Of course it's desirable (for some), why do you think camera manufacturers go to such lengths to include 24fps modes? Why do you think the GH2 reserves the most bitrate to the 24fps mode? Why do you think Blu-rays distribute movies at 24fps? Is everyone except you crazy?
Let's not get sidetracked with interlacing, cinema is progressive. Have you actually shot at 50fps with those settings, and compared to 24fps? If you have and it works for you, great. Nevertheless many people want the 24fps esthetic because this is the way that cinema moves.
Yes, I understand the difference between flicker and motion judder. What I'm claiming is that at 48fps, flicker is still subliminally perceptible and that it helps obscure the underlying 24fps motion judder. Even telecining at 60i helps obscure it, in spite of how ugly interlacing is otherwise. Your reference to computer graphics displays is not a relevant counter-example because unlike an analog movie projector, a computer monitor does not blacken the screen briefly between each frame.
Yes, I have compared 50p, 60p, 30p and 24p videos and I get what you're saying, but here's my counter-example: Try shooting a GH1 at 24p with a 1/250 second shutter speed in broad daylight with a lens stopped down to infinite focus. Then display it in its telecined 60i glory on a large HDTV monitor. There's no 24p magic there for me. To my eyes, it looks more like a high-rez upgrade of a Video-8 Handycam.
That's true of LCDs - but you'll note I referenced CRT monitors, which indeed go dark between the beam scanning each frame. That's why much higher refresh rates were used with them, to eliminate the flicker. This is essentially identical to film projectors being driven at 48fps.
Indeed, but that's a separate issue.
Now we're talking about the judder you get when the display refresh rate doesn't divide perfectly into the source (footage) rate. That's important but not relevant to what we're discussing.
Of course, you cannot have a low frame rate AND high shutter speed, as it becomes unwatchable. The missing temporal information from a low frame rate is compensated for by motion blur, the brain can extrapolate motion from it. But that's exactly what I mean - shooting at 24fps and the slow movements it forces on you, coupled with the right amount of blur (from the right shutter speed), gives cinema its look. The shutter speed is important, but so is the frame rate. Changing the rate substantially changes the look.
Absolutely not true. The "film look" is 24fps.
I have owned maybe three dozen film cameras in my days, maybe four dozen. I think I can count on the fingers of one hand, the number of them that exposed their film at 1/48. People repeat 1/48 as if it's gospel, when in actuality it isn't even that widespread. 180 degrees is not sacred. I've got (or had) film cameras dating back to the 1920's (B&H Eyemo) and 1940's (B&H Filmo), lots of Super8 cameras, I've got three CP16-series cameras right now (two CP16/R's and a GSMO), I've had Eclairs and Konvases and Beaulieu R16's and Krasnogorsk K3's and ... well, a lot. And there are two common things between them:
Well, that's an interesting angle. I'd have to think about that one... seems easy enough to test. Shoot something on a 24p video camera, and transfer the resulting footage to film. Watch it projected from film (with the 2x or 3x flashing of the frames) and compare that to the footage played back via 24PsF on a 24p-capable monitor. If there's a difference in motion judder, then your theory is validated. If there isn't, then it isn't.
True, but the exact same thing would happen if you shot a film camera at a 45-degree shutter angle with infinite focus. And you can see examples of that; watch the beach-storming scene of Saving Private Ryan. Doesn't look like video at all, but it does look different from normal film.
