RED is 24P? or True 24?

[David Rasberry]

I didn't know this. Very interesting. Can video be rendered this way for playback on computers? Are there players that can play back 48fps?

Refresh rates are typically much higher on video displays as the flicker would be very noticeable at 48fps. Most plasma and LCD video displays refresh at 60p or higher these days, doing a 3:2 pulldown for displaying 24. The latest gen displays refresh at 120 and 240 fps and do a 5:5 or 10:10 display of 24fps to eliminate flicker entirely, but preserve the 24 frame cadence. Some also generate intermediate frames between the 24 frame originals to eliminate the motion stutter too, but from a film purist viewpoint this is undesirable. This feature can be turned off.

 

[Steven Caesare]

For the OP:

I didn't see it covered here thus far, but you noted the difference between "24" and "24P".

The "P" stands for "progressive", that is the entire frame is captured a a single unit.

This is primarily to differentiate it from an existing video format called "interlaced", wherein every other horizontal line of pixels is captured seperately, and then weaved back together at display time. You see this abbrevated such as "1080i".

Interlaced is an awkward format for modern diaplays, and furthermore, there is no intrlaced format for 24fps... so the "P" in the notation isn't really necessary... it's just a bit of a holdover.

-sc

 

[Peter Hodgins]

180° shutter at 24fps = 1/48" = most natural reproduction of motion to the human eye.

Not the most "natural" reproduction of motion to the human eye .... motion existed before humans were on the planet ... motion is what it is ... but at a certain flicker rate lets say 24 fps or 48 fps I forget which ... the human eye image retention causes the flicker to appear to be smooth motion ....

 

[Michael Hastings]

The 1st time I viewed PAL the flicker drove me nuts at 1st, then after a few hours my eyes adjusted and I no longer noticed the flicker.
Dave

When I see PAL at trade shows the flicker always bothers me too but I assume it would go away after awhile. Also may be exacerbated by 60 cycle lighting.

24P looks like 24 fps film, 30P would look like 30 fps film, 60P would look like 60 fps film. There's no particular reason that 24P looks any more like film than other frame rates except that most movies are shot at 24 fps, so IF you want to match that look, then you should match that frame rate.

Also, most of the effort towards a "film look" has really been about getting away from an interlaced-scan look, which is unique to video origination.

So half the things we do to video cameras to get a film look is really more about getting away from their inherent video look, whether it is excessively deep focus because of small sensors, or interlaced-scan shutterless motion, or excessive edge enhancement.

Now all that said, there are many other aspects to why film looks the way it does.

Also, when people say "film look" what they really mean is the look of 35mm movie color negative shot at 24 fps, since that is the most common shooting format for major motion pictures. But obviously you could have a film format with excessively deep focus, or high frame rates, etc.

180° shutter at 24fps = 1/48" = most natural reproduction of motion to the human eye.

Why is this? I expect Eki is right.

And i'd say "what we've been conditioned to associate with quality".

David:

What's your opinion on the TRUE ideal frame rate. I know Dalton Trumbo tried to move the film world to 60fps "showscan" for a while. May have been hampered by the big difference in film costs. But if film costs weren't a concern and you were making a conscious decision and were the movie czar so you could dictate that the movie going public would need to adjust their conditioning, even if it took a number of years - what "ideal" frame rate would that be?

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

Refresh rates are typically much higher on video displays as the flicker would be very noticeable at 48fps. Most plasma and LCD video displays refresh at 60p or higher these days, doing a 3:2 pulldown for displaying 24. The latest gen displays refresh at 120 and 240 fps and do a 5:5 or 10:10 display of 24fps to eliminate flicker entirely, but preserve the 24 frame cadence. Some also generate intermediate frames between the 24 frame originals to eliminate the motion stutter too, but from a film purist viewpoint this is undesirable. This feature can be turned off.

Let me make sure if I follow. With faster refresh in new generation displays you will be able to?

Perhaps this could be a nice little thing to do for a private showing, or more importantly for post when working on a film out?

 

[Yousuf Abbasi]

See: Persistence of vision (link)

 

[Pietro Impagliazzo]

The latest gen displays refresh at 120 and 240 fps and do a 5:5 or 10:10 display of 24fps to eliminate flicker entirely, but preserve the 24 frame cadence. Some also generate intermediate frames between the 24 frame originals to eliminate the motion stutter too, but from a film purist viewpoint this is undesirable. This feature can be turned off.

David, could you elaborate on this 5:5, 10:10 display. Not sure I get that...

Is it like showing the same frame twice (for 120hz)?

And these "true motion" and what not are horrible gimmicks... Geez, they should stop marketing those monstrosities lol.

 

[Chris Newman]

60p is nearly "perfect" (i.e., as fast as our eyes can perceive motion), but it has a very different feel from 24p. The feel is very realistic or "immediate", but people describe movies shot this way as feeling like a soap opera (since soap operas are the only narratives that are commonly shot at 60 fps.) The feel of 24p is choppy and unrealistic, but we like going into this unrealistic world when we watch movies.

The 120Hz TVs with interpolation ("true motion" or whatever it is called) process the 24p frames from a Blu-ray or DVD and create intermediate frames that smooth out the jerky 24p motion, and therefore create the "soap opera" look. If you turn that feature off, they just show each source frame 5 times.

 

[Mike N]

Where can I get more info about all these new display technologies and "improvements". I saw a tv like this on display among many other displays. It was the only one that made the film that was running on its screen to look like a cheap soap opera. I remember thinking to myself (this is a crap Tv if it can do this to a blockbuster).

And a more on-topic question. If we could theoretically shot in 24i (interlaced) would it look more "videoish" or more like 24p ? I mean is the interlace that mainly gives this impresion or is it because we shoot it at 50, 60 interlaced fields per second.

 

[John Nguyen]

60p is nearly "perfect" (i.e., as fast as our eyes can perceive motion), but it has a very different feel from 24p. The feel is very realistic or "immediate", but people describe movies shot this way as feeling like a soap opera (since soap operas are the only narratives that are commonly shot at 60 fps.) The feel of 24p is choppy and unrealistic, but we like going into this unrealistic world when we watch movies.

The 120Hz TVs with interpolation ("true motion" or whatever it is called) process the 24p frames from a Blu-ray or DVD and create intermediate frames that smooth out the jerky 24p motion, and therefore create the "soap opera" look. If you turn that feature off, they just show each source frame 5 times.

I don't understand how they "create" and intermediate frame? Let me get this straight:

If there are 2 frames, one with me holding a ball, and one with the 5 meters above my head after I just tossed it, 120Hz televisions will actually somehow create an intermediate frame between the two with the ball in the middle? That sounds too weird.

And as for the 5:5 and 10:10 thing, can you elaborate on that? Which of those two frames are being displayed how now? Thanx for any info, this is quite fascinating.

 

[Frank Cueto]

I don't understand how they "create" and intermediate frame? Let me get this straight:

If there are 2 frames, one with me holding a ball, and one with the 5 meters above my head after I just tossed it, 120Hz televisions will actually somehow create an intermediate frame between the two with the ball in the middle? That sounds too weird.

And as for the 5:5 and 10:10 thing, can you elaborate on that? Which of those two frames are being displayed how now? Thanx for any info, this is quite fascinating.

Well, those TV's do something akin to tracking every single pixel on a frame and trying to find those pixels ont he next frame (not quite pixels, more like blocks) once they find that out (wrong or not) they proceed to generate vectors for those bocks and start "morphing the frame towards the destination it believes are correct. Think of it as a morphing in between frames. Of course, it has its limits, transparencies and super fast motion or complex parallax destroy the effect. Its very similar to what furnace Kronos does.

-Frank

 

[Stephen Gentle]

Refresh rates are typically much higher on video displays as the flicker would be very noticeable at 48fps. Most plasma and LCD video displays refresh at 60p or higher these days, doing a 3:2 pulldown for displaying 24. The latest gen displays refresh at 120 and 240 fps and do a 5:5 or 10:10 display of 24fps to eliminate flicker entirely, but preserve the 24 frame cadence. Some also generate intermediate frames between the 24 frame originals to eliminate the motion stutter too, but from a film purist viewpoint this is undesirable. This feature can be turned off.

I hate those interpolated motion things - every new TV seems to have it and it makes the motion look horrible... And they market it like it's the next big thing!

 

[onsighthawaii]

What's your opinion on the TRUE ideal frame rate. I know Dalton Trumbo tried to move the film world to 60fps "showscan" for a while. May have been hampered by the big difference in film costs. But if film costs weren't a concern and you were making a conscious decision and were the movie czar so you could dictate that the movie going public would need to adjust their conditioning, even if it took a number of years - what "ideal" frame rate would that be?

i remember reading an article about expereimenting with higher frame rate film formats to cut down on the motion blur with action sequences. there was an underlying theme of paranoia that "video" (predigital) was going to surpass film in quality and they were working on ways to improve the look of film. the results were impressive but as stated earlier the cost would be substantial and the look might not be appropriate or "too real" looking. so id say:

180° shutter at 24fps = 1/48" = most cost effective natural and accepted reproduction of motion to the human eye.

 

[Michael Hastings]

i remember reading an article about expereimenting with higher frame rate film formats to cut down on the motion blur with action sequences. there was an underlying theme of paranoia that "video" (predigital) was going to surpass film in quality and they were working on ways to improve the look of film. the results were impressive but as stated earlier the cost would be substantial and the look might not be appropriate or "too real" looking. so id say:

Quote:
Originally Posted by C. Kim Miles csc
180° shutter at 24fps = 1/48" = most cost effective natural and accepted reproduction of motion to the human eye.

but again my question was: given with digital production being not significantly more expensive (so what if my 640 reddrive only gives 2 hours instead of 6 hours of recording?) AND we were willing to go through a transition period where audiences would reacclimate to the "new normal/accepted" - what would that ideal "new normal" be?

 

[Cody Cuellar]

24fps is definitely not the most natural. As far as I'm concerned, natural would be infinity FPS, or whatever the speed in which my brain can decipher new images (maybe its somewhere around 100 or so, but I've never seen video recorded and played back at those framerates so I couldn't tell you). If I remember correctly, the reason 24fps was chosen originally was, as people have been saying, the lowest "acceptable" framerate they could get away with without it being TOO jittery. Thus it became the most accepted, cost effective frame rate. Shooting film at 60p would be 2 1/2 times as expensive. I'd say its just come to be accepted that 60i looks like news and home video cameras and 24fps still holds that "going to the cinema" feeling associated with it. Maybe its just something that's been forced into our subconcious, maybe it has to do with the fact that movies are not real and 24p gives that not real effect whereas 60i looks more real and therefor it takes us out of our dreamworlds of film. Who knows.

Anyway, whenever I go to stores and see those new TV technologies, I vomit a little bit. I absolutely HATE those true-motion garbage. It makes movies look like video games, and I HATE it!! In fact I sometimes go around to every TV and turn off all the digital nonsense. Every LCD or plasma I own always has ALL that DRC, edge enhancement, true-motion, whatever turned off for the most part. Do people really think it looks better? I will slap anyone who answers yes...

 

[kay madsen]

Cody, I absolutely agree... a friend of mine bought one of those new TV´s and when I saw how it rendered motion I was disgusted... the thought that a lot of users will have no clue that you can turn off all those fancy "enhancements" is scary... the elusive "film look" that a lot of us strive for will be destroyed completely by those modern displays... we finally got rid of panning and scanning with widescreen displays but now there are infinitely more ways of destroying the look and feel the filmmakers where after... it´s sad...

 

[Tom Gray]

what? get over this ... just because that is what it truly is, antiquated hunt . . . . this . that please lets dump this nonsense once and for all, it need not be their and most and i mean most in this business don't even know why it's there and i have listened to many stories as to why it was installed from sound to santa claus but it need not be there. please lets dump this garbage

 

[Tom Gray]

mr hobbit tried it and ate a couple hundred million and it shut camron up pretty fast as well. england has 25 and i have watched their tv many times and it looked just fine.

 

[Tom Gray]

in short. farnsworth tried 24p first because that's what film was, it did not work for tv but not for the reasons you think. the phosphor on the tubes in those days were crap so he sped it up and still had pulsing issues with the phosphor pulsing after being excited and drove people including epileptics nuts. this is when he remembered his farm boy days and realized splitting it into fields would give him twice as many hits to visually keep it from pulsing and no one noticed the screen having the image split into. we could have dumped this standard several years later but typical americans being what they are, cheep, left it be. today 24p on led's or the cinema 15 would be absolutely no difference . . . . and another dot! i give this article five . . . . .p

 

[Tom Gray]

true-motion is 30 extrapolated into back into 24p, not a true 24p image, that is why it looks like it does. i have seen true broadcast 24p and it look the same as going to the theater. we in this country truly have many greedy people that just don't want to spend a dollar and try to tell people that what they are watching is the best money can buy. ever listen to a movie trailers audio, they are all "absolutely" the same, word for word. next time listen and you will start to laugh. every steven seagull, however it's spelled, trailer starts like this... "he's a cop in a bad mood" funny s---