Hobbit: Overly detailed 5K and HFR failing to please

[Gillvane]

Surely the reason why 24p in a relatively low priced camera was seen as such a big thing was the difference it made in shooting for a film-out? When real film was the end product. Far better results than deinterlacing 1008i/30?

One of the first reasonably priced video cameras to be able to shoot 24p was the DVX100. I'm pretty sure 99% of people shooting on the DVX100 were not doing a film out. People were excited about the Canon T2i because...it could shoot 24p and you didn't need a DoF adapter. I'm pretty sure 99% or more of Canon T2i shooters were not doing a film out. No, I don't think it had anything to do with a film out.

Those are the big things people wanted to achieve more of a "film look". They wanted shallow depth of field, and 24p motion. All the rest, lights, make up, sets, camera moves, etc., etc., could be done with a video camera or film camera of course. But ti was the shallow depth of field and the 24p motion that were the missing links to making the footage look "cinematic".

 

[David Jimerson]

The key word there being "if". If that was indeed was to be confirmed, your statement is completely true. But AFAIK, there is no evidence at all one way or the other.

Which is why I said it would be interesting research.

But as you describe yourself in the 1970s, then is it not true that what you tended to see at 24fps was most likely to have been made by Hollywood (with larger budgets, high production values etc etc), whilst what you saw at 60fps would more likely have been made electronically with much more limited budgets? Hence, you grow up associating one "look" with quality shows, the other "look" with cheap, local TV? This is exactly what would be meant by "conditioning".

I put it to you that if all the (high budget) films you'd seen at the cinema, if all the major TV dramas (Star Trek, Dallas, etc, etc) had all been shot at higher than 24fps frame rate, and all the sit-com and lower budget TV shows had been shown 24fps motion, do you still think you'd feel as you do now? Especially if the former had looked good on the single-frame level, whilst the 24fps material had poor dynamic range and excessive detail enhancement?

If the conditioning argument is correct, your answer would have to be "no" - you'd have grown up associating high frame rate motion with high quality and vice versa. I cannot prove that to be the case, cannot even be certain it is, but I'd argue that it's at least as likely as any hypothesis as that there is anything intrinsically "good" about 24fps. As I say, I'd really like to see some scientific study on the subject. (If anyone is aware of such, do provide a link.)

I didn't say I could merely tell the difference. I said that even then, to me, things with 24 fps motion looked like fiction, and things with 60i motion looked live, exactly as I see the difference now. I would not have been able to put in those terms then, but I knew what I was looking at and the impression it gave me. No, it was not about sets, design, anything other than motion, and the live vs. fictional feel to it.

Edison was first and foremost a human being with human senses. And when developing his version of cinema, right at the beginning, it stands to reason he would want his "baby" to be as good as possible - even if only for reasons that the better it is, the more likely people will come to see it. And be doing so without any pre-existing conceptions or conditioning. His earliest productions were apparently shot at around 40fps, but that seems largely to have been to avoid flicker. Come the advent of the multi-bladed shutter, I cannot believe he saw it as the dawning of "a better artistic canvas" and went to lower frame rates for that reason. Vastly more likely is that the higher flicker rate more than made up for the lower frame rate, and the far lower film costs were a very thick icing on the cake!

Depends on the type of "art" you're referring to, but the above seems to pre-suppose that an individual has to be either an "artist" or "an engineer"?

Fact is, that it's rarely an either/or situation. (Leonardo da Vinci, anyone?) I'd argue that often the best "art" comes from people who have BOTH artistic and engineering talents. An architect is probably the best example. No good if they know everything about strengths of materials - but have no real "vision". But maybe that's better than the opposite extreme - designing a fantastic looking bridge which collapses in the first storm?

Edison was not both. Edison was not Leonardo. Edison was not an artist. And even you described what he said in the context of technical function, not artistic function.

 

[David Jimerson]

One of the first reasonably priced video cameras to be able to shoot 24p was the DVX100. I'm pretty sure 99% of people shooting on the DVX100 were not doing a film out. People were excited about the Canon T2i because...it could shoot 24p and you didn't need a DoF adapter. I'm pretty sure 99% or more of Canon T2i shooters were not doing a film out. No, I don't think it had anything to do with a film out.

Those are the big things people wanted to achieve more of a "film look". They wanted shallow depth of field, and 24p motion. All the rest, lights, make up, sets, camera moves, etc., etc., could be done with a video camera or film camera of course. But ti was the shallow depth of field and the 24p motion that were the missing links to making the footage look "cinematic".

I have never once gone to a film-out, nor did I ever really intend to. It's always about the look, the feel -- always.

 

[Gillvane]

I put it to you that if all the (high budget) films you'd seen at the cinema, if all the major TV dramas (Star Trek, Dallas, etc, etc) had all been shot at higher than 24fps frame rate, and all the sit-com and lower budget TV shows had been shown 24fps motion, do you still think you'd feel as you do now? Especially if the former had looked good on the single-frame level, whilst the 24fps material had poor dynamic range and excessive detail enhancement?

I think this is just an ass backwards argument. You're basically saying what if they served you artificial crab meat in fancy restaurants. Arenb't you just "conditioned" to think lobster is better because you get that in a nice restaurant and artificial crab meat is in the cheap Chinese all you can eat buffet?

Uh no. It's the other way around. The lobster is served in the fancy restaurant because it tastes better. They didn't spend the big budgets on making "video" looking movies because it would be like serving artificial crab meat in a fancy restaurant. Nobody would pay for it. Not the other way around.

I think if Star Trek had been shot at higher frame rates people would have gone, gee, I wish they had a bigger budget so it didn't look like a soap opera. They would not have thought the soap opera look is great because that's what Star Trek is shot on. Again, strikes me as an ass backwards way of looking at reality.

 

[David Jimerson]

More than that, on the "TV production values" thing . . .

It's not like there weren't specific test cases viewable at the time. You could watch All in the Family or The Jeffersons, shot on 60i video, or you could watch The Brady Bunch, shot on 24 fps film. The former two look live, and kinda chintzy. The Brady Bunch doesn't. They all had the same kind of sitcom production. There are, of course, plenty of other examples of both with different shows.

In fact, there's even a back-to-back example -- there was a 60i sitcom in the '80s -- Day By Day -- which had an extended Brady Bunch fantasy sequence which they shot on 24p fps film to match the style of the original show. The difference, as I describe it, is right there to be seen within that ep.

For that matter, it's not like there aren't plenty of chances to see the same thing even now. How many shows have done live episodes? A number of sitcoms, anyway, like Will & Grace and 30 Rock. Normally, they look pretty good, high production value, etc. Being 3-camera, the lighting isn't particularly stylized, but it still looks good. It doesn't look live, or like it's on a stage. When they do the live shows, they go from 30 fps film to 60i or 60p video, and bam -- we're back in the '80s looking like a stage play.

And in fact, at the end of the 30 Rock live episode, they comment within the episode about how everything looks, and in the final shot, they go back to 30 fps, and Alec Baldwin says "now that's better." If it doesn't make a difference, none of that would make sense. There wouldn't even be a reason to change the frame rate for the live shows.

 

[harddrive]

I didn't say I could merely tell the difference. I said that even then, to me, things with 24 fps motion looked like fiction, and things with 60i motion looked live, exactly as I see the difference now. I would not have been able to put in those terms then, but I knew what I was looking at and the impression it gave me. No, it was not about sets, design, anything other than motion, and the live vs. fictional feel to it.

That doesn't answer the question I posed. ("If the cinema had been 60fps and "live" events had been 24fps from as far back as you could experience.......") If the different perceptions were really hardwired into the brain, would you not therefore have grown up believing that Star Trek was real, and sporting events and news were just fictional stories?

Isn't it far more likely that everything came together? That you learnt that "Star Trek", et al were fictional, sport was really happening, at the same time as your brain was (subconsciously) taking in framerate differences? Hence conditioning?

I think this is just an ass backwards argument. You're basically saying what if they served you artificial crab meat in fancy restaurants. Arenb't you just "conditioned" to think lobster is better because you get that in a nice restaurant and artificial crab meat is in the cheap Chinese all you can eat buffet?

Uh no. It's the other way around. The lobster is served in the fancy restaurant because it tastes better.

You picked a really bad example there! It's one there's lots of evidence to prove the opposite. Lobster may indeed have got a luxury reputation to it NOW, but that has far from always been the case, not if you go back a couple of hundred years. It used to be the case that it was served to apprentices in England because it was so cheap, and I seem to remember that sometimes it would even be written into their contracts that it shouldn't be served more than twice a week! Quick googling to back that up shows a very similar situation in the US - http://www.businessinsider.com/the-history-of-gourmet-lobster-2013-8

In fact, lobsters were so plentiful and undesirable that they were commonly used as fertilizer and fish bait by Native Americans and colonists alike.

Their abundance also meant colonists had easy access to protein during bad seasons or harvests, so lobster quickly garnered a reputation as the poor man's meal. They were fed to prisoners, apprentices, and slaves as a way to save money................................

Lobster had become a commodity instead of a nuisance. Prices began surging in the 1880s.

By World War II, lobster was considered a delicacy.

So what do you think a 1800s prisoner would have said if you'd told him how lucky he and nearby slaves were to be fed a delicacy so often!

And it's the same story with a lot of foods - "delicacies" come and go, and often what makes a delicacy such is simply that it's currently rare, hence expensive and therefore exclusive.

Nothing to do with any innate good or bad taste to lobster - or many other foods - everything to do with conditioning.

 

[David Jimerson]

That doesn't answer the question I posed. ("If the cinema had been 60fps and "live" events had been 24fps from as far back as you could experience.......") If the different perceptions were really hardwired into the brain, would you not therefore have grown up believing that Star Trek was real, and sporting events and news were just fictional stories?

I don't know if you mean that seriously or not, but I never said anything like that. I never said the frame rate tells you if something is real or not. I said the frame rates lends to the feel of fiction or being live, and if you mismatch that feel, then you may have artistic problems.

Isn't it far more likely that everything came together? That you learnt that "Star Trek", et al were fictional, sport was really happening, at the same time as your brain was (subconsciously) taking in framerate differences? Hence conditioning?

OK, I think you were at least a little bit serious. No, I didn't learn that something was live or fiction because of the look; that's really silly. I already knew the difference. But I knew what fit and what didn't, and whether something LOOKED LIKE it was live, or looked like it was fictional.

 

[harddrive]

And in fact, at the end of the 30 Rock live episode, they comment within the episode about how everything looks, and in the final shot, they go back to 30 fps, and Alec Baldwin says "now that's better." If it doesn't make a difference, none of that would make sense. There wouldn't even be a reason to change the frame rate for the live shows.

Any argument is not "is there or is there not a difference" - there is. Can we put that to bed?

The point is whether the difference is intrinsic or a matter of conditioning. Is one framerate intrinsically better than another - or is it simply a matter of what any one individual is used to? In which case, who's to say who is right and who is wrong?

I don't know the example you talk about, but maybe if it was shown in Japan everybody would be saying back at their set "no, not better - looks much worse!"

 

[David Jimerson]

Any argument is not "is there or is there not a difference" - there is. Can we put that to bed?

No, because that isn't what I said. I said "doesn't MAKE a difference," which is what you're more or less arguing here:

The point is whether the difference is intrinsic or a matter of conditioning. Is one framerate intrinsically better than another - or is it simply a matter of what any one individual is used to? In which case, who's to say who is right and who is wrong?

 

[Cosimo Bullo]

How do you guys really feel?

 

[Gillvane]

That doesn't answer the question I posed. ("If the cinema had been 60fps and "live" events had been 24fps from as far back as you could experience.......") If the different perceptions were really hardwired into the brain, would you not therefore have grown up believing that Star Trek was real, and sporting events and news were just fictional stories?

Isn't it far more likely that everything came together? That you learnt that "Star Trek", et al were fictional, sport was really happening, at the same time as your brain was (subconsciously) taking in framerate differences? Hence conditioning?

You picked a really bad example there! It's one there's lots of evidence to prove the opposite. Lobster may indeed have got a luxury reputation to it NOW, but that has far from always been the case, not if you go back a couple of hundred years. It used to be the case that it was served to apprentices in England because it was so cheap, and I seem to remember that sometimes it would even be written into their contracts that it shouldn't be served more than twice a week! Quick googling to back that up shows a very similar situation in the US - http://www.businessinsider.com/the-history-of-gourmet-lobster-2013-8

So what do you think a 1800s prisoner would have said if you'd told him how lucky he and nearby slaves were to be fed a delicacy so often!

And it's the same story with a lot of foods - "delicacies" come and go, and often what makes a delicacy such is simply that it's currently rare, hence expensive and therefore exclusive.

Nothing to do with any innate good or bad taste to lobster - or many other foods - everything to do with conditioning.

I know of a certain 3 year old that had a fistful of buttery lobster and absolutely loved it. I don't think he was "conditioned" to think it was good and he's been known to spit out anything he doesn't like without much warning no matter how much you try to "condition" him to like it because it's healthy, lol.

I think you're conflating price with quality. You can certainly make the argument that if the price were the same people would prefer artificial crab meat to lobster if you want to, but I"m not buying it.

According to your logic we can simply condition you to like dog food if we serve it to you on a nice plate in a fancy restaurant. You like nothing because you like it, and everything is because of "conditioning".

We don't serve dog food in a fancy restaurant because it doesn't taste good. Try it your self. See if you can eat dog food for a year and "condition" yourself to like it instead of steak or whatever your favorite food might be. If you can do that, I'll buy your "conditioning" argument.

 

[pulpfiction007]

I believe that in painting, photography, music, poetry and cinema there are natural rules that we all somehow respond to. This isn't to say that an artist can't break them (like Ginsberg, Picasso, Sonic Youth or David Lynch) it's just that when one does....expect that the art will be harder for the average person to relate to. I believe 24 frames a second is as natural as a 4/4 meter. All this being said with the fact that cinema is (by a long shot) the newest art form among those I mentioned.

 

[Darren Levine]

its getting steamy in here.

Why is such a concept as: "X looks different from Y and group A likes X more but group B likes Y more" turning into such a debate?

something looks different, some people like it, some people don't.

some people are colorbind in that they have trouble with seeing the difference between the colors red and green and hence don't see those colors as we do, are you going to try and convince them of which is which and which is better, or just accept that what they see is what they see?

 

[harddrive]

So, harddrive, let me throw you a curveball that seems to be totally unrelated, but is in fact very much related... what do you think about the Golden Ratio? Conditioning? Or something intrinsic in our genes?

No, not unrelated, and it's a very astute question.

I'm tempted to field it by saying "a very interesting mathematical concept", but you'd think that was cheating, wouldn't you?

I'll be as honest as I can - which is to say I'm not sure! Not in the context which I suspect is in your mind. (Cinema/TV aspect ratios?) Again, it really deserves true serious academic research. A few years ago, I'd have given it much more significance, now I'm not so sure. Assuming you have aspect ratios in mind, then when the adoption of 16:9 first came up I heard a lot about how that was close to the golden ratio - hence the desirability of 16:9. It seemed reasonable at the time, but ....?

Firstly, 16:9 is 1.777...:1, the golden ratio is 1.6180.... , so not too far apart, but is it significant? Earliest TV systems tended to be constrained primarily by matters such as tube manufacture, meaning the aspect ratio should be as close to square (to match circular tubes) as possible - so 5:4 initially, then 4:3. Yes, I think there was a general desire for it to be wider (which I fully agree with) for aesthetic reasons, but by how much? And in the cinema, different people had different ideas once it was decided to move away from 4:3. TV went 1.778 (16:9), cinema is most frequently 1.85:1, 2.35:1 for cinemascope, sometimes even wider? So all you can really say is that the average is probably significantly wider than the golden ratio.

Maybe it all means that there is no such thing as a single most pleasing aspect ratio? For big vistas, use 2.35:1. For general cinema, wasn't 1.85 first and foremost a means a getting a bigger screen as it was easier to make it wider than taller? And for TV, may it not be as simple that something less wide more generally suits most subject matter? So as a straight answer to you, I'm now more inclined to believe that the most generally acceptable aspect ratio is somewhere between 1.33 and 2 for reasons which are as much practical as anything else. It's generally close to the golden ratio - but not that close. (There's almost as much of a difference between the golden ratio and 1.85:1, as there is between the golden ratio and 4:3 in the opposite sense!)

I'm actually surprised that no one has brought up the subject of the rule of thirds for composition, which I think is a far more likely candidate for a "hard wired preference" than Golden Ratio. But just because some factors may indeed be a matter of "hard wiring" doesn't mean that all are.

And the rule of thirds seems pretty universal amongst humans - framerate preferences doesn't seem to be. Now is this because of the conditioning argument - or because different humans are wired in different ways, maybe with differences in flicker tolerance?

 

[GrahamH]

I believe that in painting, photography, music, poetry and cinema there are natural rules .... I believe 24 frames a second is as natural as a 4/4 meter.

I agree there are some "natural rules", particularly in music which is grounded in math. But I'm (so far) not inclined to accept that 24fps is one of them - seems like conditioning to me. Can anyone point to any perceptual studies, quantitative evidence, to sway us doubters?

 

[Gillvane]

I agree there are some "natural rules", particularly in music which is grounded in math. But I'm (so far) not inclined to accept that 24fps is one of them - seems like conditioning to me. Can anyone point to any perceptual studies, quantitative evidence, to sway us doubters?

The obvious question then is how were the people that actually liked the Hobbit in 48 fps conditioned to like HFR? Did Peter Jackson kidnap some people and put them in a theater like Clockwork Orange, and condition them to like his HFR?

How were the people that liked the high frame rate conditioned differently than the people that did not? How do you account for the people that went to the theater together, that grew up looking at the same tv shows, same movies, playing largely the same video games, and walking out of the theater with different opinions on the HFR look?

If it was "conditioning" wouldn't they have the same opinion? This seems to indicate it's a difference in taste, not in conditioning.

If what you like is based on "conditioning" then what about the people that really like HFR?

I would say that if you like HFR now that proves that conditioning isn't a factor since you haven't been conditioned to like it. How could you be conditioned to like HFR after only two movies have been released?


The argument seems to be if you like 24fps that's conditioning. But if you like HFR, that's not conditioning. If you can like HFR without conditioning why can't you like 24fps without conditioning? How come conditioning only works on 24fps and not HFR?

 

[harddrive]

I agree there are some "natural rules", particularly in music which is grounded in math. But I'm (so far) not inclined to accept that 24fps is one of them - seems like conditioning to me. Can anyone point to any perceptual studies, quantitative evidence, to sway us doubters?

The only "evidence" I've heard points the other way. It's hardly conclusive, but it's all there seems to be. Firstly, in the early days of cinema, framerates were all over the place, were whatever the cameras and projectors were cranked at and varied widely. The only constraints were go too slow and flicker becomes too great and persistence of vision starts to be lost. If there was any "natural rule" pointing to the perfect frame rate, I'd expect it to have been significant long before the 24fps standardisation. As it is, that standardisation came about for audio requirements. The speed needed to be constantly governed due to keeping the audio pitch correct and constant. Which lends weight to the concepts of strict "natural rules" for audio - but not for vision.

Secondly, if there were "natural rules", they seem to differ with geography and other factors. AFAIK, then for music the basic "rules" are common throughout the world and instinctive for humans that aren't tone deaf - something similar is not the case for framerate appreciation.

Finally, it seems as if people can change their minds. Jackson is quoted as saying that most of his team didn't like the thought of HFR at first, but ended up quite happy with it. OK, you may say "he would say that, wouldn't he?" but someone else on this forum gave the example of a friend who got a high frame rate TV, hated the look at first, then got used to it (at least for shows he didn't have preconceptions over).

I don't doubt the sincerity of everybody who just feels something like "24fps just looks better" - but I've yet to hear anything that points to that being a "natural rule", rather than conditioning.

The obvious question then is how were the people that actually liked the Hobbit in 48 fps conditioned to like HFR? Did Peter Jackson kidnap some people and put them in a theater like Clockwork Orange, and condition them to like his HFR?

How were the people that liked the high frame rate conditioned differently than the people that did not?

I can only answer that question from a personal point of view, when we went ourselves to see the Hobbit.

In my case, it was less a case of liking 48fps for it's own look, than sheer relief that the flicker and judder I've come to associate with 3D largely went away. I said earlier that my opinions of the Hobbit experience and HFR were mixed, it wasn't a universal "yes, this is great!" But OVERALL the lack of flicker and judder in 3D was the main difference to me. I'd already made my mind up not to see any more 3D films at the cinema - now seeing one in HFR may make me change my mind. And at the moment, 3D seems to be inextricably linked to the whole rationale behind HFR - to quote just one article:

"If you've got an object moving across the screen in the real world your eye wants to be able to track that and your eye wants to see it in focus. But because you've already photographed that with this motion blur, your eye cannot focus on something in space that's blurry. Again, in the real world you never see that. It's one of those other things that in 3-D your brain says something's not right here. Well, if you go to high frame right, it is in focus. Your eye can focus on these fast moving objects or even slow moving ones and the details always there. So your brain can make sense of it."

Yes, it still leaves the issues of wearing glasses over normal glasses, and the ND effect of the glasses leading to a dimmer viewing experience, but apparently the latter is being addressed by a new generation of projectors. Which, if 3D remained at 24fps, would only make the flicker and judder worse.

 

[Thomas Smet]

The obvious question then is how were the people that actually liked the Hobbit in 48 fps conditioned to like HFR? Did Peter Jackson kidnap some people and put them in a theater like Clockwork Orange, and condition them to like his HFR?

How were the people that liked the high frame rate conditioned differently than the people that did not? How do you account for the people that went to the theater together, that grew up looking at the same tv shows, same movies, playing largely the same video games, and walking out of the theater with different opinions on the HFR look?

If it was "conditioning" wouldn't they have the same opinion? This seems to indicate it's a difference in taste, not in conditioning.

If what you like is based on "conditioning" then what about the people that really like HFR?

I would say that if you like HFR now that proves that conditioning isn't a factor since you haven't been conditioned to like it. How could you be conditioned to like HFR after only two movies have been released?


The argument seems to be if you like 24fps that's conditioning. But if you like HFR, that's not conditioning. If you can like HFR without conditioning why can't you like 24fps without conditioning? How come conditioning only works on 24fps and not HFR?

Because 50+ years of TV have conditioned some people to know what 50i or 60i look like. HFR is honestly nothing new at all. I was forced to shoot 60i for many years before I was able to shoot 24p. It is only new to the cinema based industry. Most humans are actually pretty well used to seeing higher frame rate material. It is only us freaks who live in a production bubble that think the world revolves around 24p. Even people in the 1950's were already used to the smooth motion of 50i and 60i.

For years I shot 60p and while progressive and totally leaving behind all the issues I had with interlaced I still prefer to shoot 24p. Having shot 60i for 15 years wouldn't you think I would be conditioned to HFR? A lot of professionals only worked in HFR for years since 60i and 50i were the only options but yet a lot of them today love and prefer to work with 24p.

 

[David Jimerson]

For what it's worth:

http://movieline.com/2012/12/14/hobbit-high-frame-rate-science-48-frames-per-second/

Movieline spoke with filmmaker James Kerwin, who lectured on the subject of the science of film perception and consciousness at the University of Arizona’s Center for Consciousness Studies. (His presentation included an analysis of the work of Dr. Stuart Hameroff and British cosmologist/philosopher Roger Penrose, and their quantum theory of consciousness.) According to Kerwin, there really is a simple scientific answer for why The Hobbit’s 48 fps presentation plays so poorly with some viewers — and it's not something we'll get used to over time.

James Kerwin: “Studies seem to show that most humans see about 66 frames per second — that’s how we see reality through our eyes, and our brains. So you would think that 48 frames per second is sufficiently below that — that it would look very different from reality. But what people aren’t taking into account is the fact that although we see 66 frames per second, neuroscientists and consciousness researchers are starting to realize that we’re only consciously aware of 40 moments per second.”

“Dr. Hameroff’s theory has to do with the synchrony of the gamma waves in the brain — it’s called gamma synchrony — the brain wave cycle of 40 hertz. There’s a very strong theory that that is why we perceive 40 moments per second, but regardless of the reason, most researchers agree we perceive 40 conscious moments per second. In other words: our eyes see more than that but we’re only aware of 40. So if a frame rate hits or exceeds 40 fps, it looks to us like reality. Whereas if it’s significantly below that, like 24 fps or even 30 fps, there’s a separation, there’s a difference — and we know immediately that what we’re watching is not real.”

So, researchers are indeed looking into it, and it indeed looks like something which is innate. With normal human variation, of course.

 

[Barry_Green]

My reference to the Golden Ratio wasn't really in terms of aspect ratios, it was that the Golden Ratio is something that is programmed into us genetically. We like it. It's aesthetically pleasing. In studies of beauty in faces, researchers have consistently found that the proportions of the face are considered more attractive the closer they approach the golden ratio. Furthermore, the golden ratio is exceptionally close to the difference between numbers in the Fibonacci series, which governs a lot of natural structures.

Point being -- there may indeed be things such as ratios, or frame rates, which we are preprogrammed to find more appealing, at an instinctual, genetic level. I'm not going to outright say that 24p definitely is one of those things, but I wouldn't be surprised if something like what David just linked to didn't end up being the truth, and it's along the lines of what Ebert has advanced as a theory over the years.

When it comes to aspect ratios, that's actually a little funny, because each eye by itself sees approximately at a 4:3 ratio. It is the combination of eyes together that gives us a wider field of view. And I would say that in a case of "conditioning", we have definitely been programmed to think "wider = better", to a silly extreme... try to tell kids today that the grand masterpieces (like Citizen Kane and Wizard of Oz) were filmed in 4:3 and that there is no "widescreen" version, and some won't even believe you. Fact is, widescreen came about specifically because producers were terrified that TV would suck up their business, and so they tried anything and everything (including the atrocious 3D) to make the movie experience "different" -- and widescreen is one that stuck. Of course, back in those days, 1.85:1 was considered widescreen; nowadays it's 2.39:1, and I've seen guys using 2:1 anamorphics on their 16:9 sensors and getting something like a 3.56:1 ultra-mega widescreen. I think it looks preposterous, but some folks apparently seem to think that it's "more cinematic".