds like 1/20000s. Any motion at all shows almost nothing but skew because the sensor reset period on the RED One would account for nearly half of the total exposure time at that insane shutter speed.

I believe RED has gotten it down to less than 10 ms in Epic so it has pretty much been eliminated as a visual problem. It is my understanding that some cameras with severe rolling shutter issues have read-reset times of as much as 30 ms.

It's a bit under 9ms on the RED One. Epic is about 4.5ms, or very close to the action of many mechanical shutters in film cameras.

Film does indeed have a "rolling shutter" as Jim has often pointed out, but it is about 4 ms. and we are so used to it, it seems very "normal." The film "rolling shutter" is the time it takes for the opening film blade to move across the shutter to fully expose the whole film frame. In this 4 ms. time frame, things do "wobble" slightly. This might be why a global shutter seems so sterile.

Yep. As fast as a mechanical shutter may seem, there is still a temporal difference in the start and end of exposure across the film plane. Much the same way there is a temporal difference on the reset action of a digital sensor. The primary difference here is not so much a difference in timing, but how it looks. Most film shutters cut across the image on an angle and they are defocused as they sit in front of the image plane. So you have an organic, soft transitional edge. With digital, it is very defined by the pixel raster and in extreme cases can be more apparent. A good example of an extreme case would be a split exposure from a strobe light or a muzzle flash on a firearm, which occurs when part of a frame has finished exposing before a certain event takes place. So you may see the strobe in only half of the frame or only a portion of the muzzle flash. You can get split-frame exposure with film, but it's very organic, once again the soft-edge transition and light can leak around the still-closing shutter. In digital, once a photosite on the sensor is closed and being read, that's it. So if one row of photosites and everything before that row exposed a dark room, that's what you see on that half of the frame. If everything after it was exposed with a flash from a strobe, then that's what you see on that half of the frame... With film, there will be an organic bleed and soft edge between the two exposures. With digital, it's a razor-sharp, hard-lined, on/off difference.