[deergomoo]

As someone who very much likes how 24fps looks, it’s still worth noting that 24 was only chosen to balance film usage with smoothness.

I’m willing to buy into the idea that lower framerates cause our brains to “fill in” details and thereby improve immersion by some impossible-to-measure metric, but let’s not pretend that’s why 24 was chosen. It was chosen because 30 or 48 or 60 would cost more to shoot.

Display tech is also a big factor. It took me a little while to adjust when I first got an OLED TV. The lower response times of LCD give it a sort of natural interpolation between frames, but OLEDs are fast as hell and you can absolutely see the difference.

[jasomill]

Considering the heat generated by lighting, the relatively low sensitivity of film stocks, and the relatively small aperture, uncoated lenses available at the time (1926) 24 fps was standardized, I suspect exposure requirements may have also played a role in preferring one of the lowest feasible frame rates.

It may or may not have been a coincidence that 24 divides 120, potentially simplifying the design of electrical devices (lighting, motors) powered by 60 Hz AC; I don't know enough about the technologies involved to say.

[t0lo]

I also believe 24 has more "mental penetration" (excuse the wankiest term to ever be ill-conceived) by being in between a series of still images and something fluid. Maybe the same reason we were so absorbed by lower resolution games.