As a filmmaker and person who has to deal with video all day every day, frame rates tend to be an annoyance to me. The sheer number of frame rates and variations is enough to make someone want to give up working in video all together.
In moving picture's early days filmmakers would project their projects at a variety of rates, anywhere from 12-26 frames per second. It wasn't until sound came along in the late 20's that filmmakers decided to set a standard of projecting film at 24 frames per second. Simple. Enjoyable. Agreed upon.
Enter the NTSC (National Television System Committee). I'm not a history expert, but the NTSC decided with the birth of television that its signal should be broadcast at 30 frames per second. When color television came along in order to account for the chrominance signal they changed their broadcast standard to 29.97 frames per second. Sounds insane doesn't it?
At least PAL (Phase Alternating Line) which broadcasts in Europe and specific countries around the world broadcasts in 25 frames per second. But there's also SECAM in France.
And there came 24p which is really 23.98 fps. Or 60p. Or 60i. And yes, 30p is really 29.97fps. And do editors really want to keep doing 3:2 pulldowns to match NTSC standards? Not really.
With the digital conversion of televisions in 2009 these arcane standards became unnecessary. We had a chance to free ourselves of these silly frame rates and decide on one rate that could be standard for all of television, film, commercials, local tv...everything! All countries could have the same standards.
But nope.
Everyone still continues to use NTSC standards in America simply because that's what we've always done. It's what our cameras that existed in 2009 were already capable of doing. So we stayed put. We are still dealing with all of these frame rates for no reason. But wait! Now films are being shot at higher frame rates! Like Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit." Granted I haven't seen a film shot at 48fps projected at 48fps but it might be a game changer.
Regardless, I think it's time to get rid of all these different standards, especially the 23.98 and 29.97 business. It's silly, sucks for sound mixers, and doesn't make sense any more.
