The Hobbit - 48fps

[dukey]

So if anyone has seen the news recently, it's that the hobbit was filmed at 48fps.

What does this mean for transfering it to DVD or bluray ?

[nevcairiel]

Its also shown at 24p in Cinemas, not every Cinema has 48p tech, and even those that do didn't upgrade all projectors, so there already is a 24p version.
Both DVD and Blu-ray do not have 48p in any form in their spec, so they will be 24p.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Maybe they'll put it on the disc as 24 fps interlaced? :scared:

[nevcairiel]

Maybe they'll put it on the disc as 24 fps interlaced? :scared:

Out of spec, so, doubtful.
Its really sad that there is nothing better then 24p for a medium like Blu-ray, well maybe the next generation optical media for 4k @ 48p...

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Out of spec, so, doubtful.
1080i25 (http://www.x264bluray.com/home/1080i) would be possible though.

Its really sad that there is nothing better then 24p for a medium like Blu-ray, well maybe the next generation optical media for 4k @ 48p...
Well, there must be reason to re-release the movie as "48 fps Ultra-HD edition" when the next-generation disc format is out ;)

[Sparktank]

I found myself questioning the overall validity of his choosing 48fps.

There's a some theaters in my area that have 48fps support.
I really don't see there being too many options for home viewers to see it in 48fps when it reaches home entertainment sales.

I thought maybe they would have 48fps videos on a separate disc available, but I don't think that would work out too well, would it?
I think it's quite foolhearty to limit the format to just theaters.
Although the idea is really great for 3D movies, it's just going to be a small and limited market for now.

[SeeMoreDigital]

For anyone who's interested...

Most if not all new (Sigma and Realtek chip-set based) network hardware media players are already able to play 1920x1080 resolution sources encoded at 48p, 50p and even 60p ;)

[sneaker_ger]

1080i25 (http://www.x264bluray.com/home/1080i) would be possible though.

What frame rates are allowed for 3D Blu-Ray?

[dukey]

How do they produce a 24fps version? Decimation won't be great, as the motion blur will be wrong.

[Mole]

I hope they'll release it as 1920x1080 48i. This is the closest way to be able to show the movie at it's 48fps.

I'm also worried about the motion blur if they simply decimate every other frames to get 24fps. It'll definitely not look smooth.

I think BD at 1920x1080 only allows up to 30p or 60i. 60p is only supported at 1280x720.

[nevcairiel]

How do they produce a 24fps version? Decimation won't be great, as the motion blur will be wrong.

I dont know how they produced it, but i saw the 24p 2D version in the cinema, and it looked fine. Apparently 48p is only available in 3D, at least around here.

[sneaker_ger]

Correct. (http://www.digitaleleinwand.de/hfr-3d/)

[kolak]

How do they produce a 24fps version? Decimation won't be great, as the motion blur will be wrong.

Not really- it was shot with wide shutter angle (270 degrees), so there is quite a lot of blur in original 48fps recording. It will look more strobing than typical 24p, but not that bad. You can also add motion blur in the post production. Reading PJ comments sounds like they are adding motion blur in the post.

[Ghitulescu]

Instead of 48i/p issue I would be more concerned about
Aspect ratio
1.44 : 1 (IMAX 3-D version)
1.85 : 1 (3-D version)
2.35 : 1

[wonkey_monkey]

I really don't see there being too many options for home viewers to see it in 48fps when it reaches home entertainment sales.

Probably all part of the plan - although it didn't take long for 3D to become ubiquitous in the home.

[Overdrive80]

The version of 48 fps is only for screening in cinemas, for DVD/BD will be 24 fps

[G_M_C]

Isnt the 48 fps more of a marketing gimmick ?

Since it's only for 3D, it means that there are, in fact, 2 reels that play 24fps right? One for each eye. So it not exactly 48 fps in my book.

[Sparktank]

3D to become ubiquitous in the home.

It's not entirely ubiquitous. None of my friends or family invested in 3D home entertainment. Nor do they have plans to.
It's still not that relatively cheap either. Everyone I know is only starting to switch to Blu-Ray but at a very slow pace.
I imagine HFR for home use will be quite expensive for the first while.

[nevcairiel]

Since it's only for 3D, it means that there are, in fact, 2 reels that play 24fps right? One for each eye. So it not exactly 48 fps in my book.

"Reels"?
You do know, we live in the digital era now? :)

HFR 3D is not available in analog, only in digital. And "normal" 3D is not 12 fps per eye, its 24 fps per eye. So HFR 3D is 48p per eye.
It is true 48p.

[zambelli]

Instead of 48i/p issue I would be more concerned about
According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Digital_Cinema_Camera_Company, the Red Epic camera (which Jackson used to shoot The Hobbit) has a maximum resolution of 5120x2700 (1.9:1). So there really isn't a "perfect" aspect ratio of The Hobbit as all 3 releases are cropped versions of the full raw frame.

BTW, are you sure about 1.85:1 for 3D? It looked scope to me when I saw it in 3D.

[AndreaMG]

Why did he adopted the 48fps format and not the 60fps one? Is there a technical reason for the new standard being 2x the previous one? :)

[SeeMoreDigital]

Why did he adopted the 48fps format and not the 60fps one? Is there a technical reason for the new standard being 2x the previous one? :)Most probably because there's little perceivable improvement from 48fps to 60fps.

Plus it's easier to work with 48fps when adding the CGI elements. It's also easier to convert 48fps to 23.976/24fps or 25fps (for the old PAL countries)...

[paradoxical]

Because the way it is shot it can still be easily put onto BluRay at 1080p24. BluRay doesn't support 1080p60.

[AndreaMG]

Most probably because there's little perceivable improvement from 48fps to 60fps.

Plus it's easier to work with 48fps when adding the CGI elements. It's also easier to convert 48fps to 23.976/24fps or 25fps
Thanks for the clarification:thanks:It makes sense, not so sure with the fact of the improvement from 48 to 60 being that little, actually (while interpolating with SVP) I notice the difference between 50 and 60fps (the second one is more smooth) and I know people who watch movies on their 120hz monitors interpolated to 120 fps and they do notice the difference :)

[Mug Funky]

60fps in 4k would be a royale PITA to do post on...

48fps is not much better. i take my hat off to the guys who had to wrangle that much data, and push it through on time when nobody has ever done this before.

48fps, 4k (5k rushes IIRC), 2 views, 10 bits per channel (at least - the sensor delivers 14 bits)... that spells nightmare in my books.

[nevcairiel]

Thanks for the clarification:thanks:It makes sense, not so sure with the fact of the improvement from 48 to 60 being that little, actually (while interpolating with SVP) I notice the difference between 50 and 60fps (the second one is more smooth) and I know people who watch movies on their 120hz monitors interpolated to 120 fps and they do notice the difference :)

There is quite a big difference between 48 actual images and interpolated images.
Interpolation benefits from more frames much more then actually increasing the source frames would (especially if it has to do a "odd" interpolation from 24 to 50/60, and not a clear integer multiple)

[wonkey_monkey]

Because the way it is shot it can still be easily put onto BluRay at 1080p24. BluRay doesn't support 1080p60.

It does support 1080i29.97 though, which would at least mean we could experience the smoother frame rate if he'd shot it at 60. PAL conversions would be rubbish, though.

David

[TheSkiller]

PAL conversions would be rubbish, though.
Rubbish? All that would be needed to put it on PAL DVD and BluRay would be the regular speed-up (24->25 fps, and in this case the numbers are doubled but the ratio is the same) which results in 50 fps which would be interlaced into 25 interlaced frames per second (50i) to put it on DVD/BluRay. I'd call that a good solution.

[wonkey_monkey]

I meant if he'd shot it at 60 :D

[paradoxical]

It does support 1080i29.97 though, which would at least mean we could experience the smoother frame rate if he'd shot it at 60. PAL conversions would be rubbish, though.

David

And you'd be at the mercy of the player's deinterlacer which means for most people they'd be trading somewhat smoother motion for deinterlacing artefacts. No thanks.

[kolak]

And you'd be at the mercy of the player's deinterlacer which means for most people they'd be trading somewhat smoother motion for deinterlacing artefacts. No thanks.

Not really- even cheap players will detect that source is progressive and won't even try to deinterlaces it. BD players are way better in this aspect than DVD ones.
There are loads of 25p BDs in Europe and there are no problem with them even on cheap players. Same applies to 29.97p.

[dukey]

i finally got to see the hobbit in stereo 3d, 48fps. The frame rate was real nice, you could really notice it in the panning scenes.

[Chetwood]

I didn't notice any improvement cause the 3D sucked so bad.

[Mole]

Is 48fps only available in 3D?

Sht, I wanna watch 48fps, but not in freaking 3D....

[Sparktank]

Is 48fps only available in 3D?

Yes, it's only for 3D. I believe it's not available for IMAX3D as well.
Just the regular 3D.

[JackNF]

Actually no, Sparktank, the only screen in my area playing the HFR version IS the IMAX3D.

[Biggiesized]

They'll have to create a new spec to show it off in 1080p48 per eye. Also, the movie was finished at 2K despite being shot at 5K.

[zambelli]

The BluRay limitation actually raises an interesting question: when they release The Hobbit on BluRay, will we only get to see a 24p version, or will they employ some clever pulldown pattern to encode 48p into 60i?

[nevcairiel]

My guess is that you'll only get 24p.
Personally, i would prefer that to the loss of spatial resolution from interlacing. With ordinary telecine pulldown, you get 24p in 60i, or 25p in 50i, there is just not enough space to store 48 full progressive frames in 60 fields, so some fields have to be truely interlaced, sacrificing spatial resolution for temporal resolution..

[kevinsert]

They'll have to create a new spec to show it off in 1080p48 per eye. Also, the movie was finished at 2K despite being shot at 5K.

yes only few movies finished @4K especially which has few CGI scenes in it like The Girl with Dragon Tattoo,Samsara,Timescapes etc.
shooting in 4K/5K is easy way but finishing is very pricey even top notch studios cant afford it...

[zambelli]

Do you guys realize that 1080p23.976 H.264 trailers are already available since a few months now, over there for example:


Yes, I'm aware. The movie was also released in traditional 24 fps on 35mm to many theaters, so 24 fps will be the default choice for BluRay. My question was: will the studios attempt 48 fps on Bluray too by using a combination of interlacing and pulldown to achieve 50/60 Hz?

[paradoxical]

Why would they? That sounds horrible.

[TheSkiller]

I don't think it would be any more "terrible" than any other native interlaced content on DVD and Blu-ray. :) So yeah, I would like to watch it that way.

[Sparktank]

Wouldn't they be able to make the "digital copy" in 48fps for PC?

[kolak]

Yes, I'm aware. The movie was also released in traditional 24 fps on 35mm to many theaters, so 24 fps will be the default choice for BluRay. My question was: will the studios attempt 48 fps on Bluray too by using a combination of interlacing and pulldown to achieve 50/60 Hz?

Don't think so- can't see any Hollywood authoring house doing it.
BD will be 23.976p.

[paradoxical]

I don't think it would be any more "terrible" than any other native interlaced content on DVD and Blu-ray. :)

But this isn't native interlaced content.

So yeah, I would like to watch it that way.

Why? It wouldn't look anywhere as good as real 48fps. It would sort of defeat the whole point of shooting at 48fps to have smoother motion when you've introduced pulldown jerkiness.

[kolak]

Doing 50i version would not be that difficult- speed up (which is always present for PAL releases)+encoding as 50i. 60i is a different story.

[paradoxical]

Yeah, I was really only referring to a 60i pulled down version. Unless it can be cleanly restored to 48p upon playback it seems you're just trading in the less smooth 24p for pulldown jerkiness. Doesn't really seem to be that great an idea.

[TheSkiller]

But this isn't native interlaced content.
I know, what I meant to say was, I don't think it would look any worse than native interlaced content even though it is not natively interlaced since it's film (well, not really, it's all digital).



I understand your point of view, paradoxical. I wouldn't want to trade motion smoothness for pulldown jerkiness either. Putting 48p in 60i/29.97 via pulldown would be a jerky mess, most likely unwatchable. I suspect it would be possible only via motion compensated frame rate interpolation.

However, I was imagining it in 50i/25 via speed-up because that's what I'd get in Europe. ;) And I'm quite certrain that would look absolutely fine.

[nevcairiel]

(which is always present for PAL releases).

Luckily with Blu-ray, we don't have such "PAL releases" anymore and get the original 24p. :p

[Didée]

Luckily with Blu-ray, we don't have such "PAL releases" anymore and get the original 24p. :p
Little OT but it should be noted: There are cases where "original 24fps instead of PAL releaese" isn't without issues. Buzzword "Audio speedup/slowdown". Target: (Some) seasonal series. Because, contrary to "PAL speedup always has chipmunk voices", infact the synchronizing (German, at least) often is done on the already-sped-up video, i.e. in the first -target representation (PAL TV at 25fps) all synchronized actors have voices with correct pitch. Then comes BD release, is done at 24fps again, hence the correctly syncronized 25fps audiotrack is slowed down to 24fps. Now the synchronized actors have sloooow, daaaahrk voices. Hooray.

[sneaker_ger]

Yes, but that only happens with cheap niche releases like the Lord of the Rings EE Blu-rays. :rolleyes:

Maybe Hollywood being so U.S. centric and U.S. hardware not supporting 50 fps may finally have a good side: i.e. they can't just throw PAL speed-up at the viewers.

But we'll have to see how it develops, see if there will be other 48 fps movies besides the Hobbit to justify a BD spec extension.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Sadly, I don't think anybody's display equipment will correctly support playback of pure 48fps sources at 48Hz...

But for those of us living in Euroland it should be possible to play pure 50fps sources at 50Hz ;)

[kolak]

Luckily with Blu-ray, we don't have such "PAL releases" anymore and get the original 24p. :p

You would think so :)

Many (20%) BD releases in Europe are 25p (film to 25p speed up) because some post production houses have no clues what they are doing :) This include not small companies, but also big ones :)

[nevcairiel]

Yes, but that only happens with cheap niche releases like the Lord of the Rings EE Blu-rays. :rolleyes:

Good for me to watch Hollywood stuff in its original language then, and not the terrible translations! :) At least when given the option to on a Blu-ray, original-language Cinemas are still rare.

I would think this is actually less of an issue for movies, as the Cinemas show them in 24p (or at least i would think so), and the dubs are done for cinemas first, and then possibly converted to Blu-ray.

Of course that doesn't help TV shows...

[sneaker_ger]

Yes, for TV shows it should be worse but it seems that for many older movies they just take the old DVD audio, slow-down and re-encode to glorious DTS-HD MA and sell it. (The Lord of the Rings Blu-Rays were at least recalled, btw., but it shows how amateurish these guys work even for top notch releases and thus what we can expect of the cheaper ones that definitely won't get recalled.)

[2Bdecided]

There are also some 25p/50i HD TV programmes (even 25p TV content usually has 50i title or effect somewhere) standards converted to 60i and sold in Europe (because 50i isn't universally supported in the USA, and they only want to create one worldwide master).

So, arguably, the BluRay looks works than the TV broadcast in Europe.

Cheers,
David.

[zambelli]

My idea about a HFR Blu-ray version of "The Hobbit" was purely a speculative one, I'm not too concerned about why somebody would want to do it. After all, this is Doom9 so I thought it'd be fun to speculate on how it could be done from a technical standpoint. :)

It's fair to say that due to Bluray's lack of support for 1080p50 and 1080p60 some form of interlacing would be required no matter what. Sure, we'd lose half the vertical resolution, but we're already used to that from watching 1080i broadcast television. Compromising between temporal and spatial resolution is exactly why interlacing was invented in the first place, for better or worse. :)

Speeding up 48 fps to 50 fps and then producing a 1080i version for 50 Hz regions would be pretty easy, I think that one is straightforward.

Producing a version for 60 Hz regions would be trickier. Probably the easiest way to do it would be to convert 48 fps to 60 fps by repeating every 4th frame once (e.g. 1,2,3,4,4,5,6,7,8,8,etc), then slow it down to 59.94 Hz and interlace it.

An Avisynth script might look something like this:
AssumeFPS(48)
SelectEvery(4,0,1,2,3,3)
AssumeTFF()
SeparateFields()
SelectEvery(4,0,3)
Weave()
AssumeFPS(29.97)

The result would be 1-4 (?) pulldown pattern: 1 progressive frame followed by 4 interlaced frames. Here's what such a video might look like: http://alexzambelli.com/video/48fps_test.mp4

That is, of course, a "hard pulldown" version. I'm not sure if there's a way to do "soft pulldown" using TFF/RFF flags in this case since the video would need to be encoded as 48i for that.

[wonkey_monkey]

It's fair to say that due to Bluray's lack of support for 1080p50 and 1080p60 some form of interlacing would be required no matter what.

TVs and Bluray players lacked support for 3D, once upon a time...

[G_M_C]

Please note that PAL (with 25p/50i framerates) isnt only for Europe. Looking at the world NTSC-PAL map (http://www.whatonearththemovie.com/shop/pages/NTSC_PAL.html) PAL is used (or used to be used ) more than NTSC or Secam ...

[SeeMoreDigital]

The result would be 1-4 (?) pulldown pattern: 1 progressive frame followed by 4 interlaced frames. Here's what such a video might look like: http://alexzambelli.com/video/48fps_test.mp4

That is, of course, a "hard pulldown" version. I'm not sure if there's a way to do "soft pulldown" using TFF/RFF flags in this case since the video would need to be encoded as 48i for that.Have you tried Donald Graft's DGAVCpulldown application?

[LoRd_MuldeR]

I think they won't do 720p. Most people have no idea what the heck "interlaced" is, but they know 1920x1080 is more than 1280x720.

And after they spent money for the big 1920x1080 screen, they want 1920x1080, no matter what! ;)

[paradoxical]

There could be two versions. One 1080p24 version. And one 720p50 version. Possibly on separate discs. In one box of course :D;).

The probability of such a thing happening is infinitesimal.

[Dark Eiri]

I sense something like "BluRay Specs 2.0" for new players or update-able ones already in the market for 1080p48, since it will probably be "a thing" in Hollywood after the Hobbit.
How TVs will deal with that, I don't know. It will probably interpolate 48fps to 1080p60 or something, like those "4K MASTERED Blurays" that are coming out (that was a nice joke)

[nevcairiel]

They usually tend to upgrade the BD profile only with backwards-compatible changes, for example in BD Profile 5.0 they added 3D, but in such a way that a "2.0 Profile" 2D player can play it still. Don't think it would be this easy with 48p to keep compat with the millions of devices out there.

[2Bdecided]

Do you really want to argue that 1920x1080i50 looks worse than 1280x720p50 on a 1080p display fed from a high bitrate source like BluRay? I'd love to see the proof of that claim ;)

[scharfis_brain]

My opinion:
HFR48 to 50Hz (PAL/SECAM regions) -> Speedup 48fps to 1080i50
HFR48 to 59.94Hz (NTSC/PAL60 regions) -> Motion-Interpolate to 1080i59.94 (Some evil Snell/Wilcox stuff or so :D ),
all other methods like hard/soft pulldown or frame/fieldblending will hurt motion smoothness badly!

I favour 1080i over 720p, cause the effective pixel-count is the same during transmission,
but with 1080i you get a deinterlacer (or fancy-worded: a temporal super resolution filter)
that nearly doubles the resolution from 1080i to 1080p

[paradoxical]

Or they'll just release it as 1080p24 and do none of that since they already have a 24p version for theaters incapable of showing 48fps material. It's highly doubtful they will run this through a motion interpolation or do pulldown just to put it out as 1080i60.

[2Bdecided]

They already have a 48fps version. ;)

I would be amazed if they miss a chance to charge extra or sell more.

They may not do it immediately of course.

[Sparktank]

They should release special digital formats of the movie for anyone who has screen projectors at home.
The rich people.

So I can make friends with one of them watch it on their home cinema system.

[Sagittaire]

Well BluRay are fully compliant with 48 fps. You make simply encoding in 3D MVC mode and you look the movie without 3D glasses. It's really simple. Anyway it's a hack. Bluray can be certainely fully compliant with really simple addon in BluRay spécifications (like for 3D). All the 3D BluRay compliant SAP will be compliant with really simple bios modification for 1080p48, 1080p50 and 1080p60 support.

[wonkey_monkey]

720p50 would fully preserve all of the progressive frames. 1080i50 wouldn't.

Define "fully preserve." Going down to 720p you've still got to throw a lot of lines out (360 out of 1080). With 1080i50 you're throwing away more lines per frame, but the fields alternate and TVs have good (in some cases very good) deinterlacers specifically for dealing with this - that's why we have 1080i in the first place.

Also, some users here were arguing that 50 fps (or 50 Hz) might not be widely supported in some NTSC regions.

But, ... seriously, most HDTVs sold in the last five or even more years should support 50 Hz, don't you think ?

Yes, you would think, but apparently it's not so.

David

[paradoxical]

They already have a 48fps version. ;)

Wow, really?!? I would have never known! The point is that they have a 24p version already and thus it would be the easiest way to put it on BluRay.

I would be amazed if they miss a chance to charge extra or sell more.

They may not do it immediately of course.

Well of course not. BluRay doesn't support it and likely won't any time soon unless 48p becomes more widely used.

[Sagittaire]

Wow, really?!? I would have never known! The point is that they have a 24p version already and thus it would be the easiest way to put it on BluRay.

Well of course not. BluRay doesn't support it and likely won't any time soon unless 48p becomes more widely used.

BluRay support 48 fps for 3D movie. You make simply encoding in H264 MVC mode and you look the movie without 3D glasses. It's really simple ... :devil:

[Sagittaire]

BluRay support 48 fps for 3D movie. You make simply encoding in H264 MVC mode and you look the movie without 3D glasses. It's really simple ... :devil:

and it's really simple for me to make demonstration of that ...

[2Bdecided]

720p50 would fully preserve all of the progressive frames. 1080i50 wouldn't.

Why would they record with 48 full progressive frames per second just to interlace them afterwards :rolleyes:?I have a camera that records 320x240p30. They are all fully progressive frames. But you know what? I'll choose 1920x1080i50 any day thank you!

Cheers,
David.

[minaust]

I dont know how they produced it, but i saw the 24p 2D version in the cinema, and it looked fine. Apparently 48p is only available in 3D, at least around here.

I worked in this field many years ago, and there have always been theatrical innovations that put fantastic images on the screen, but failed because they didn't catch on widely enough to make it worthwhile to produce prints for those theaters that didn't see fit or couldn't afford to scrap their existing projection systems and start over again from scratch.

Has anyone here ever seen a movie presented in Cinerama, VistaVision, or Todd-AO? Even though Todd-AO was filmed and optimally presented at 30fps, 70mm anamorphic, the majority of the prints struck were 35mm, 24fps. It's economic suicide to release a feature in a format that the mom-and-pop theaters can't present. Those that did catch on tended to be things that were either transparent to the theater that didn't have the upgrade, and those for which the upgrade was inexpensive and backwards compatible.

So, when home video time rolls around, there'll be no shortage of 24fps masters. Anybody ever seen a film projected in 70mm? Absolutely gorgeous! But the expense of 35/70 projection equipment....

[Sagittaire]

I have a camera that records 320x240p30. They are all fully progressive frames. But you know what? I'll choose 1920x1080i50 any day thank you!

Cheers,
David.

1) pixel number

- 1920x540= 1 036 800
- 1280x720= 921 600

Almost same visual quality for pixel number

2) Human visual system

Higher line are better for HVS. 720 is really better than 540.

3) Compression

1920x1080x30 interlaced is harder to compress than 1280x720x60 progressive.


Conclusion: IMO 1280x720x60 progressive will be really better for visual quality than 1920x1080x30 interlaced at same compressed size.

[minaust]

Isnt the 48 fps more of a marketing gimmick ?

You can bet your house on that.

Since it's only for 3D, it means that there are, in fact, 2 reels that play 24fps right? One for each eye. So it not exactly 48 fps in my book.

If that's the case, there's nothing new under the sun. That's called "anaglyptic 3-D", and I thought it went out with the '50s. A couple of old classic horror movies used that process. Nowadays film 3-D involves two frames occupying the space normally used for a single frame and a trick lens polarizes the two images and overlays them, and polarized glasses do the rest. I hate 3-D as only an old-time projectionist ever could. It's a gimmick. I'm holding out for holography.

[TheSkiller]

@ Sagittaire If you believe the vertical resolution halves to 540 in case of interlaced 1080 video you have misunderstood how interlacing works. ;)
If that were the case then why would we even bother with interlacing and not use 540 lines in progressive scan right away?

Number 3) is no excuse imo, there's plenty bitrate to spend on both DVD-9 and Blu-ray.


From my point of view the only problem regarding the 720p vs 1080i question is simply: how good the 1080i version would look depends on the deinterlacer. With a good deinterlacer it can be about indistinguishable to 1080p, while with a really bad one it will most likely look inferior to 720p (due to deinterlacing artefacts like residual combs, jagged interpolations and such).

[blubb444]

You can bet your house on that.

I disagree. 24p just isn't enough in some cases (esp. high action scenes) and statements I often hear in such discussions like "the human eye can't see more than 15..20 fps" are pseudo-scientific and taken out of context really, it's more complicated than that and depends on several factors what is enough to be fluid or not. Scenes shot from a tripod with long exposure times up to shutter speed and little motion require much less fps than those taken with a shaky hand, high action and very short exposure.
With 48p or more, we don't have to rely on rotten compromises like motion blur (long exposure) any more to get a smooth image so that way it can look both sharp AND smooth. I've had a 1080p50 cam for 2 years now and don't want to miss it. Even with high action and let's say 1/1000 shutter it's still very fluid, so much better than a 24p slide or mud show.
Here's a short comparison clip (50 vs 25), in the second part I simply deleted every 2nd frame and replaced it with a duplicate: http://www.file-upload.net/download-7247889/2012-03-25_11-57-55-fpscomp.mkv.html

@1080i vs 720p
As it's been said it depends on the de-interlacer but also a little on personal taste. The best real-time de-interlacing on playback is Yadif2x IMO, should work with most PCs from the last couple years. But even there you can still see the occasional stairs/aliasing and minor flickering between what was BF and TF. Of course there a better de-interlacers like QTGMC, but it barely runs real time (~70fps) with "slow" settings on SD material with my 8x4GHz AMD-FX8350 so you can forget about very good quality real-time HD de-interlacing here. From my experience, BD players and TVs do even worse than Yadif2x most of the time, significantly more visible aliasing.

[minaust]

I disagree. 24p just isn't enough in some cases (esp. high action scenes) and statements I often hear in such discussions like "the human eye can't see more than 15..20 fps" are pseudo-scientific and taken out of context really, it's more complicated than that and depends on several factors what is enough to be fluid or not. Scenes shot from a tripod with long exposure times up to shutter speed and little motion require much less fps than those taken with a shaky hand, high action and very short exposure.

I had an opportunity about 30 or so years ago to experiment with just that. An old college friend who was now a budding filmmaker had a high-end 16mm camera so we performed an experiment. He shot some footage of me just walking around, the only illumination being provided by a bank of industrial strobes synced to the shutter. (The wonders of grant money!) The resulting film was hideously bad. I was strobing like all hell. Some people thought it was bad stop-motion animation.

You're right. At 24fps we NEED motion blur to fool our brain into thinking it's seeing motion. And for normal purposes, that's good enough. We don't need 50 or 60 fps to watch TV news anchors shuffle papers and read the news. Action scenes are a different matter.

With 48p or more, we don't have to rely on rotten compromises like motion blur (long exposure) any more to get a smooth image so that way it can look both sharp AND smooth. I've had a 1080p50 cam for 2 years now and don't want to miss it. Even with high action and let's say 1/1000 shutter it's still very fluid, so much better than a 24p slide or mud show.
Here's a short comparison clip (50 vs 25), in the second part I simply deleted every 2nd frame and replaced it with a duplicate: http://www.file-upload.net/download-7247889/2012-03-25_11-57-55-fpscomp.mkv.html

I was going to edit my original post as I've had some time to reflect. But 48fps as presented is still a gimmick. From what I can tell it's still 24fps per eye.

As I posted before, film 3-D requires two images in a space normally reserved for one. So you have resolution problems and film grain problems. Anaglyptic 3-D involved two simultaneous reels of film, so it was in essence 48fps, yet way back in the 40's and 50's. If I'm right, anaglyptic 3-D is back with all its advantages and few of any of the disadvantages.

48fps is still a gimmick because it's part and parcel of 3-D, and 3-D is itself, in my personal opinion, a gimmick. It may some day evolve past the gimmick phase; that evolution may in fact be occurring now, but I'm not banking on it.

[nevcairiel]

If 48 fps in The Hobbit was 24 fps per eye, then all other movies in 3D are just 12 fps per eye? But thats not true, its 24 fps per eye in the "normal" 3D movies too! You can easily ensure that when looking at a 3D Blu-ray, properly decoding it yields 24 frame-pairs per second, 24 for every eye.
Anyone having watched The Hobbit in 48 fps will tell you that it looked much smoother then any other 3D movie they've seen before.

The Hobbit actually was 48 fps per eye in 3D, 96 frames (from 48 distinct points in time) in total per second.
Why they decided to not offer it in 2D too, i don't know. But i bet its more of a marketing thing to get people into 3D.

I agree that 3D is a gimmick, but 48 fps is not.

[dukey]

I think the problem was a lot of cinemas were not kitted out for 48fps, so they ran it in 3d only.

[minaust]

The Hobbit actually was 48 fps per eye in 3D, 96 frames (from 48 distinct points in time) in total per second.
Why they decided to not offer it in 2D too, i don't know. But i bet its more of a marketing thing to get people into 3D.

I'd made an educated guess as to what 48fps was and missed my guess. Theaters are notorious for gimmicks and gimmicky promotions. Some actually catch on. The film "Damnation Alley" had a 10-track sound system named "Sound 360" (fortunately, it was never used again). Why? 20th Century Fox had two sci-fi films coming out that year. "Damnation Alley" was the big-budget movie, heavily promoted and publicized. Their other was an obscure, unpublicized low budget nothing named "Star Wars". So how do we get people into the theater to watch the expensive one?

Sound itself was a gimmick. Air conditioning the theater was a gimmick - and they worked.

I agree that 3D is a gimmick, but 48 fps is not.

If 48fps catches on, then it isn't a gimmick. if not, it was a gimmick. Notice the "was", past tense. Time will tell. Technical innovations catch on. Gimmicks don't.

[Ghitulescu]

"How the west was won" was again a gimmick

[wonkey_monkey]

1) pixel number

- 1920x540= 1 036 800
- 1280x720= 921 600

Almost same visual quality for pixel number


Not true. I read somewhere that interlacing video only causes a 70% perceived reduction in resolution, against a 50% reduction in data - making it an effective compression technique, if nothing else. And that was when we actually had interlaced displays, and none of these fancy deinterlacer-ma-bobs in modern TVs.

David

[scharfis_brain]

So 70% of 1080i is nearly 720p... But you still got 1920 instead of 1280 pixels horizontal...

[Shinta]

So 70% of 1080i is nearly 720p... But you still got 1920 instead of 1280 pixels horizontal...

What is the zoom factor from the (german) paper format A4 to A3?... Right, it is 141.4%. Silly, one might think, because it is twice as big. But that is only the differnce in area of the sheets. The dimensions (width and height) only grew by a factor of 1.414 each.

The 70% from above, is just the other way around. (70.107% is a more precise number, but who counts beans)
70% is the actual reduction in dimensions. Square it and you'll get the 50% reduction in area.
(1920x1080i60 vs. 1920x540p60)

That's all folks!

[nevcairiel]

But thats not the full truth. Because the missing lines are alternating from frame to frame, you have more information than a pure 1920x540 downscale, and a good temporal deinterlacer can restore more information than a good upscaler.

[Shinta]

But thats not the full truth. Because the missing lines are alternating from frame to frame, you have more information than a pure 1920x540 downscale, and a good temporal deinterlacer can restore more information than a good upscaler.

Thats true! But only for slow or better predictable changing/moving scenes. The more rapid and unsteady the movements in the scene become the more of a (bad) upscaler your good temporal deinterlacer becomes. (to be true, I prefer a stupid field-blending deinterlacer over any high quality (temporal) ones for watching, even if the result is somewhat slobbery(, it still is predictively slobbery), because I tend to notice (disjointed) artefacts.)

[scharfis_brain]

Blend-deinterlaced Video is horrible. Double frames, ghosting, and jagginess all Over the place. Blending solves nothing.
Aber good temporal deinterlacer like Qtgmc or the ones found in better television Sets is almost indistinguable from progressive.

[Shinta]

Double frames, ghosting, ...

Isn't this exactly what interlaced was for and used with on good old CRTs? Are you watching movies one frame at a time? Of course you are right when you are look forward to encoding a movie, then you want as clean as possible materials. And encoding field-blended stuff is really stupid. But for 'just watching' field-blending is exactly what interlacing was originally designed for, on a CRTs anyway, and in a way is just a nuance more motion blur.

[Didée]

W-H-A-T?!?! CRTs showed the fields one after another, i.e. fluid motion. Field blending muddles two fields at/to the same point in time, i.e. juddery motion with double images.

[scharfis_brain]

To my eyes 1080i processed with a good deinterlacer looks better than plain 720p

[zambelli]

Are we seriously still arguing 720p vs 1080i? :) It's a pointless argument. Some prefer 720, others prefer 1080i. A lot of it is subjective, a lot of it depends on the content, a lot of it depends on the display hardware. Proof that it's still an ongoing debate is the fact that even TV stations haven't agreed on a single HD standard yet. Some are 720p, others are 1080i. If 1080i had no merit whatsoever then everyone would be using 720p for broadcasting.

Even if you believe that interlaced video is horrible, the fact of the matter is that a 1080i50 version of The Hobbit wouldn't be unusual at all - it'd be exactly the same quality as 1080i TV broadcasts. It's not perfect (1080p50 would be even better), but we're definitely all used to it.

As for why 1080i60 is an option... Well, even if 1080i50 might be better for "The Hobbit", you still would have to produce a 60 Hz version for American and Japanese markets. The displays there still work at 60/120 Hz, there's no way around that.

[zambelli]

(Have I mentioned that all this is hypothetical? Of course nobody has to put the HFR version of The Hobbit on Blu-ray, but it's fun speculating on how it might be done.)

[wonkey_monkey]

The 70% from above, is just the other way around.

But the figure of 70% I gave has nothing to do with actual numbers of pixels. It's a quantification of the perceived loss of vertical resolution when comparing interlaced and progressive at a fixed resolution with the human eye, i.e. 576p vs 576i. Since i uses 50% less data then p, this makes it 1.4x better ;) Comparing the differing resolutions of 1080i and 720p, the perceived vertical resolution is about the same, which leaves just the horizontal resolution. 1920/1280=1.5x better :)

The more rapid and unsteady the movements in the scene become the more of a (bad) upscaler your good temporal deinterlacer becomes.

Fast, blurry frames probably won't have such high detail to begin with, so simple upscaling will get you closer to the original full resolution than it would on a steady scene.

(Have I mentioned that all this is hypothetical? Of course nobody has to put the HFR version of The Hobbit on Blu-ray, but it's fun speculating on how it might be done.)

Shhh, you're ruining it! ;)

David

[Shinta]

W-H-A-T?!?! CRTs showed the fields one after another, i.e. fluid motion.
CRTs use phosphorescence afterglow (aka. ghosting) to show one field while displaying (writing the pixel) the next field, which is exactly a kind of blend.

Field blending muddles two fields at/to the same point in time, i.e. juddery motion with double images.
You'll get juddery motion if you just blend only 2 fields to one frame, and thus reduce the frame rate by 2. If you blend each field first with its preceding field to a frame and then with the next field to the next frame (which is actually blending the next field if its preceding field, from another point of view), you'll get a more 'fluid motion' with the original interlace frame rate (or is it field rate).

As I said before, this methode is not for (restoring originally progessive material for) encoding, just for watching of a (now) interlaced source.

[2Bdecided]

I have a camera that records 320x240p30. They are all fully progressive frames. But you know what? I'll choose 1920x1080i50 any day thank you!

Wow, comparing 1280x720p50 with 320x240p30 now?No, I didn't mention 1280x720p50. Try reading it again. I compared progressive with interlaced, which is what you keep doing.

:goodpost:

:rolleyes:Your sarcasm is misplaced given that yet again you simply say progressive is better...

Just think about it:

1080i60 would not be progressive and not be judderfree.
1080i50 would not be progressive.
720p60 would be progressive but not judderfree.
720p50 would be progressive and judderfree.Your argument is this: "I believe progressive is always better, therefore the progressive one is better".

The subjective quality and perceived sharpness is what counts.


I can only assume you have never seen 1080i50 at a reasonable bitrate on a full HD display. The increase in resolution compared with 720p is clearly visible.

Cheers,
David.

[2Bdecided]

CRTs use phosphorescence afterglow (aka. ghosting) to show one field while displaying (writing the pixel) the next field, which is exactly a kind of blend.They really don't. It's more than 90% decayed by the time the next field is drawn.

...and I can't believe you're arguing with Didée about interlacing...!

Cheers,
David.

[scharfis_brain]

watching interlaced crt clearly Shows stairstepping But almost no motionblur. So no field Blending on native interlaced crt occurs at all.
And for sure on modern LCD or LED TV with a decent deinterlacer built in will show all much better image quality than the native interlaced crt.

[Shinta]

But the figure of 70% I gave has nothing to do with actual numbers of pixels. It's a quantification of the perceived loss of vertical resolution when comparing interlaced and progressive at a fixed resolution with the human eye.

Since when is someone able to measure 'perceived' something? And isn't 'quantification' just another word for 'educated guess'? ;-)

Of course one can always factor in some human psychology and physiology, not to mention the (bad) resolution of the human eye...

And always remember: Please watch this show in a brightly lit room and don't sit to close to the screen.

[wonkey_monkey]

Because, why on earth would you record in 48p and then convert to 48i (sped up to 50i)? Doesn't sound that reasonable IMHO.

The source is progressive, so why not keeping it like that?

All sources, ultimately, are progressive. At the risk of repeating myself, interlacing, at the cost of a few minor and occasional artefacts, saves you 50% on data at a loss of just 30% (and with modern deinterlacers, much less) in terms of quality. The video compression world would be very interested in any new method that could do the same again. It also helps that deinterlacers are already everywhere, ready to be taken advantage of.

Since when is someone able to measure 'perceived' something?

You show two sources to someone and ask them which is better. Alter the sources and repeat until most people agree that they look about the same. And that's just the non-technical method - you can measure deinterlacer quality with all kinds of metrics.

David

[nevcairiel]

All sources, ultimately, are progressive.

While the real world certainly is not interlaced, there are plenty NTSC cameras that directly record interlaced material, so unless you count the photons in the real world, the source could be considered interlaced, or something... :p

[wonkey_monkey]

so unless you count the photons in the real world

That is what I meant :D Real-world photons (or the human perception of same) are what video is (usually) aiming to represent.

[kolak]

Discussion regarding BD is bit pointless, as no professional studio will make 720 50p or some fancy pulldown 60i disc for the title like Hobbit- it simply won't happen (on top of that having already specially made 24p version).

Not saying that it's better but I like 720 50/60p sources and hope interlaced will be finally forgotten- it's time to forget it- technology is good and cheap enough.

[Lyris]

Also, some users here were arguing that 50 fps (or 50 Hz) might not be widely supported in some NTSC regions.

But, ... seriously, most HDTVs sold in the last five or even more years should support 50 Hz, don't you think ?

No. Almost all TVs in the US will refuse to show 50hz signals. I was one of the calibrators / speakers at the Value Electronics Shootout last year in New York. I'm from Europe so brought some 50hz test content with me.

Out of the 6 flat panel displays there, an LG Plasma and Sharp ELITE LCD showed the 50hz content. The Panasonic LCD, Panasonic Plasma, Samsung LCD and Samsung Plasma refused to show anything. Kind of crazy in 2012...

Even if they could, support for the 50hz frame rates is optional for BD players sold in 60hz countries. Fewer BD players in the US can play 50hz.

[Sagittaire]

Well it's possible to make objective comparison with 1080p50 source at BD50 bitrate like that:

1) 1080p50 -> splineresize 720p50 -> H264 compression at average 30 Mbps -> splineresize to 1080p50

2) 1080p50 -> interlacing with splineresize at 1080i25 -> H264 interlacing compression at 30 Mbps -> deinterlacing at 1080p50

Anyway no doubt that 750p50 will be really better than 1080i25 even with the best possible deinterlacing filter simply because H264 interlaced compression is really hard (50% advantage for progressive over interlacing for same source). For same 720p50 pixel quality (aka quantizer) at 30 Mbps, you must use 45 Mbps for 1080i25 encoding.

[wonkey_monkey]

1) 1080p50 -> splineresize 720p50 -> H264 compression at average 30 Mbps -> splineresize to 1080p50

TVs have much better resizers than that!

simply because H264 interlaced compression is really hard (50% advantage for progressive over interlacing for same source).

What do you mean about interlaced compression being "really hard"? And what do you mean about "50% advantage"?

[2Bdecided]

But is there any such source material available somewhere for testing?You show your ignorance. The EBU has been doing these tests for years.

You can start with 4096x2160p50 content if you wish...
http://tech.ebu.ch/testsequences
...or use the legacy(!!! :) ) 1080p50 streams...
http://tech.ebu.ch/Jahia/site/tech/cache/offonce/hdtv/hdtv_test-sequences
(note ftp access on the right)

Cheers,
David.

[2Bdecided]

Anyway no doubt that 750p50 will be really better than 1080i25 even with the best possible deinterlacing filter simply because H264 interlaced compression is really hard (50% advantage for progressive over interlacing for same source). For same 720p50 pixel quality (aka quantizer) at 30 Mbps, you must use 45 Mbps for 1080i25 encoding.

Those would be laughable bitrates in today's broadcasting world.

You do realise that they sell 1080i25 BluRays and people are happy to accept them as substantially artefact-free?

Cheers,
David.

[wonkey_monkey]

"In my experience, (pure interlaced) 50i/60i sources and their (bob-deinterlaced) 50p/60p products, result in similar bitrates/file sizes when encoded at the same Constant Quality i.e. interlaced encoding is around 50% less efficient."

That seems a pretty big conclusion to draw from sparse evidence. Who's to say exactly how Constant Quality works, for one thing? I just tried something similar, and although I did get approximately the same filesizes using interlaced or progressive, the interlaced version showed considerably less blocking. If it was 50% less efficient, I'd expect it to show the same amount of blocking.

David

[xooyoozoo]

Most or all of those sequences were shot on an Arriflex 765.

[xooyoozoo]

The 'quality' of those sequences, as defined by the transformation of light into pixels, is frankly not up for debate.

What you seem to be concerned with is the visual 'pleasantness' of the clips, which is a different matter and discussion altogether, as it deals with postprocessing and color grading. There are perhaps better avenues (http://instagram.com/) to satisfy your wishes.

[2Bdecided]

The 'quality' of those sequences, as defined by the transformation of light into pixels, is frankly not up for debate....and even more relevant to a discussion of the bitrate and quality trade-off of various scanning resolutions and modes, they were designed to test the quality of video coding in various scanning resolutions and modes.

But I think if we got jq963152 the masters for the hobbit, compared 720p and 1080i, and found 1080i won, he'd find some reason not to believe the result.

Cheers,
David.

[wonkey_monkey]

By the way:

Some of you were discussing 540 lines (1080i) vs. 720 lines (720p).

I, for one, am most certainly not discussing "540 lines (1080i)" - that is your (for want of a better word) prejudice and vastly, possibly disingenuously, oversimplifies the situation.

"The Hobbit" is 2.35:1.

Therefore it would even be roughly only 408 lines (1080i) vs. 544 lines (720p)... :eek:

No, it wouldn't be "only 408 lines." Even the bad old CRT days, without modern deinterlacers, it would have been considered equivalent (in terms of perceived quality) to something like 750 lines. On a still or slow-moving scene 1080i is practically indistinguishable from 1080p. The only time you could claim that it is only 408 lines (for a 2.35:1 frame) is the very very specific case where the picture is moving vertically by exactly an odd number of pixels per field. And if that number of pixels is high (by which I mean around 5 or above) motion blur will probably have already swamped any detail such that it was never there to be lost in the first place.

Besides of all of which, 1920*540>1280*720 :p

But I think if we got jq963152 the masters for the hobbit, compared 720p and 1080i, and found 1080i won, he'd find some reason not to believe the result.

That gives me an idea...

David

[dukey]

Even the bad old CRT days, without modern deinterlacers,

CRT screens don't need deinterlacers, since they are naturally interlaced displays.

[MokrySedeS]

So, how could they have done that (producing 24 fps version from 48 fps footage)?

Converting 48fps to 24fps was done simply by discarding every other frame, a process called ‘disentangling’
http://www.definitionmagazine.com/journal/2013/2/19/winning-the-frame-game.html

[SeeMoreDigital]

So, how could they have done that (producing 24 fps version from 48 fps footage)?
The easiest method is to drop every alternate frame...

Sufficed to say, if there was a 48.000 fps sample available, it would be possible to do some comparisons.

EDIT: Looks like MokrySedeS beat me too it. And has provided actual confirmation from Peter Jackson himself. Glad that's sorted ;)

[wonkey_monkey]

I read somewhere that they used a 270 degree shutter equivalent - so exposure for 1/64s in each 1/48s frame. By discarding frames you'll end up with 24fps with a 135 degree shutter equivalent. I've always used 180 degrees when I've needed motion blur, so this makes a reasonable compromise - slightly more blur at 48fps, slightly less at 24fps.

Clearly the only practical solution to this and all other standards conversions problems is for everyone to shoot at 1200fps.

[2Bdecided]

120fps, 150fps, 300fps and 600fps are possible candidates for the future, with obvious integer relationships to some/all existing formats. They already exist for slo-mo.

Cheers,
David.

[SeeMoreDigital]

I've just thought of a very good reason why a 48fps (48Hz) version of the Hobbit wont be happening any time soon.... Such a frequency does not have a supporting HDMI EDID code ;)

[colinhunt]

So, what about that 1080p48 option mentioned by "Sagittaire"
I'm pretty sure it's nowhere near as simple as Sagittaire wants to believe.

[nevcairiel]

24p@3D has 24 time slots, 2 frames each, 48p@2D has 48 different time slots, so i doubt its that easy.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Something just came to mind...:

The AVCHD 2.0 specifications.

:)

See the following thread for example:

AVCHD Spec Version 2.0 Updated 1080/60p , 50p (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=161828)

If only Blu-ray Disc specifications would support H.264 High Profile @ Level 4.2...

Well, "Sagittaire" mentioned/suggested that all Blu-ray 3D stand alone players basically should be able to support Level 4.2 (1080p with up to 60 fps).

How true is that?
Hmmm.... Although 1080p50 has a supporting HDMI EDID code. The same can't be said for 1080p60

[kolak]

As long as it's not in the official BD spec NO ONE will replicate such a disc- purely theoretical discussion.

Most players have chips which can play files way out of BD spec, but at this point it means nothing (read line above)

[SeeMoreDigital]

What :confused::rolleyes:?

Of course HDMI supports 1080p50 and 1080p60...

It's supported since HDMI 1.0 even...HDMI may support it but I'm referring to a supporting EDID code. For which there is none for 1080p60.

See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_display_identification_data#CEA_EDID_Timing_Extension_Version_3_data_format

[nevcairiel]

And what about code 16?
16 1080p 16:9 1920x1080p @ 59.94/60Hz

[SeeMoreDigital]

And what about code 16?
16 1080p 16:9 1920x1080p @ 59.94/60Hz
Bugger... I've been starring at that list for too long and got to the stage where "you can't see the wood for the trees" :scared:

Can you double check that a 1080p 48Hz code is or is not their too?

[zambelli]

Also, virtually no HDTV today accepts 1080p47.952 or 1080p48 via HDMI (unfortunately).

Which is exactly how we got started on the whole hypothetical "How would you encode 48p in a Blu-ray/HDMI compliant video" topic. :)

[DoctorM]

Hopefully not being redundant...

I'm sort of on board with the idea that 2D generated by MVC would work just fine. The downside is you would have to require an ACTIVE 3D setup but not wear glasses. Passive 3D would be out in the cold since that works by halving height rather than doubling the frame rate.

1080p24 in this manenr would essential generate 1080p48 for any one not wearing 3D glasses. Without a parallax between the normally left and right images, it would be seamless 48p to the viewer. (Put on 3D glasses if you'd rather watch it at 24fps).

That said, I can't see it ever being released that way since it has a specific hardware requirement and requires explaining the need to have a 3D setup but it's not 3D and you don't want to put on the glasses. I can't see how anything could go wrong there.

What I didn't see proposed on this thread is another reasonable method: 1440x1080x59.94i (yes that's official BD standard).

We're talking 2:3 pulldown (or would it be called 4:6?) In theory, there might be HDTVs that could handle IVTC'ing to 48fps (with a firmware update?) since it's based on the traditional NTSC telecine pattern.

On the flip side, if you wanted 3D, the only real answer is 720p with a framerate conversion from 48 to 59.94 for compatibility.

I have a hard time imaging that ending up particularly smooth. While this would probably be the least acceptable to us, it would probably be the most acceptable to the studios.

[TheSkiller]

Maybe because someone mentioned 1920x1080 50i/25 would be too hard to compress (I don't think so, considering how much space there is).

[Sparktank]

I've noticed while watching the 2D Blu-ray with my Pulfrich glasses, that it comes in much more clearer and crisper compared to movies filmed in 24fps.
I remember going to the theaters to see it again with a friend, but only in 24fps 3D and it wasn't that bad either.
I still preferred the 48fps and, quite honestly, miss it.
It's kind of not the same watching the movie when I have that distinct memory of seeing 48fps for the first time.

[DoctorM]

Why on earth do you suggest 1440x1080i, when 1920x1080i is in the official Blu-ray Disc specification as well?

Simple:
1920x1080x29.97i, 25i (16:9)
1920x1080x24p, 23.976p (16:9)
1440x1080x59.94i, 50i (16:9)
1440x1080x24p, 23.976p (16:9)

How are you going to hit 48 fps with 29.97i?

I supposed if you assumed 48 fields.
48 frames -(resize)> 48 fields -(rate change)> 59.94 fields -(alternate frames half line up/down shift & weave)> interlaced 29.97 frames

1440x1080 allows 59.94 fps without having to drop to 720p. It'd be a lot like 23.976 to 29.97 pulldown. Little resolution is lost.

1080p29.97 would be more like 1920x540 using the method above.

With 1440x1080 you'd have more of the original frames and it IS part of the BD specifications even if it isn't common.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc#Video

You don't have to hope that NTSC players support 25i.

It's probably the best option, doesn't require special hardware or knowledge, and it is 2D which would probably have broader sales than a 3D version.

I also maintain if it became popular (I'm thinking 3 Hobbits and possible 3 more Avatars to start), TV manufacturers might be able to support IVTC to 48p like the ones that properly play 24p content from 29,97i sources.

[Pomegranate]

DoctorM, 1440x1080 can only go up to 59.94 fields per second for BD, not 59.94 frames per second. So, it's the same problem as 1920x1080.

[DoctorM]

29.97i and 59.94i usually means the same.

Both terms usually are being used for 59.94 interlaced fields per second.

The Blu-ray Disc specification supports 1440x1080i59.94 and 1920x1080i59.94.

Except when it doesn't. I've never seen any one use the fields number when naming the interlace format.

I've seen conflicting info, but there are sources claiming 1440x1080 has 59.94 FRAMES (119.88 fields) whereas 1920x1080 has 29.97 frames with 59.94 fields. Maybe that's from people that can't distinguish the difference between fields 59.94i and frames 29.97i.

I'm not sure which sources to believe and not swearing to either. I'm just speaking based on the what I've seen.

Wrong. 1440x1080 does not allow 59.94 progressive frames per second like 1280x720 does. 1440x1080 instead allows for 59.94 interlaced fields per second.

The only thing wrong is your interpretation of what I've said. I never said 1440x1080 was progressive (although it can be at 24p), but I did say frames. Like I said, I've seen conflicting info.

It would make sense if 1440 allowed 119.88 fields since 720p supports 59.94 progressive frames.

The format seems to be a compromise between true 1080i and 720p. You'd think the higher frame rate would be what it's gaining from the trade off in resolution.

Again, it absolutely does not make sense to use 1440x1080i59.94 when 1920x1080i59.94 is also part of the Blu-ray Disc specification. My point: 1920x1080i59.94 is better than 1440x1080i59.94 because it simply is higher resolution and it's 16:9 instead of 4:3 (no anamorphic encoding needed with 1920x1080i59.94).

It does make sense IF, and I stress IF, the 119.88 number is legit. You would basically have a doubled frame rate equivalent to NTSC's old 480i29.97 (with it's 59.94 fields).

3:2 pulldown would give you a reversibly telecined film with each of the original 48 frames presented at full height (more or less).

Can anyone clarify if 1440x1080 can hit 59.94 interlaced frames/sec versus 1920x1080's 29.97 interlaced frames/sec?

[nevcairiel]

Can anyone clarify if 1440x1080 can hit 59.94 interlaced frames/sec versus 1920x1080's 29.97 interlaced frames/sec?

Both formats have 29.97 interlaced frames or 59.94 fields. One is for 4:3 and one for 16:9 content. There is no difference in frame rate.

Technically, writing 59.94i is more correct then 29.97i, but both are used for the same thing usually. One refers to the number of encoded frames, and the other one refers to the number of frames after decoding and deinterlacing (or the number of fields, if you want)
Its confusing, but people can never agree on simply using only one. It'll get worse if we actually get 120 fps content one day, which may come with 60 interlaced frames, or 120 fields, giving 59.94i a double meaning. But today, such content does not exist.

PS:
You can get an overview which formats are valid on BD here:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=154533

[DoctorM]

Thanks for the clarification nevcairiel.

[TheSkiller]

That's why I'm in for the terminology:

[encoded frames]i/[encoded fields]

Example: 29.97i/59.94
No doubts.


Both formats have 29.97 interlaced frames or 59.94 fields. One is for 4:3 and one for 16:9 content
No, both are for 16:9. 1440x1080 is anamorphic, it's a 1920x1080 video resized to 1440x1080 to save bandwidth.