I don't think so, majority of displays are still 60Hz without VRR.
What does that mean? I thought 44khz sampling meant 44.000 integers are recorded per second.
This timecode format is a timestamp with seconds resolution plus a frame count within each second. To properly sync, all the timecode generators must use the same framerate. In other words, the audio recorder’s timecode framerate needs to match the camera.
The funny thing with timecode, which is hh:mm:ss:ff, is that the frame count is done at 24 frames, even at 23.976. So 1 frame of 23.976 is longer in actual "real time" duration than 1 frame at 24 fps. This can get confusing when going from and to 24/23.976.
There are more sophisticated workflows where the audio is recorded at 48.048 kHz (0.1% faster sample rate) called audio pull-up (or pull-down). The technique is used when shooting, for example, a TV spot, with a film camera at 24 fps. Since the 24 fps picture will be played back at 23.976 at the edit, the audio will follow the same speed down because it will itself play at 48.000 kHz instead of 48.048 kHz. I'm not sure that many productions still shoots TV spots in film, though, contrary to fiction where film is still being used sometimes.
In all cases, the time code increments at the frame rate you are using.
But all the major VOD services, be it Disney+, Netflix, Hulu,... still mainly use 23.976 or 29.97 fps for their video distributions.
I don't know what your production company mainly works on, but these NTSC frame rates ares still the norm across the whole cinematic industry, and it's not going anywhere. It's not limited to documentaries at all.
The YouTubers etc. do use 30/60 fps more often OTOH.
https://partnerhelp.netflixstudios.com/hc/en-us/articles/360...
But anyway, I can confirm most of their videos are 23.976 fps for live action series. Exception: I do see 24fps for some animes.
This is a guide about data bitrate, what it says is that for 24fps, you need at least 240Mbps (means it needs more if it has higher frame rate).
If anything, all the other language versions actually use "23.98" as example instead. E.g. this Deutsch version: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WLz0O_dwmVWjqHafaHoLav0qvHU...
This guide https://partnerhelp.netflixstudios.com/hc/en-us/articles/441... mentions more about frame rate but it's basically just "don't convert frame rate around, and use constant frame rate for intermediate file".
So some of them might reconvert to 23.976 even when we submit 24 fps masters as per the contractual agreement. Maybe you are right. I will check.
Low budget web series shot at 23.976 even get delivered and played back at 29.97i on some local platforms here in Canada (Crave, Noovo, tout.tv), so anything's possible nowadays.
On the other end, Blurays can be encoded at both 23 and 24, and Vimeo, Youtube, etc all support 24fps. So 24 fps exists, not just on DCPs.
By the way, the loss of quality from going to/from 23.976 and 24 is not much. I've never heard any artifacts from that kind of conversion. But since cinema theatres are most likely to have a better sound system that a home system, I think it makes more sense to have the unconverted mix playing in the cinema and not vice versa.
Surely the first solution would be preferable. But it would still lead to more than one jitter per minute. I wouldn't call that "no artifacts".
1.7321 cents difference for your audio (100 cents is a half-step)
I do agree we should actively push this relic out, though. Wish Netflix etc. can do more to normalize whole number frame rate to end this. Unfortunately considering TV industry are still using 29.97i for broadcasting, I don't see it's going to happen any time soon. And it's worse in other countries like Japan.
I would think the main consideration is workflow these days.
Source: https://partnerhelp.netflixstudios.com/hc/en-us/articles/726...
I understand that the two main reasons for 23.976/24 fps are that it’s:
1) been the standard for a really long time so you know everything will more or less support it (cinemas/vod/broadcast tv).
2) is now in people minds as what film should look like (in that 60 fps somehow looks “off” because we’re trained to expect 24 fps).
Given that analogue broadcast tv is dying off and that digital OTA tv is a similar case to vod in terms of codecs (maybe not receiver support?), wouldn’t a stopgap be some multiple of 24 fps (e.g. 48fps) that would allow better motion handling without the pace seeming off?
I'm quite convincented you already notice it at 30fps (but I'd have to check again)
Watch either of Ang Lee’s HFR movies (Billy Lynn/Gemini Man) and you’ll understand what I mean. HFR breaks suspension of disbelief. I didn’t want this to be true but I’ve come to accept that it doesn’t really have a place in cinema at least for now.
(I worked in the industry at the time on the technical side, but I’m not a film buff, so the details are forgotten a long time ago. All I remember is that there was a huge amount of work involved to get all the equipment upgraded to support HFR. Cinemas had to upgrade both their playback servers and projectors for thousands of dollars. All for less than a handful of films.)
Remember also that typically a 1/2 rule is followed where the exposure of each frame is half the time of its display. So for each of the 1/24s intervals, an exposure is made for 1/48s. A shorter exposure would have less motion blur but look jittery. A longer exposure would look too buttery. People are extremely used to 1/48s exposures displayed for 1/24s (or similar).
48fps video in the Hobbit movies was very negatively perceived. It looked too much like a video game.
As someone who hates 24fps, because it looks way too jerky, and not lifelike, the sooner we lose 24FPS, the better.
I also think most jerkiness in 23.976/24 is due to incorrect display settings leading to dropped/skipped/repeated frames. If your display can match 23.976, even panning scenes look pretty smooth. It's the jitter that messes with our brains and looks bad.
It's not jitter that bothers me, it's the stop motion effect. It's especially bad with action sequences that have a lot of closeup shots.
This is basically every movie with any sort of action in the past decade or so. If you do closeup shots in on some fast action in 24fps you don't have to worry one bit about choreography, since it'll just be a choppy blurry mess and nobody can tell what's going on anyway.
I'd argue stylistically the lower frame rate works a lot better on a big screen. There's also the fact that high frame rates on a big screen seem to cause some people to get motion sick.
I personally have no issue w/ action scenes which are shot at 24fps. Yeah, there is a fair amount of blur but it all seems natural (at least on a cinema projector), and conveys the fast movement, even if it might not be precise.
Take Jackie Chan's Drunken Master epic final fight scene for example - yes it's a bit blurry but I can make sense of everything going on. If anything it enhances the feeling of action - if this was shot at 60fps, it would look much more "real" and be a lot less enjoyable.
Not sure how a camera would be built that could do this...
Hobbit's 48 fps version was not as badly received as you make it, though the unreal slow 24 fps shoot does give it more of a fairytale character.
Cinematographers have to pick particular aperture and ISO to get the depth of field and film grain they want, so they can only really adjust exposure though shutter speed. If you double the framerate, the minimum possible shutter speed halves. Therefore (unless you are shooting outside on a sunny day) it is very likely that your shot is underexposed, and the only thing you can do about it is add more lighting. This can be both logistically complicated and technically very hard to pull off without looking unnatural, especially in scenes that are supposed to be dark and moody.
Many new TVs interpolate 24/30 fps to be 60fps. This is knows as "The Soap Opera Effect", and has been written about here before. [0].
To me, 24/30fps feels "smooth", almost "buttery". 60fps feels crisp. 60fps feels almost too real. It makes it more difficult for me to suspend disbelief, whereas 30 makes it easier to suspend disbelief and get lost in the imaginary world that's being presented to me as if it were real. It's really difficult for me to explain....
All high-end cameras like the ones from Arri, RED and Sony can switch easily between 23.976 and 24.0 since many years. The sound recorders can now too, like the Sound Devices, which is the most common brand used (at least here in North America). The choice of shooting in 24.0 was already available in 2016, but not every gig would be used to shoot 24.0 so they chose 23.976 just to be safe, I guess.
Also, in 2016 television was still a major deliverable, but this has changed. Video on demand, which supports any framerates, is now the main distribution channel when a movie has finished playing on the big screen.
Documentaries are more of an exception because they are still aimed at television and also, they often use old footage which was telecine'd at 23.976 so it's easier to edit when everything's 23.976.