James Cameron champions faster film projection rates (from 24 to 60 fps) • Hacker News Board

Re: James Cameron champions faster film projection rates (from 24 to 60 fps)

#61

Post by masuel » Fri, Apr 01, 2011, 9:24 PM UTC

alexqgb wrote: post #58

jwr wrote: post #27

Notice he's leaning towards 48p as opposed to 60p, which is an already standardized framerate that your modern TV likely supports. I do not think that is an accident. After all, once we all buy our new 3D TVs, something will have to happen for people to buy new TVs again in 3-4 years. And before you mention bandwidth considerations, I do not have actual data, but I suspect that when using H.264 High Profile, the diff…

Assuming the bitrates are the same, 48fps will require 80% of the bandwidth needed to handle 60. To the best of my knowledge, H.264 only supports two GOP structures (short = 6 frames / long = 15 frames), both of which operate independently from the playback speed. In other words, a short GOP setting produces 8 blocks per second running at 48, and 10 per second running at 60. Assuming a constant bitrate (I know, I kno…

H264 has no such limitation regarding gop structure. The levels (3.0, 4.1 etc) define (slightly indirectly) the DPB (decode picture buffer) size. This is how many frames must be held in memory at one time. The gop itself is not limited. Furthermore the compression rate for high frame rate actually increases for live action as there has been less change between the frames and even taking a fixed framerate. There are compromises to be made and faster framerate with a fixed bitrate may not be great for all usages but I think that you are being very, and unduly, pessimistic here. From my experiences at 720p 60fps and a 6 Mbps stream (which we currently have deployed) and a nice encoder you are looking at a very nice picture.

Re: James Cameron champions faster film projection rates (from 24 to 60 fps)

#62

Post by DanielBMarkham » Fri, Apr 01, 2011, 9:31 PM UTC

julian37 wrote: post #60

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people read my initial comment as some sort of plea for more and more tech, but that's not the way I meant it. My point was for archival purposes. If you record data at a degree or two higher level than human perception, you can always add whatever post-processing you want to get any kind of artistic effect desired. You want that old jerky 24fps stuff? Fine. Post-process it to get it. People 200 years from no…

As other people have commented, the medium is part of the artwork. To quote a comment from above: "If Leonardo could have taken a picture of Mona Lisa instead of painting her, would it be in the Louvre today?" Also, the days of watching just the raw footage are long over. These days, almost every frame you see in a movie has been heavily post-processed. Quadrupling the frame rate for no reason other than to be safe o…

I hear you, and you make good points.

But this issue is not unique to frame rate, or even cinema. We ran into this same problem when HDR took off in still photography. How much of the art is the medium, and how much is the processing?

I think you can argue it either way, but my point was that additional data can always lead to various interpretations later on, while less data always leads to a less-varied range of future possibilities. Speculating on what kinds of post-production work might be done, who might do it, or whether it's a good thing or not misses the point. What used to be part of the medium is now part of the process.

Leonardo would have taken the picture, then painted the painting. What hung in the Louvre would have been up to him as to what he decided to release. Would the painting be worth any less if we had a fully-rendered, highly-detailed model of the studio, subject, and the artist? Not at all, but there are many derivative works we could create with that kind of data that we could never do from just a painting. Think of it in a silly way: if I see a man and draw a stick man, am I locked in forever for only remembering that man in such simple terms? Or might I want to come back and paint him? Why make me choose when the tech lets me have it both ways?

I won't go into the technology/cost issues, as these things have a way of changing dramatically from year to year.

Re: James Cameron champions faster film projection rates (from 24 to 60 fps)

#63

Post by _delirium » Fri, Apr 01, 2011, 9:42 PM UTC

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #13

> The filmmaker said that when he begins shooting the "Avatar" sequel in about 18 months, he will be shooting at a higher frame rate, though he has yet to decide if that will be 48 fps or 60 fps. He said George Lucas was "gung-ho" to make the conversion, and also called Peter Jackson one of his allies. Jackson, he said, had at one point been heavily weighing shooting "The Hobbit" at 48 fps. Awesome! It's finally happ…

Isn't everything about film and film-watching "exclusively a habit, a purely conventional thing, imposed by culture"? Or are there aspects that are objective? (Would I even watch a James Cameron film if it weren't for cultural norms encouraging me to?)

Re: James Cameron champions faster film projection rates (from 24 to 60 fps)

#64

Post by jjcm » Fri, Apr 01, 2011, 9:45 PM UTC

alexqgb wrote: post #58

jwr wrote: post #27

Notice he's leaning towards 48p as opposed to 60p, which is an already standardized framerate that your modern TV likely supports. I do not think that is an accident. After all, once we all buy our new 3D TVs, something will have to happen for people to buy new TVs again in 3-4 years. And before you mention bandwidth considerations, I do not have actual data, but I suspect that when using H.264 High Profile, the diff…

Assuming the bitrates are the same, 48fps will require 80% of the bandwidth needed to handle 60. To the best of my knowledge, H.264 only supports two GOP structures (short = 6 frames / long = 15 frames), both of which operate independently from the playback speed. In other words, a short GOP setting produces 8 blocks per second running at 48, and 10 per second running at 60. Assuming a constant bitrate (I know, I kno…

"Assuming the bitrates are the same, 48fps will require 80% of the bandwidth needed to handle 60."

Not exactly - while your 80% approximation is true for uncompressed footage, h.264 encoded video and essentially every modern day video compression schema will inherit data from the frame(s) before it. The higher the framerate, the less (generally speaking) the images will change between frames - leading to a reduction in data per frame.

Here's an example:

File 1: http://files.jjcm.org/60fps.mp4 - 127KB

File 2: http://files.jjcm.org/48fps.mp4 - 119KB

As seen here, the 48fps video 94% of the size of the 60 fps video. Granted, this is a singular example, but at least it supports the concepts that I described above.

Re: James Cameron champions faster film projection rates (from 24 to 60 fps)

#65

Post by electromagnetic » Fri, Apr 01, 2011, 9:46 PM UTC

modeless wrote: post #7

The problem is that 24 FPS is now part of the Hollywood "look". 24 FPS is associated with high quality high budget productions in people's minds; 60 FPS looks like a home movie or low-budget TV sitcom. It may take a while to change people's perceptions.

No, the Hollywood "look" is having tens/hundreds of millions of dollars to dump. TV looks low-budget because it is low budget. But there's a big difference between real low budget TV and simply TV.

Honestly, download an original British or Canadian drama show that doesn't get carried in the US and you'll see low budget. You'll see horrific, unwatchable direction.

I'm sorry, but give Sam Raimi a video camera with any frame rate and there's a significant chance he'll produce a blockbuster with it. I mean Oliver Stone released big budget movies using Super8!

The Hollywood "look" is genericness, because like everything else about Hollywood the studios are whole-heartedly fearful of anything that might stop someone watching a film, and in doing so turn people off watching films by lacking originality from plot to cast to cameras.

Re: James Cameron champions faster film projection rates (from 24 to 60 fps)

#66

Post by alexqgb » Fri, Apr 01, 2011, 9:58 PM UTC

masuel wrote: post #61

alexqgb wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming the bitrates are the same, 48fps will require 80% of the bandwidth needed to handle 60. To the best of my knowledge, H.264 only supports two GOP structures (short = 6 frames / long = 15 frames), both of which operate independently from the playback speed. In other words, a short GOP setting produces 8 blocks per second running at 48, and 10 per second running at 60. Assuming a constant bitrate (I know, I kno…

H264 has no such limitation regarding gop structure. The levels (3.0, 4.1 etc) define (slightly indirectly) the DPB (decode picture buffer) size. This is how many frames must be held in memory at one time. The gop itself is not limited. Furthermore the compression rate for high frame rate actually increases for live action as there has been less change between the frames and even taking a fixed framerate. There are c…

Very interesting. Thanks for the detail. I guess the fixed GOP structure must be limited to HDV (MPEG-4). That flexibility is pretty awesome.

For what it's worth, I suspect what you describe (720p60 @ 6Mbps) is more than fine for most people. In other words, Cameron's idea that people will be going to theaters because of magical picture quality seems like wishful thinking. I suspect people go to theaters because they like going to theaters. It's social. It's big. It's immersive and (relatively) distraction-free - all part of a fun night out.

Are they going to go home to 720p60 @ 6Mbps and think 'gah!'. Unlikely.

Re: James Cameron champions faster film projection rates (from 24 to 60 fps)

#67

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Apr 01, 2011, 10:02 PM UTC

julian37 wrote: post #60

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people read my initial comment as some sort of plea for more and more tech, but that's not the way I meant it. My point was for archival purposes. If you record data at a degree or two higher level than human perception, you can always add whatever post-processing you want to get any kind of artistic effect desired. You want that old jerky 24fps stuff? Fine. Post-process it to get it. People 200 years from no…

As other people have commented, the medium is part of the artwork. To quote a comment from above: "If Leonardo could have taken a picture of Mona Lisa instead of painting her, would it be in the Louvre today?" Also, the days of watching just the raw footage are long over. These days, almost every frame you see in a movie has been heavily post-processed. Quadrupling the frame rate for no reason other than to be safe o…

[deleted]

Re: James Cameron champions faster film projection rates (from 24 to 60 fps)

#68

Post by alexqgb » Fri, Apr 01, 2011, 10:05 PM UTC

jjcm wrote: post #64

alexqgb wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming the bitrates are the same, 48fps will require 80% of the bandwidth needed to handle 60. To the best of my knowledge, H.264 only supports two GOP structures (short = 6 frames / long = 15 frames), both of which operate independently from the playback speed. In other words, a short GOP setting produces 8 blocks per second running at 48, and 10 per second running at 60. Assuming a constant bitrate (I know, I kno…

"Assuming the bitrates are the same, 48fps will require 80% of the bandwidth needed to handle 60." Not exactly - while your 80% approximation is true for uncompressed footage, h.264 encoded video and essentially every modern day video compression schema will inherit data from the frame(s) before it. The higher the framerate, the less (generally speaking) the images will change between frames - leading to a reduction…

Wow, you're absolutely right about the (minor) file size differences. That's really interesting. H.264 FTW.

I have to admit, I couldn't see any difference in the quality of the motion between the two clips, but thanks for posting them.

Re: James Cameron champions faster film projection rates (from 24 to 60 fps)

#69

Post by yesbabyyes » Fri, Apr 01, 2011, 10:06 PM UTC

julian37 wrote: post #60

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people read my initial comment as some sort of plea for more and more tech, but that's not the way I meant it. My point was for archival purposes. If you record data at a degree or two higher level than human perception, you can always add whatever post-processing you want to get any kind of artistic effect desired. You want that old jerky 24fps stuff? Fine. Post-process it to get it. People 200 years from no…

As other people have commented, the medium is part of the artwork. To quote a comment from above: "If Leonardo could have taken a picture of Mona Lisa instead of painting her, would it be in the Louvre today?" Also, the days of watching just the raw footage are long over. These days, almost every frame you see in a movie has been heavily post-processed. Quadrupling the frame rate for no reason other than to be safe o…

Replying mostly to DanielBMarkham, the sibling.

I respect your point and I mostly share the sentiment. Even so; no, da Vinci wouldn't choose what to put in the Louvre. That's the point. We chose what to put in the Louvre, and if da Vinci would have chosen another medium he would have created something else, which might not hang there or anywhere, today.

I'm doing a program where I have great use of Redis for some things, while I could use MongoDB for others. Even so, I choose to use Redis exclusively because I have a feeling that the constraint will help me create a better program.

I really believe in constraints in creation. But of course, if Cameron needs 60 fps he should shot in that!

Re: James Cameron champions faster film projection rates (from 24 to 60 fps)

#70

Post by julian37 » Fri, Apr 01, 2011, 10:07 PM UTC

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #62

julian37 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As other people have commented, the medium is part of the artwork. To quote a comment from above: "If Leonardo could have taken a picture of Mona Lisa instead of painting her, would it be in the Louvre today?" Also, the days of watching just the raw footage are long over. These days, almost every frame you see in a movie has been heavily post-processed. Quadrupling the frame rate for no reason other than to be safe o…

I hear you, and you make good points. But this issue is not unique to frame rate, or even cinema. We ran into this same problem when HDR took off in still photography. How much of the art is the medium, and how much is the processing? I think you can argue it either way, but my point was that additional data can always lead to various interpretations later on, while less data always leads to a less-varied range of fu…

I agree with you that it would be wonderful if all footage could be preserved with maximum spatial and temporal resolution, and maximum dynamic range (and, for that matter, some day become part of the public domain!)

All I was saying is that realistically, and unfortunately, the economic realities of film production make it unlikely that anything will be shot with quality much higher than what the stakeholders can make use of in the short to medium term.