[burntwater]

I for one would love to see us drop the fractional frame rates (29.97, etc). They're an archaic technical relic that cause trouble when working with timecode. At Sphere we debated standardizing on 30/60/120fps but ultimately decided it was a battle we didn't want to fight in an already complicated building.

[voltaireodactyl]

FWIW, I truly hope 24fps never goes away entirely. Something about it is the key to making movie stars look like legends and regular people look like a stars, imo.

[qingcharles]

Yeah, agree on 24fps, and I don't think poster above you meant to remove 24, just those annoying NTSC/PAL rates that are close to integers, but aren't and are stupid as hell in an all-digital 2024.

[yard2010]

NTSC and PAL used as actual region locks back in the ps1-2 days.

[mrandish]

I too have a similar subjective sense from being in and around film and video production over the last couple decades about that "cinematic something" look we associate with film. However, I'm not sure we're being accurate in thinking it's entirely the frame rate. Certainly that's part of it but I think it's entirely possible we'd view 30fps as every bit as good - if all other things were equal.

I think very few people (including myself) have ever seen a true side-by-side test where everything other than 24fps vs 30fps is perfectly identical. This is because correctly engineering such a head-to-head test is surprisingly difficult. In addition to having identical (or nearly identical) content shot in cinematic style, there are several other variables which each have to be technically correct. These include having the same signal chain from camera shutter speed, capture, compression, edit and grading to distribution format, playback device and display.

One thing that's especially tricky is whether the 24fps content ever goes through a 3:2 pulldown conversion (or similar). A significant amount of high-quality big-screen-film-sourced content originally made in 24fps goes through this sort of pulldown when viewed at home - even when the source is 24fps (whether Blu-ray, Netflix, Amazon or Apple). This pulldown process definitely imparts a look many associate with being "cinematic". Yet what we see in an actual theater is native 24fps so that's what we need to match for an accurate comparison.

Having recently upgraded my dedicated high-end home theater I was surprised that every device from playback source (streaming box or Blu-ray), AVR and 4k HDR projector - while being native 24f capable - defaulted to having the native 24f turned off in settings (thus silently applying a real-time 3:2 pulldown to the native 24f source). This was only discovered during detailed calibration using test signals. This means many people's impressions of 24fps may actually have been formed watching 24fps content automatically converted to 30fps with 3:2 pulldown by their source, AVR or display.

I suspect associating my subjective sense about "cinematic" with the label "24fps" may not only be erroneous but unfair to 30fps. Technically, 30fps has advantages in reducing motion judder on fast-moving objects and camera pans. A good example of this is the Hollywood-produced pre-digital 24fps Oliver Stone football movie "Any Given Sunday" which was shot entirely on film. They did the best they could with 24fps but some of the fast, ball-tracking camera pans are extremely distracting - something 30fps would have definitely helped if it had been an option back then. Nowadays, for the first time, the industry has some freedom to choose frame rates and I wonder if, done properly, 30fps might be a better option in which us film-look purists would lose nothing of what we love but gain in reducing some unavoidable artifacts from 24 frame's limitations.

[burntwater]

Yeah, what qingcharles says. I personally can't say I've seen what's special about 24fps artistically, but it doesn't bother me from a technical perspective (as much).

[voltaireodactyl]

As someone who lives more on the artistic side than the technical, but appreciates both, that’s honestly reassuring to hear.

And for what it’s worth: I think 24fps is partially why people of frankly similar talent and beauty look untouchable on film, but just like some dude on social media. My personal back-filled theory is that it’s something to do with the fact that 24fps creates more gaps for your imagination to fill in with whatever burns inside your personal subconscious — those “missing” frames let you “see” in Russell Crowe or whomever just a little bit more of yourself than is possible in gapless, real-time reality. Sort of like how old photos with lower resolution feel comforting and organic, because they’re cloudy like dreams, unlike the stark reality that can be achieved by modern lenses.

It would also somewhat explain why high FPS works better for things like sports (where most of the awe is that you’re watching real people do these amazing things) and video games (where the awe comes from actually embodying the figure on screen and existing in their full framerate surroundings).