Is 24p dying?

[Ash Greyson]

I dont agree with Tommy on much but the 24P is more efficient argument is a silly one. You have to have an expensive camera to shoot it, an expensive NLE to edit it and by the very same criteria... wouldn't 12P be even MORE efficient?


ash =o)

[Simon Wyndham]

Urr no. The DVX100 does 24p, and pretty much all the NLE's around today can edit 24p as well.

[Charles Papert]

I think there are examples today and/or the very near future that illustrate Michael's point--take the upcoming HVX200. Shooting in 24p mode will net you 20 minutes of footage on an 8gb card: shooting at 60 will require three such cards for the same amount of footage. That's a very real and immediate issue for someone considering shooting a feature with this camera once it comes out--how many cards will I need, how much can I afford (even as a rental item)?

Ash, I know you are being flippant on the 12 fps issue but I'm sure you will agree that since we have all grown up with 24 fps footage, anything less than that (or at a stretch, 22 fps) will not look like "normal" movement.

[Ash Greyson]

My point is that if you have a $3000 camera and a $3000 cpu/nle then it seems silly to be arguing over 20% less of cheap hard drive space!!

I was being flippant CP... I like 24P for movies and there are many arguements for it but I dont like the conserve space/speed up rendering one.

It makes more sense for the HVX but I wont even be tempted until the storage is cheaper and the workflow clarified. Like I say about everything, it is PROJECT dependent. I would never do something to conserve space or speed it up if it adversely effected the project.


ash =o)

[Joshua Provost]

Ash, the efficiency is significant for DVD's since the extra bits from fewer frames can be used to make the other frames look better. That's always a good thing. I can tell the difference in quality in 24p vs 60i DVDs I encode with TMPGenc.

[Ash Greyson]

Actually, I think 30P looks great when bumped to NTSC DVD... Again, I love 24P, it is NOT dead but it is also not for everything. It is an effect that you should choose for a particular aesthetic, not because it looks better or is more efficient...


ash =o)

[Charles Papert]

Agreed. And I've made a subtle change to the title of this thread to reflect the continuing debate herein.

[Glenn Gipson]

My take on the argument is this: When one sets out to make a “movie” (the word ‘movie’ in this context refers to what the average Joe perceives to be a movie) one has to subscribe to a film language. This film language is rooted in all movies of the past and present, and can not be undone. The only way it can be undone is by not only brainwashing the public to accept 60p as the new film language, but also by re-shooting every movie from the past in 60p as well.

The past of cinema, which inspires us all to make movies in the first place, is permanently tied to the present and future. 24p is one of the key ingredients of film language. It's kind of like Nietzsche's theory of eternal recurrence of the same, the past and the future are one.

[Brian Wells]

Originally Posted by Tommy James

When I was watching the new series Empire on my HDTV no doubt it was shot in high definition 24p and it looked fine until the gladiator scenes when the action started to blur.

There seems to be a lack of fundamental understanding here. Let me see if I can help clear some things up here.

First of all, "Empire" is broadcast on the ABC Network, which except for Dallas (which is 1080i60) every other ABC station is 720p60. So, they are at 60Fps whether you realize it or not. (unless, they actually are broadcasting at 24Fps? Seems highly unlikely because many, many shows on ABC are 60Fps.)

Second, what makes you believe the series was shot digitally? How can you know for sure that it wasn't shot on film? If I saw it, I could tell... probably by the depth of field if nothing else. 2/3" video and 35mm look quite different if you didn't already know! If they used a Pro35mm lens adapter, that would blur the lines, of course.

Third, you noticed that fast action was blurred and this is probably indicative of, more than anything else, artifacts of the lousy MPEG2 encoding which erodes quickly under fast motion. That is part of the broadcast stream... The original output from the camera likely was much cleaner.

Or, although it is quite unlikely, it could have been an error on the part of the camera crew. If the action was shot at 24Fps that was a mistake, although a highly unlikely mistake. Generally action would be shot at 48Fps -or another 'overcrank' speed- then playback would still be at 24Fps. The effect is much like simply slowing down a clip by 50% on your non-linear editing software.

Another 'mistake' could have been, if they were indeed shooting digitally, and on a Panasonic VariCam in 720P, they might have been not using a fast enough shutter speed to accomodate the increased framerate. On a motion picture camera that normally would have a 1/48th shutter at 24Fps would by the nature of increasing the framerate to 48Fps, then have a shutter speed twice as fast as before, so in this case, 1/96th.

When you adjust a film camera to a faster framerate, the shutter speed automatically increases in proportion. Digital cameras do not automatically increase in proportion! The effect of having a 1/48th shutter speed at 48Fps would be a blurrier-than-normal motion, which isn't anything at all like the sharp slow motion from a film camera.

The solution is to simply select the appropriate shutter speed for the framerate you are using. Digital cameras must be 'dialed in' to the correct settings -- it is not automatic.

Yet another possibility is if they shot the series at 1080p on a Sony camera the only option for 'slo motion' would be de-interlacing the camera's output from 1080i60, which isn't anywhere close to ideal, but it does work. In this case, they most definitely would have not thought about cranking up the shutter speed, maybe from inexperience? I don't know for sure...

There are a lot of buttons on a digital camera and sometimes crews forget to push the right ones!

Honestly, I would find out if the show was shot digitally or film before dismissing a piece of technology. It hurts, man!

Brian Wells
24P FanBoy

[Charles Papert]

Originally Posted by Brian A. Wells

Second, what makes you believe the series was shot digitally? How can you know for sure that it wasn't shot on film? If I saw it, I could tell... probably by the depth of field if nothing else.

Haven't seen this particular show, but I feel less and less like I can consistently pick out well-shot HD from 35mm on the small screen as more DP's get the hang of the medium...just found out from a friend who worked on the Showtime series "Weeds" that it was HD, and having seen three episodes of it it never occurred to me to wonder if it was film or digital, so I was quite surprised.

[Brian Wells]

Originally Posted by Charles Papert

I feel less and less like I can consistently pick out well-shot HD from 35mm on the small screen as more DP's get the hang of the medium...

Agreed. I was just seeing how far I could push it. . .

[Charles Papert]

Now that it's quoted, it's too late for me to fix, but I must apologize to the universe and my high school English teachers for the sentence "I feel less and less like I can consistently pick out well-shot HD ..." That one's a red-line.

[John Jay]

Here are some non-24p creations.
I use the word creations so as not to upset the 24p afficionados. To them I guess they are possibly not films as they posses a 30p reality look,

....though I would admit when I saw Julie Andrews come running over a hill top with a bunch of kids back in the mid 60s I thought wow, that looks real :) 'in caps'



Oklahoma (1955)
Around the World in 80 Days (1956), United Artists
South Pacific (1958), 20th Century Fox
Porgy and Bess (1959), MGM
Can Can (1960), 20th Century Fox
The Alamo (1960), United Artists
Cleopatra (1963), 20th Century Fox
The Sound of Music (1965), 20th Century Fox
The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965), 20th Century Fox
Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965), 20th Century Fox
Doctor Dolittle (1967), 20th Century Fox
Star (1968), 20th Century Fox
Hello Dolly (1969), 20th Century Fox
Airport (1970), Universal Pictures
Baraka (1992)

I can hardly wait for the HD DVD version of Baraka.

[Frank Howard]

Originally Posted by Charles Papert

To me, 24p with all the depth of focus in the world is much more film-like than 60i with shallow focus (which I think looks odd, frankly).

Amen. I am guessing you mean "as created through the use of 35mm adapters". I experimented with them and couldn't shake that weird look they get. Fortunately, I remembered my last viewing of Kurosawa's Ran and it made me realize a great background is at least as good as shallow DOF. Of course, it took Kurosawa 10 years to make. But I have the advantage of NO schedule to worry about. So... using the old axiom "Quick, Good, Cheap... pick two" I will just take 'Good' and 'Quick'... Heh.

[David Jimerson]

Originally Posted by John Jay

Here are some non-24p creations.
I use the word creations so as not to upset the 24p afficionados. To them I guess they are possibly not films as they posses a 30p reality look,

....though I would admit when I saw Julie Andrews come running over a hill top with a bunch of kids back in the mid 60s I thought wow, that looks real :) 'in caps'



Oklahoma (1955)
Around the World in 80 Days (1956), United Artists
South Pacific (1958), 20th Century Fox
Porgy and Bess (1959), MGM
Can Can (1960), 20th Century Fox
The Alamo (1960), United Artists
Cleopatra (1963), 20th Century Fox
The Sound of Music (1965), 20th Century Fox
The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965), 20th Century Fox
Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965), 20th Century Fox
Doctor Dolittle (1967), 20th Century Fox
Star (1968), 20th Century Fox
Hello Dolly (1969), 20th Century Fox
Airport (1970), Universal Pictures
Baraka (1992)

I can hardly wait for the HD DVD version of Baraka.

Interesting thing about this list. This a list of Todd-AO films, but:

Only the first two Todd-AO films, Oklahoma! and Around the World in Eighty Days employed 30 fps photography. Because of the need for a conventional 24 fps version the former shot simultaneously in 35 mm CinemaScope. The latter shot a simultaneous 2nd Todd-AO version at 24 fps. All subsequent Todd-AO films have been 24 fps. About 16 feature films were shot in Todd-AO.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd-AO