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A
Anonymous
March 3, 2011
Question

30p vs 24p

  • March 3, 2011
  • 3 replies
  • 25183 views

In considering which frame rate to standardize on for this series, I'm pondering the benefits, if benefits there are, to 24p vs. 30p. What I see most often in documentation is that 24p gives "that coveted film look."

Of course, I plan on doing some shooting this weekend to see how much of a difference I can tell from an emperical perspective, but I thought I'd see if there was a general sense around here of the whens and wheres to use 24p over 30p. I'm assuming that Sony included this option because there are reasons to choose it. But then, it may just be that Marketing wanted more bells and whistles. One never knows.

Any thoughts on the benefits of 24p?

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    3 replies

    Colin Brougham
    Colin Brougham
    Participating Frequently
    March 4, 2011

    Christopher,

    Is your series going to be broadcast or on DVD, or is it web-only? I'm sure you were discussing these somewhere else, but I didn't follow it

    A
    Anonymous
    March 4, 2011

    > Is your series going to be broadcast or on DVD, or is it web-only?

    Initially it'll be distributed web only. However, I'm approaching quality with the assumption that we'll eventually release it in DVD form as well and want to have a professional look in that medium. DVD will just be SD, don't anticipate us ever doing Bluray.

    Colin Brougham
    Colin Brougham
    Participating Frequently
    March 4, 2011

    I, for one (recognizing I'm in the vast minority here), really like to work with 30p. If I'm working on a project destined solely for the web, I'll work in 30p probably 90% of the time; it creates really nice images that don't require deinterlacing for the web, preserving much more visual quality, and I think the cadence of 30p in the web world tends to look better than 24p. The stuttered look that you get from 24p (which is largely unavoidable--it's part of the "magic") really gets accentuated to an almost unpleasant degree, and the blur caused by the slower frame rate can also result in the compression for the web having to work a little harder--this usually necessitates a slightly higher bitrate to deal with the more dramatic differences between sharp parts of an image and blurred parts of an image.

    I've also used 30p for DVD and even broadcast work. What can I say--I just like it. Not every project calls for the "film look" (which goes way beyond just shooting in 24p), and sometimes its just inappropriate. I'd really suggest doing some shooting tests at the various framerates (24p, 30p, 60i) and comparing them. There are differences, but in my experience, the web tends to mitigate those difference a bit, particularly when working with video-sourced material versus film-sourced material.

    Yesterday, I helped shoot a project in 1080/30p with an HPX170 and a Canon 7D and T2i; in post, I'll interpret the footage as 1080/24p, and get a nice 1.25:1 overcrank effect. Had we not needed that look, we'd have sourced at 1080/24p. That's not really related to your question, but 30p does have some utility outside of being just a shooting rate.

      E
      excited_Genie16B8
      Legend
      March 3, 2011

      In my own tests, 30p gave a "somewhat filmish" look, but not quite there.  24p is definitely there.

      My own choices for SD would be 24p for film look, and 30i for video look.  Skip 30p altogether.

      For HD I'd probably choose 24p for film look, and for the video look either 720p/60 or 1080i/30.

      (On a side note, U.S. broadcast stations are either using 1080i/30 or 720p/60.  While there are other HD specs, they are limited to Blu-ray, Satellite and cable delivery systems.)

      A
      Anonymous
      March 4, 2011

      >  for film look

      I've heard this phrase a lot, but I don't really have a clear sense of what it means visually. Have any links to videos that would help me understand the difference between the video and film look (where both are shot with a video rather than film camera for apples to apples comparison)?

      davidbeisner2010
      davidbeisner2010
      Inspiring
      March 3, 2011

      I always shoot at EITHER 24p or 60p, depending on what I'm doing. If it's promotional/documentary type material, I do 24p. If I'm doing sports or event footage, I'll do 60p. Now, if you're shooting for broadcast, you need to do either 24/30p or 60i because 60p can't be broadcast yet (at least, last time I checked, anyway...) If you're shooting for the internet, then anything will work, though for your purposes I'd recommend not going with 60i/p. I've personally never really seen that much difference between 30p and 24p...

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