24/30P for web series?

Michael B. McGee

Michael B. McGee

Well-known member
i've been asked to shoot a web series and i'm trying to figure out whether to shoot in 24P or 30P. i'd like to shoot it on 24P, but doesn't the web treat 30P better?


....what are network TV shows shot at for that matter?
 
Michael B. McGee said:
i've been asked to shoot a web series and i'm trying to figure out whether to shoot in 24P or 30P. i'd like to shoot it on 24P, but doesn't the web treat 30P better?


....what are network TV shows shot at for that matter?
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Network TV shows have been done in 2 traditional ways. With Film film, at 24 fps. With video equipment at one of PAL 25 fps, or NTSC 29.97 (pre color B&W 30) fps.

For a 'web' series you get 18% less data straight out with 24 fps... I think most people have problems with web material on account of compression parameters used, which lend to high compression, requiring either higher performance decompression or more problematic error recovery.
 
Any frame rate will do. People producing for the web used to like 15fps because not everyone had a fast connection and bandwidth was maor wxpensive than it is today. Nowadays it is dependent on you and what you want, since you are producing content for versatile players and not to NTSC standards you can choose any frame rate or aspect ratio you choose. For example on my site I have content I host in 24 and 30p aspect ratios from 4:3 to 2.35:1 720x480 to 720x405.

The thing you want to keep in mind is that the people you are creating tins for might want to realease it to DVD or blue ray. So shoot in a format that would accompdate future plans and then base tour web plans off that. So if they want 1080 24p 16:9. Then do that and then scale it down to 480 for the net. This of course was just an example but what I guess I'm saying is the Internet won't be your limiting factor on frame rate, your concern with Internet is bit rate.
 
The answer to 99.9% of questions involving frame rate choice:

Decide what you want it to look like and choose the frame rate which gives it to you. All technical questions are secondary. You're making art. Look at it like an artist.
 
David Jimerson said:
The answer to 99.9% of questions involving frame rate choice:

Decide what you want it to look like and choose the frame rate which gives it to you. All technical questions are secondary. You're making art. Look at it like an artist.
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generally speaking, of course, but you obviously wouldn't want 60i for web distro. would you?
 
Shooting 24p vs. 30p for web is a different reason to why network shows would chose to shoot 24p vs 30p. 24P on TV goes through a 3:2 pull down so in fact every 3rd frame is repeated. The result is some motion jitter on TV that can be undesired. So some shows would just shoot film at 30p since it would go to 60i quite easily. In PAL land, this problem did not exist because 25p went to 50i quite easily. In NTSC land we work with 24p and 60i, and then 30p occassionally.

Long before the advent of 24p in camera I was shooting 50i on PAL and in post creating a progressive frame to achieve 25p, stretching it by 4% to get 24fps, and then performing a 3:2 pull down to get it back to 60i. I had so many of my films shot this way screen in film festivals, and many mistakingly assumed to be shot on actual film.
 
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Michael B. McGee said:
generally speaking, of course, but you obviously wouldn't want 60i for web distro. would you?
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Not really, but you may want 60 hz. The relevant figure is the number of images per second, because that's what decides your motion cadence (along with the shutter speed). Decide if you want 60 per second and then figure out the i vs. p question.
 
David Jimerson said:
Every third frame isn't repeated. In a 60 hz stream, every frame is shown at least twice; every other frame is shown 3 times. Hence, 2:3.

Almost every non-sitcom network TV show has been imaged at 24 fps, and even the sitcoms were before going to video.
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Converting 24fps to 60i is called 3:2 pulldown or inverse telecine. (Some references do call it 2:3 pulldown)

Technically every 3rd frame is repeated so from 4 frames we get 5, and hence go from 24 to 30 or 60i once the 30p is split over two fields.

Super techncally it does not have to be the 'third' frame, any frame can be repeated and in fact because NTSC is interlaced often 2 adjacent frames were mixed together to form one newer frame.
 
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I know what it's called, but converting 24p to 60i involves splitting one frame over two 60i fields, the next frame over three 60i fields, the next frame over two 60i fields, and the next frame over three 60i fields, and so on, so on. So, 2:3 or 3:2; works out to the same thing. So, the same frame is shown twice, then the next three times, and so on. Every second frame gets shown 50% longer, not every third.

The pattern you're describing with every third frame would be 1:1:2, or 2:2:4.
 
The method I've described is definitely referred to as a 3:2 pulldown and there are a few methods to derive 60i from 24fps.

The term 3:2 comes from the fact that if every 3 frames you repeat 2 you get 5 frames from 4, after doing this six times you end up with 30 from 24. ie Six groups of 4 is 24, and six groups of 5 is 30.

I've never used 2:3, but I'm sure it is one of many ways to achieve the same thing.
 
2:3 and 3:2 are the same thing.

But you aren't describing a 2:3 or 3:2 pattern.

Take a four-frame group.

A |B| C| D

The 3:2 pattern:

.1.....2.....3......4.....5
A A| A B| B C| C C| D D

The 2:3 pattern:

.1.....2.....3......4.....5
A A| B B| B C| C D| D D

Either way, it's not every third frame you're repeating. Every frame is shown at least twice; every other frame is shown three times.
 
Guess it was AAABBCCCDD indeed, I thought it was AABBBCCCDD for some reason but that would probably play back jerky now that I think about it. Sorry for any confusion I caused..

Either way if Michael shoots 24p or 30p for web the only prevailing logic might be around bandwidth or file size limitations. Differences between 24 vs 25 vs 30 on the web I don't find that noticable to watch, but if the content ever goes to TV in North America then there might be additional considerations with which frame rate to choose.
 
starcentral said:
I thought it was AABBBCCCDD for some reason but that would probably play back jerky now that I think about it.
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That's 2:3:3:2 or "advanced" pulldown. 24pA. And yes, it plays back exceptionally jerky, which is why it's an editing pulldown and not a playback pulldown. :)
 
I was about to post the same question as Michael, so I'll just tack-on here.


For my music-promotion videos, I want the 24 fps look. No arguments, please, that is my preference & I see enough difference to worry about it. My work may eventually be distributed" in a variety of hard & soft formats, but my immediate concern is YouTube, Facebook, and website presentation.

Everything I read says that 30p is the de facto internet standard. Evidently, YouTube even requires it. (I dunno, I am new to this)
So then the questions become:

1: Which looks better, recording & presentation at 30p, (clearly not quite as magical as 24 fps) or recording at 24p (preferrably native) and converting the final edits to 30p?

2: If the latter, then what is the least offensive way to convert to 30p?
 
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1) Given a choice between shooting and presenting as 30p, and shooting as 24p and converting to 30p, staying 30p from the start will look better for the simple reason that 24p converted to 30p looks terrible. Now, whether 30p or 24p look better as themselves is a question only you can answer for yourself and for the needs of your project.

2) You can't convert 24p to 30p well. It's just math. You'll get ghosting and strobing.

You can stream any frame rate on the web. There's no "de facto" anything.
 
The question was answered: First, shoot in the frame rate you like from an artistic element. If you want a technical answer instead, shoot using a lower frame rate to use less bandwidth and potentially for smoother playpack on computers... 24p looks great, 30p looks great, 25p looks great.

In my first post I tried to illustrate that 24p or 30p on the web will not look all that different from each other, but depending on if your content will go to TV then 24p depending on what it's played back on can appear to have more apparent motion judder (due to the 3:2 pulldown methods used to convert 24p to 60i, process outlined was corrected by David) which most people associate with a more "cinematic" look.

As for 30p being the internet standard, I don't agree with that just because a few sites make it a mandatory requirement.. I'm pretty sure Vimeo and other sites accept a variety of frame rates.

Which looks better? What ever rate you record will look good when presenting it at the same frame rate. Again, 24p is a little different depending on how and what you will watch it on. If the DVD or BlueRay player and display can handle progressive images than you will see it exactly at 24p. If the display is 60i however, the 3:2 pulldown will be introduced and appear with much more "judder" on motion and pans... but that doesn't necessarily make it better or worse.
 
All I can tell you is that I've never seen any difference to speak of on the web or anywehere else using 24p or 30p. I think you've run across several web articles by people who think they see things they don't. Not exactly uncommon unfortunately.
 
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