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Why movies look weird at 48fps, and games are better at 60fps

accidentalscientist.com

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Re: Why movies look weird at 48fps, and games are better at 60fps

#11

Post by twoodfin »

bhauer wrote: post #4

This article is detailed and scientific. However, anecdotally speaking, the concern I have with evaluating high-frame rate in film is that we have very little context—most of us have only ever seen Peter Jackson's Hobbit films in HFR. In other words, I have never seen how other directors' work would be affected by HFR. Speaking exclusively about the Hobbit series in HFR, I too observed an uncanny valley that traditio…

Agree. Assuming the lukewarm reception of HFR for "The Hobbit" hasn't consigned us to another decade or so of 24fps, I am hopeful that the right director and cinematographer will eventually come along and exploit its aesthetic possibilities.

Imagine if "The Matrix" had been shot with the simulations in HFR and the real world in 24fps. Or if Kubrick had a chance to essentially invert the gauzy, candle-lit settings of "Barry Lyndon" and present a world in 8K hyper-reality.

Re: Why movies look weird at 48fps, and games are better at 60fps

#12

Post by AndrewDucker »

So, basically, at 24FPS things are blurry enough that you can't see the fine details, which means that special effects and costumes look realistic.

Increase the frequency to 48FPS and the blur goes away, meaning that we can see the fine detail, and suddenly sets look like sets, costumes look like costumes, and CGI looks like a computer game.

Re: Why movies look weird at 48fps, and games are better at 60fps

#13

Post by rootbear »

bhauer wrote: post #4

This article is detailed and scientific. However, anecdotally speaking, the concern I have with evaluating high-frame rate in film is that we have very little context—most of us have only ever seen Peter Jackson's Hobbit films in HFR. In other words, I have never seen how other directors' work would be affected by HFR. Speaking exclusively about the Hobbit series in HFR, I too observed an uncanny valley that traditio…

I keep hoping that someone will release an HFR film that is not also in 3D. I saw an extensive demo of HFR at Siggraph a few years back and it was amazing. HFR can be so crisp and clear that you don't even NEED 3d. I have several friends who don't have stereo vision due to various vision issues. They won't go to see the Hobbit films in HFR, since it's tied to 3D, which is worse than useless to them. The industry needs to give HFR a chance to stand on its own.

Re: Why movies look weird at 48fps, and games are better at 60fps

#14

Post by Qiasfah »

Most serious FPS gamers swear by screens that have a higher update rate than 60hz.

In the past this was achieved by setting your CRT to a low resolution and upping the refresh rate. More recently you can get TN LCD panels that offer 120 or 144hz update rates.

Moving the mouse in small quick circles on a 144hz screen compared to a 60hz screen is a very different experience. On a 60hz screen you can see distinct points in the circle where the cursor gets drawn. With 144hz you can still see the same effect if you go fast enough, but it is way smoother.

This makes a huge difference for being able to perceive fast paced movements in twitch style games and is the reason there has been a shift to these monitors across every competitive shooter.

My thoughts on this is that this behavior is similar to signal sampling theorems. Specifically the Nyquist theorem talks about how you have to sample at at least 2x the max frequency of a signal to accurately represent the frequency. For signal generation this means that you have to generate a signal at at least twice the rate of the max frequency you want to display. If you want to accurately reconstruct the shape of that signal you need 10x the max frequency (for example two samples in one period of a sine wave makes it look like a sawtooth wave, ten samples makes it look like a sine wave).

So, if you're moving your mouse cursor quickly on a screen or playing a game with fast paced model movement even if your eyes can only really sample at something like 50-100hz the ideal monitor frequency might be 1000hz. There's a lot of complexity throughout the system before we can get anything close to this (game engines being able to run at that high of a framerate, video interfaces with enough bandwidth to drive that high of a framerate, monitor technology being able to switch the crystals that fast, etc.).

Yes, 48fps movies typically look less cinematic, but I think this is a flaw in movie making technology and not of the framerate. The fight scenes in the hobbit sometimes look fake because you can start to tell how they aren't actually beating up the other person. This detail is lost at 24fps and is why they have been able to use these techniques.

Re: Why movies look weird at 48fps, and games are better at 60fps

#15

Post by corysama »

bhauer wrote: post #4

This article is detailed and scientific. However, anecdotally speaking, the concern I have with evaluating high-frame rate in film is that we have very little context—most of us have only ever seen Peter Jackson's Hobbit films in HFR. In other words, I have never seen how other directors' work would be affected by HFR. Speaking exclusively about the Hobbit series in HFR, I too observed an uncanny valley that traditio…

I think that you are spot-on regarding how The Hobbit comes off more as a play than a movie.

Another important issue is the unwitting association we have built up that inversely correlates frame rate and production quality. The movie tradition started as soon as video technology became just barely capable of supporting the medium. The enormous cost of moving beyond that ancient standard has kept movies at 24Hz for more than a human lifetime. Later, cheaper, consumer-orientated ed tech targeted getting the best quality out of 59.97Hz television displays, so of course they used all 59.97Hz available to them.

Because of this quirk of history, we've had a frame rate & quality dichotomy with movies on one side (very high quality & 24hz) and soap operas/TV sport/live action reporting/home movies (low to abysmal production quality and 60Hz) on the other for the entire life of everyone.

When MotionFlow frame rate upscaling TVs first came to market, I randomly polled people I found looking at them at BestBuy about what they thought. Even when watching super-expensive Hollywood productions, the most common response was that it "looked like a high school play." It was ludicrous to look at the enormous scenes, world-shaking special effects and top-bill actors on the screens and say "Yep. High school production." But, people did. And, they couldn't explain why. I think the lifetime spent unconsciously building up a mental model that high frame rate leads to low quality is probably a major factor in people's reaction to 48&60Hz movies.

Re: Why movies look weird at 48fps, and games are better at 60fps

#16

Post by TillE »

AndrewDucker wrote: post #12

So, basically, at 24FPS things are blurry enough that you can't see the fine details, which means that special effects and costumes look realistic. Increase the frequency to 48FPS and the blur goes away, meaning that we can see the fine detail, and suddenly sets look like sets, costumes look like costumes, and CGI looks like a computer game.

To be fair, CGI creatures look like a computer game regardless. A very pretty computer game, but still.

Sometimes it seems like people want to believe that CGI is a whole lot better than it actually is. People raved about Gollum in the LOTR films, but go back and look at it. Even at 24fps, it's not great. It certainly doesn't look real.

Re: Why movies look weird at 48fps, and games are better at 60fps

#17

Post by tigeba »

twoodfin wrote: post #11
bhauer wrote: post #4

This article is detailed and scientific. However, anecdotally speaking, the concern I have with evaluating high-frame rate in film is that we have very little context—most of us have only ever seen Peter Jackson's Hobbit films in HFR. In other words, I have never seen how other directors' work would be affected by HFR. Speaking exclusively about the Hobbit series in HFR, I too observed an uncanny valley that traditio…

Agree. Assuming the lukewarm reception of HFR for "The Hobbit" hasn't consigned us to another decade or so of 24fps, I am hopeful that the right director and cinematographer will eventually come along and exploit its aesthetic possibilities. Imagine if "The Matrix" had been shot with the simulations in HFR and the real world in 24fps. Or if Kubrick had a chance to essentially invert the gauzy, candle-lit settings of…

Just riffing on your Matrix example, the now 'classic' example of using a temporal shift to aid story telling is the use of 45 or 90 degree shutter in "Saving Private Ryan" during combat scenes. Changing the shutter angle on a motion film camera is analogous to changing the shutter speed, in this case opting for a faster shutter during the action sequences. This reduces motion blur the same way shooting at a higher frame rate would, albeit keeping the 24p.

Re: Why movies look weird at 48fps, and games are better at 60fps

#18

Post by adamcanady »

Qiasfah wrote: post #14

Most serious FPS gamers swear by screens that have a higher update rate than 60hz. In the past this was achieved by setting your CRT to a low resolution and upping the refresh rate. More recently you can get TN LCD panels that offer 120 or 144hz update rates. Moving the mouse in small quick circles on a 144hz screen compared to a 60hz screen is a very different experience. On a 60hz screen you can see distinct points…

Wait a second.. can you explain the 10x the max frequency part to accurately reconstruct the shape of the signal?

It's my understanding that you just need 2x (two points in a sine wave) to construct a unique wave. If you're getting a sawtooth, it means that you're sampling a wave that is composed of very high frequencies, and you're accurately sampling it, so a DAC can reconstruct it uniquely.

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