The Joy of 23.976 [Text wall]

[tp4tissue]

As y'all know 60fps has been topKek for GAMING.  moving on to 120hz 144hz now 240hz and 360hz.

However, ALL mainstream m0vies are made in 23.976 Frames Per Second.

This is a throwback to old technological limitations and broadcast standards.


The premise has continued, unabated.


What happens when you playback 23.976 fps on a 60hz lcd.

You may have heard of the term 3:2 pulldown,  that means it takes the approximately 24 frames split it among 3hz, 2hz, 3hz, 2hz, until 24 fills 60.

That's correct if the frame rate is 24fps, but since it's not, it's 23.976, what happens is the system will either DROP or REPEAT a frame every 40-50 seconds.


The system may also experience delays if it's not a pure playback built device, which means even if it was 24, you still get Drops or Repeats.


So what's the Big Deal,  why is 3:2 pull down bad. 

Well for purists, the entire production chain is in precise 23.976hz. The Studio use panels that do exactly that, FRAME PERFECT.  Each frame takes the same amount of time on screen, known as perfect cadence. This is not super critical in live action, but for things like animation / anime, it makes a HUGE difference as they use animation techniques which benefit from frame perfect playback.

3:2 is how pulldown is done, there are also other playback techniques like frame blending which some software uses.  While this does make cadence appear smoother, this has the problem of reducing frame sharpness as 2 frames are blended together to create an inter-frame,  a fake insert frame.


For a VERY LONG TIME,  we've only had 60hz panels/ systems.  But these days, Many Monitors and TVs support some sort of 23.976 friendly playback mode.  They either support 23.976 /24/25/50 directly, or multiples of it like, 71.928, 119.88,  etc.   

If you have a  120hz or 144hz panel, that's perfect for 24FPS content like Korean movies, but it's still not perfect for 23.976, there will be Drops and Repeats. (FAR LESS) than 60hz, so if that's all your monitor supports , those modes are still better than non close multiples like 165hz or 75hz.


How to spot the problem visually, describing it is difficult, but imagine a Song, instead of ZoomZoomZoomZoomZoom,  it goes, Zoooom Zoom Zoooom Zoom Zoooom.    It's close but something is OFF.

Subconsciously Your brain is very good at discerning the difference, Once you SEE IT, you'll never want to go back to Non-frame perfect.

Overall Perfect cadence Improves motion clarity, and also Panning smoothness.


Try 23.976 Today. 

[noisyturtle]

60 fps is overrated, some of my favorite games run @30 and it doesn't detract at all

I've also been known to make big fps sacrifices for visual gains though 

[tp4tissue]

The problem we still have is that monitors and tvs don't REPORT what its actual behavior is. for example 60 could be 59.45hz.  That's A PROBLEM, and it's difficult to deal with, if the display is not telling the truth.