60fps film-60i video

Albert Smith · October 23, 2006

Im just curious about this cause I think it could be interesting to do. My question is, has anyone tried to shoot film at 60fps and then transfer that into 60i interlaced video. Now I dont mean use a pulldown and get slow motion or anything I mean into actually 60i, so you would get the "real" video look....actually this would only meaning shoooting 30fps right?....I just think it would be interesting to see film turned into this motion....it would be really awesome for documentary filmmaking I think. Anyone hear of this? ever...would it even be possible?

Stephen Williams · October 23, 2006

Im just curious about this cause I think it could be interesting to do. My question is, has anyone tried to shoot film at 60fps and then transfer that into 60i interlaced video. Now I dont mean use a pulldown and get slow motion or anything I mean into actually 60i, so you would get the "real" video look....actually this would only meaning shoooting 30fps right?....I just think it would be interesting to see film turned into this motion....it would be really awesome for documentary filmmaking I think. Anyone hear of this? ever...would it even be possible?

Hi,

Film has been shot & projected at 60 FPS by Doug Trumbull. This may be of interest.

http://www.barbeefilm.com/showscan%20-%20H...0It%20Works.htm

Stephen

David Mullen ASC · October 23, 2006

60 fps film transferred at normal speed to 60i video (assuming you find a telecine that runs at 60 fps) would look like 60i video, motion-wise -- so would 60P video converted to 60i. Only difference might be shutter speed since most 60i is shot at 1/60th, whereas a film camera at 60 fps would be 1/120th.

kelly tippett · October 23, 2006

I've heard that at a certian point the frame rates become unnoticed. Going from 24fps up to 30fps is noticeable but on up i don't think it becomes anything new. That's what i heard, but i'm going to check it out, I'm curious now

Jonathan Benny · October 23, 2006

Going from 24fps up to 30fps is noticeable but on up i don't think it becomes anything new.

The motion characteristics of 60fps transferred at 60fps is totally different than 30fps transferred at 30fps.

From a motion standpoint, the difference between the two is as noticeable as shooting, say 30p vs 60i on video. Very noticeable - possibly more noticeable than the difference between 24 and 30.

AJB

Albert Smith · October 24, 2006

I think some people are missing the idea...the concept would be to convert film which by its nature is shot at a "progressive" frame rate onto video into an interlaced format with out a pulldown mean actually making the film 60i.....in my mind this would mean shooting 30fps....not 60fps.....as video really is 30fps...the 60 frames are really half frames....simply shooting and playing back film at 60fps is not really relevant. it might look smoother or something but enn....I think imax is shot and proejcted at higher frame rates isnt it?....anyways off topic...but yea any more information on this concept would be very interesting to me

David Cox · October 24, 2006

I think some people are missing the idea...the concept would be to convert film which by its nature is shot at a "progressive" frame rate onto video into an interlaced format with out a pulldown mean actually making the film 60i.....in my mind this would mean shooting 30fps....not 60fps.....as video really is 30fps...the 60 frames are really half frames....simply shooting and playing back film at 60fps is not really relevant. it might look smoother or something but enn....I think imax is shot and proejcted at higher frame rates isnt it?....anyways off topic...but yea any more information on this concept would be very interesting to me

Hello,

Video cameras sample the world 60 times a second, so if you wanted to get the smoothness of motion normally associated with video you would have to shoot at 60 frames per second. 30FPS would still have a "film motion look". To see the difference, take a digi beta shoot and deinterlace it. You will see a noticeable difference in motion caused from going from 60 pictures per second to 30 pictures per second. The ?interlaced? part of this debate only relates to the resolution of those samples.

Where HD is concerned, sports broadcasters are opting for 50 or 60 FPS, such as 720/50P or 720/59.94P because the higher frame rates are necessary to satisfactorily capture fast moving sporting events.

IMAX can have a higher frame rate, although in many cases 60FPS is only used to provide 30FPS to each eye, one at a time, synchronised with LCD glasses that block one eye from seeing the frame intended for the other.

David Cox

Baraka Post Production Ltd

www.baraka.co.uk

John Mastrogiacomo · October 24, 2006

Im just curious about this cause I think it could be interesting to do. My question is, has anyone tried to shoot film at 60fps and then transfer that into 60i interlaced video. Now I dont mean use a pulldown and get slow motion or anything I mean into actually 60i, so you would get the "real" video look....actually this would only meaning shoooting 30fps right?....I just think it would be interesting to see film turned into this motion....it would be really awesome for documentary filmmaking I think. Anyone hear of this? ever...would it even be possible?

I have taken film shot at 24 fps and converted it to interlaced using Digital Fusion.

Here is what I did.

1. Removed the pulldown.

2. Strip field 1 from the first frame of film.

3. Strip field 2 from the 2nd frame of film.

4. Recombine them as interlaced.

The result - basically the interlaced footage plays as twice the orginal speed.

Yes, the movement looks a lot like video (interlaced) except the shutter speed will be different.

So if you want to make your film look like regular interlaced video you would have to shoot your film at 60fps and transfer it normally and then follow the above steps.

I guess it's good to know how to do this if you ever have to smooth out a pan or something. :)

Jonathan Benny · October 24, 2006

I think some people are missing the idea.......simply shooting and playing back film at 60fps is not really relevant. it might look smoother or something but enn....

Actually, shooting 60fps and playing it back at 60fps is the whole point and completely relevant to your question. You're original question was :

"has anyone tried to shoot film at 60fps and then transfer that into 60i interlaced video"

and you indicated in your question that you did not want a slow-motion effect, rather, you wanted to transfer the film at 60fps.

If you shoot your film at 30fps and play back at 30fps, you will get an entirely different look than if you shoot at 60fps and play back at 60fps.

I think you answered your own question with: "it might look smoother or something but enn...." Thats exactly it.

AJB

Albert Smith · October 25, 2006

Actually, shooting 60fps and playing it back at 60fps is the whole point and completely relevant to your question. You're original question was :

"has anyone tried to shoot film at 60fps and then transfer that into 60i interlaced video"

and you indicated in your question that you did not want a slow-motion effect, rather, you wanted to transfer the film at 60fps.

If you shoot your film at 30fps and play back at 30fps, you will get an entirely different look than if you shoot at 60fps and play back at 60fps.

I think you answered your own question with: "it might look smoother or something but enn...." Thats exactly it.

AJB

60fps played back at 60fps will look smoother but its still "progressive"...it will not look like 60i yes it will be smoother but it will still retain "the movie look" rather then the "real" look of video.

David Mullen ASC · October 25, 2006

60fps played back at 60fps will look smoother but its still "progressive"...it will not look like 60i yes it will be smoother but it will still retain "the movie look" rather then the "real" look of video.

No, it would look exactly like 60i if played back on a 60i monitor in terms of motion, and 60i converted to 60P would look exactly like 60P / 60 fps on a 60P monitor.

Either way, you have 60 motion samples captured per second, whether you then display them as interlaced fields or progressive frames. The only difference in terms of motion would be if you didn't match shutter speeds.

Jonathan Benny · October 25, 2006

60fps played back at 60fps will look smoother but its still "progressive"...it will not look like 60i yes it will be smoother but it will still retain "the movie look" rather then the "real" look of video.

Jake,

I respectfully disagree. As David points out, it is an issue related to the sampling of the image per second. In both cases, you are getting 60 samples per second and therefore, that "real" look of video you are referring to would apply in both cases.

Having progressive images is not enough to create that "movie look" you are talking about (see 60p video, for example). What you need are progressive images that run at a frequency slow enough to create that look. Thats why if you put 60p video next to 24p video, you'll immediately see the difference. The 24p will have the "movie look" (in terms of motion only!) and the 60p video will still have that "real" look of video.

AJB

David Sweetman · October 25, 2006

I find this very interesting from an intellectual/informative point of view, but why would you ever want to do that? Sounds like a waste of film stock to me. I assume this procedure is neither common nor uncommon practice, since David Mullen mentions "assuming you find a telecine that runs at 60fps"

I guess the main reasons would be film's colors/lattitude/resolution within 60i motion?

Jonathan Benny · October 25, 2006

I find this very interesting from an intellectual/informative point of view, but why would you ever want to do that?

One must wonder if this technique was used for Showscan (60fps) transferred to video (if at all?).

AJB

Jaan Shenberger · October 25, 2006

I find this very interesting from an intellectual/informative point of view, but why would you ever want to do that? Sounds like a waste of film stock to me. I assume this procedure is neither common nor uncommon practice, since David Mullen mentions "assuming you find a telecine that runs at 60fps"

I guess the main reasons would be film's colors/lattitude/resolution within 60i motion?

it has been done before, to match footage to preexisting 60i hd/video footage.

i believe there's been commercials that use 60i sports footage and shoot additional elements on film to cut or composite in with it, often to create the illusion of "tv realness". but i would assume that it's telecined as frames (23.976 with pulldown or 29.97) and the conversion to 60i is done in post (which is very easy). it's deemed safer (by worrisome ad agency people) to shoot film and just "videofy" its look in post or telecine than to shoot the additional elements in 60i video. and it's a lot easier to do compositing with 60p footage rather than 60i, even if the final is rendered in 60i. of course, this use of film at 60 fps to ultimately emulate video is probably much more rare now because of the option of shooting 60p hd.

Edited October 25, 2006 by Jaan Shenberger

Alessandro Machi · October 29, 2006

I saw the Showscan technique back in the mid late 80's. It was a fantastic effect. At one point it looked like a hand was tearing through the actual film screen. I was shocked that they would do that and when the lights came up I couldn't find the tear. Very cool/odd stuff.