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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

#41

Post by abandonliberty »

wmeredith wrote: post #32
baby wrote: post #24

I personally love HFR and have went out of my ways to watch the three The Hobbits in HFR (I traveled to Paris, the only place in France where they have it in HFR). When people complain about 48fps being weird I just feel like they're just not used to it. It does look weird but after 20 minutes it looks amazing. I'm personally tired of not understanding anything in action movies that uses 24fps. It is kind of a luxury…

You're trying make an opinion a fact. "Better" has always been subjective when it comes to the senses, and I suspect it always will be. See the whole ridiculous audiophile cottage industry that can sell people $900 wooden volume knobs for their hi-if systems.

That's fair. 'Better' is complex.

Perhaps 'closer to reality' is a better statement. Reality doesn't render at 24fps.

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

#42

Post by anonymfus »

Can it be that description of 24 fps as "dreamy" is subjective? Because usually my dreams don't have such effect. I like plays and 48 fps Hobbit.

May be it's like in the days of monochrome media black-and-white dreams were a norm, but today they are exception.

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

#43

Post by sp332 »

baby wrote: post #24

I personally love HFR and have went out of my ways to watch the three The Hobbits in HFR (I traveled to Paris, the only place in France where they have it in HFR). When people complain about 48fps being weird I just feel like they're just not used to it. It does look weird but after 20 minutes it looks amazing. I'm personally tired of not understanding anything in action movies that uses 24fps. It is kind of a luxury…

In action movies, they often use an even faster shutter to reduce motion blur. The choppy motion makes hits look faster and harder. Lately I've noticed they'll even drop several frames from the middle of a punch to make it look harder.

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

#44

Post by georgemcbay »

TillE wrote: post #16
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.

I agree with this but I think it is more complicated than people "wanting to believe CGI is better than it is", it is more like some sort of innate suspension of disbelief we all have as long as what we are seeing is as good or better than what we've seen before.

I lived through the entire CGI revolution in movies from the early days of Tron and the "Genesis effect" sequence of Star Trek II to now. The way the CGI in all the movies in between looks to me now is very different than it looked to me when first viewed and as a graphics nerd I was always interested and up to date on the technology was done. I don't believe my brain "wanted" to believe CGI was better than it was then, I just had no context for how it would look when it was done even better and as the goalposts moved what came before looked increasingly bad in comparison.

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

#45

Post by pinaceae »

TillE wrote: post #16
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.

go watch Interstellar. first movie where it was really, really hard to spot the transitions to CGI.

also, you'd be surprised how much CGI now is being used in TV series. the showreels are on vimeo, some amazing work.

example, game of thrones, season 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK73bCuJXc8

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

#46

Post by blakecaldwell »

elinchrome wrote: post #31
blakecaldwell wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure about how movies are filmed, but you don't have to shoot video frames at 1/FPS. That's just the slowest you can shoot. If you're shooting in broad daylight, each frame could be as quick as 1/8000, for example. Shooting at the slowest shutter speed possible should make the most fluid video.

Worth noting that directors use high speed film to portray a feeling of confusion. The lack of motion blur gives that sense to the scene. E.g. the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan uses this effect.

They dropped frames too, right? Isn't it a combination of high speed frames at maybe 20fps?

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

#47

Post by pedrocr »

Qiasfah wrote: post #23
adamcanady wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's some discussion of it at the beginning of this article: http://www.ni.com/white-paper/10669/en/

What that whitepaper is saying is that "if you only sample 2xMaxFreq and then connect the dots with straight lines it doesn't really look like a sine wave so buy 5x as much instrument from us". That's a total cheat as that sawtooth graph they show is only possible if you allow higher frequencies. If the signal is bandwidth limited at the frequency of the sinewave the points you sample at 2xFreq only have one possible solution for the graph (the sinewave again). There are some great videos about this recently by xiph's monty:

https://www.xiph.org/video/

So if you sample 2xMaxFreq you have samples that describe the full signal and can reconstruct it exactly. So if our eyes really are 100Hz we can't see anything above 50Hz. That seems to align well with the ~50/60Hz threshold for flicker free viewing. Apparently higher framerates are only useful for when we have fast movement across the field of view which would be the case for FPS:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flicker_fusion_threshold#Visua...

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

#48

Post by nitrogen »

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 saw the first two Hobbit movies in HFR 3D, but the third in 24fps 3D. The third still looked like a play. I attribute it to the frequent use of infinite focus to reduce 3D-induced headaches, or if not that, a stereo separation that was too wide. The sets and locations felt very finite and contained, rather than expansive and overwhelming as in LoTR.

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

#49

Post by zanny »

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…

I just upgraded to a 144hz monitor and a 290 this Christmas, to celebrate them working on Mesa. And yeah, they work pretty flawlessly, even in my now 3 monitor setup.

And Quake. Holy shit. Playing that game at 144hz makes it feel incredibly real, even if its blocky and pixilated, the movements are incredibly organic and the camera turning feels like a head turning rather than spinning around on Google Maps.

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

#50

Post by sjtrny »

blakecaldwell wrote: post #46
elinchrome wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worth noting that directors use high speed film to portray a feeling of confusion. The lack of motion blur gives that sense to the scene. E.g. the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan uses this effect.

They dropped frames too, right? Isn't it a combination of high speed frames at maybe 20fps?

I don't think so. That effect is the extreme sudden movements of the camera. It makes it look stuttery.
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