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I think you're right. It's the only kink in an otherwise perfect article. I just linked to it on Twitter and have seen about fifty retweets.

Barry, I would humbly suggest removing the rolling shutter reference. The wagon wheel example is a better on-ramp into the discussion.

-Stu

How's this for moiré/aliasing?

http://www.vimeo.com/7590690

see my post here about it: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread...63#post1813563

Though it is clear that the limited read out speed of the sensor is the (main) cause for both problems.

from the article:

This brings us back to the wagon wheel - for "some reason", people have given aliasing a "pass" when it comes to 24fps for quite a while now. Actually, lately, not just given a pass but actively demanded 24fps despite the temporal aliasing. I would suspect it's the same reason the HDSLRs get a pass on their spatial aliasing - the overall aesthetic they produce is worth the trouble of shooting around (or simply accepting) the aliasing. The audience has been watching wagon wheels go backward for a lot of years without complaint - I suspect the the same will be true for the spatial aliasing of these cameras as long as your story is engaging.

I agree. 24fps is clearly not able to accurately resolve motion as well as 60fps, and the reason is the same -- lower sampling accuracy. 24 is less than 60, and 60 samples result in much more accurate motion rendition.

BUT -- we (the moviemaking/moviewatching public) LIKE the look of 24fps (in most things; it can get headache-inducing if movement isn't controlled). I don't think anyone actually likes the wagon wheel effect, but we put up with it for the rest of the benefits.

The higher the sampling accuracy, the more accurate the representation of the thing being sampled. But in film, that's pretty much what we don't want -- we like the "surreal" or "larger than life" or "dream state" look of 24fps motion, instead of the "hyper-reality" look of 60fps.

The DSLRs certainly use aliasing to "punch above their weight class", giving images that, in the right circumstances, look like they came from far more expensive cameras. Without the aliasing, they'd never create objectionable image artifacts, but they'd also be substantially lower "sharpness".*

It is a tradeoff that you need to know you're making when you get into the game. The aliased DSLR look is sometimes incredible, and sometimes it can cause distracting or even shot-ruining artifacts. But at the price point, I think it's probably the right compromise, as long as people know what the compromise is, know how it manifests itself, and are on the lookout for it.

*the "resolution" would stay exactly the same without the aliasing; aliasing isn't resolution, it's an artifact. What would disappear is the "false sharpness". Which is what gives the DSLRs their "punch".