The Hobbit's Higher Frame Rate To Cost Theater Operators

kodiaktau writes "Film makers keep touting increased frame per second rate as improving viewing and cinema experience, however the number of theaters who actually have the equipment that can play the higher rate film is limited. It makes me wonder if this is in the real interest of creating a better experience and art, or if it is a ploy by the media manufacturers to sell more expensive equipment and drive ticket prices up. From the article: 'Warner Bros. showed 10 minutes of 3D footage from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey at 48 frames per second at CinemaCon earlier this year, and Jackson said in a videotaped message there that he hoped his movie could be played in 48fps in “as many cinemas as possible” when it opens in December. But exhibitors must pay the cost of the additional equipment, and some have wondered how much of a ticket premium they would charge to offset that cost.'"

:3

[Quakeulf]

People prefer it if games run at 60 fps, so why not higher framerates in movies? I am willing to give this a go as long as I don't have to pay more for the ticket.

fast frame more "real" than theater 3D

[peter303]

I've seen several examples of both. And guarantee you the former will make the movie feel more vivid than the 3D. Its as significant as going to color or talkies. I cant wait for all films to be shot this way.

If I were a theater owner I'd say "Hell no."

[Picass0]

Show me another summer tent-pole film being shot in 48 FPS. Are theaters expected to break even on their hardware investment from their take on one film? Unlikely. Where's the commitment from studios to 48 FPS? Theaters need a future lineup of films that utilize the new projectors to justify such an expense. Also there is mixed work of mouth on viewer reaction to the new framerate, so that ups the gamble for early adopters who might be buying the next Edsel.

I'll pay for 48fps 2D

[jmorris42]

I might pay for the 48fps 3D, but I would try 48fps 2D in an instant. It is about time 24fps went the way of B&W. Screw those old fart 'film buffs' who think that framerate makes movies look better' No, it looks wrong but you grew up watching movies that way are are simply used to it. Probablty also explains 90% of the fetish for tube amps amongst 'audiophiles'; their early impressions were formed with tube amps and they refuse to change.

But why not go all the way to 60? Would that be so wrong? It would make it compatible wirh HDTV without messy frame rate conversion. Plus I believe IMAX also runs at 60fps native. About the only advantage I can see with 48fps is that they can just merge pairs of frames for printing to normal 35mm and for the 1080p@24 BluRay release. (BluRay can't do 1080p@60, some players can but the format can't bless it.)

Re:Awesome

[DreadPiratePizz]

You can see non gimicky 3D right now: Prometheus. Say what you will about the film, the 3D is not a gimmick, and greatly enhances the experience. I felt like I was looking at real person when Charlie was looking in the mirror and saw the thing in his eye. Creepy as fuck. The cesarian was also creepy as fuck in 3D as well, not because of in your face effects, but because you really felt as if you were right there looking at real people. That's the future of 3D: subtle enhancement.

Terrible

[sexconker]

48 FPS is a terrible choice.

24 Hz displays (theaters, yes, they do integer multiples) will be fine.
30 Hz displays (shitty TVs) will fuck it up royally.
24 Hz displays (theaters) will be fine.
60 Hz displays (TVs) will fuck it up royally.
120 Hz displays (TVs) will fuck it up royally.

You'll need a 240 Hz display to show it properly. And if you add 3D, direct view, active 3D setups (3D TVs) will have to do 480 Hz.

Fucker should have gone with 60 Hz.

TV vs. movie

[DrYak]

viewer can make a difference between 24fps and higher framerates.
24fps: fast enough to perceive motion (unlike older black-and-white movie which looked more like an animated slideshow), yet not that high and a lot of too-fast motion either shows up as motion-blurred, or as dotted-path.
higher frameates (like Hobbit's 48fps or TV's 50/60 depending on regions) give a much smoother motion (they give a better temporal resolution). Fast motion looks less blurry or less doted.

Most of the current population of adult movie goer grew up with the habit that:
- movie = slow framerate = blurry motion., and movie = high quality.
- TV = faster 50/60 (depending on PAL or NTSC) = fluid motion and TV = lower quality
for them, whatching the Hobbit at 48fps looks "too fluid", which their brain automatically compares with what they are used to see on "TV" and which they associate with "lower quality". Thus they complain that the hobbit "looks like on TV".

Also some people might like the "blurry" effects on movie, just like some used to like the "grain" of analog medium, or the peculiart aesthetics of black-and-white movies. For these people, high FPS movies just steals a part of the artifacts which bring its "charm" to the medium.
Also a small degree of artifacts looking un-natural (motion blur, film grain, etc.) might help the whole feel a littre bit un-natural, and thus help give an impresison of "fantasy" for the movie. (Of course, for other people it's exactly the other way around: artifacts stand in the way, they want the picture to look as closely as possible to reality).

Gamers on the other side are used that the higher frame rate = the better quality because of more fluid motion. As the proportion of gamers gets higher in the general population and as the gamers grow older, more and more people will start to appreciate the higher frame rates in movie. Probably that 48fps isn't just a passing fad but will probably stay in the long term, it only needs the population to get used to it.

Re:choices

[mcelrath]

I, for one, will pay for higher frame rate. 48fps is even too low. I can see each achingly slow 1/24s frame as it crawls across the screen. Explosions and fast motion in action movies generally only take a handful of frames, and the illusion of motion is lost when I can see each one individually. No amount of motion blur will fix this. To me, watching action movies at a theater where I'm closer to the screen is an epilepsy-inducing stroboscopic nightmare that I generally avoid. It's moderately tolerable on the small screen, when the angle subtended by motion is smaller, but I can still see the frames.

Back in the days of CRT monitors I played with refresh rate a lot to figure out what I could notice and what bothered me. 60Hz was tolerable, but above 80 was best. So, Hollywood: double it again, bring us 96fps films. Or, hey, you could really go hog wild and pick a refresh rate already in common use like 60Hz or 120Hz. Nah, the'll never do that.

Re:Awesome

[Hatta]

Decline? It's shit like this that gets me into theatres. Before Avatar came out, I hadn't seen a movie in a theatre in a decade. Since Avatar came out, I saw it, Up and Star Trek, all 3 in 3d, and two of three in IMAX. If you're not showing off top of the line equipment, I'll just watch it at home.

If my local theatre can display The Hobbit in 48FPS, I will attend. If they do not, I will not. Simple as that.

Re:In other news

[jdgeorge]

The "stuttering" effect you are accustomed to seeing when you watch movies at home is an effect of the movies frame rate not being accurately reproduced by your TV. A 120Hz TV solves this problem for 24 fps movies.

Unfortunately, 48fps will require me to get a 240Hz display to solve the same problem.

Re:In other news

[Alastor187]

You mean studios will finally be able to pan at a reasonable speed without it looking jittery and fucking terrible?

24 fps is terrible and you should feel bad for propping up a dying standard.

I have my PS3 setup to output 24p [wikipedia.org] with a 120 Hz LCD TV. The difference between watching a movie in the theater and at home is night and day. I don't see any of the issues at home that are prevalent in the theater, but I still get that characteristic low fps film look. As well, the brightness of a modern LCD TV allows for significantly more contrast than is possible in the theater. I simply can't enjoy going to the theater anymore, and 48 fps won't change that.

Re:If I were a theater owner I'd say "Hell no."

[PraiseBob]

Well, the first couple generations of digital cinema projectors can't display at 48fps. But, many of the models from the past year or two are capable out of the box. So for instance, my theater chain was one of the first in the nation to be all-digital... which means that most of our auditoriums can't display it, except for the locations we built in the past year, and the projectors that have been replaced. The gamble is whether it will be worth it to invest sooner in newer equipment, or hang on to the aging equipment a bit longer. If the hobbit is successfull (and it will be), then expect to see most new movies being filmed in 48.

It does produce a better picture, despite the mixed reviews. Some people prefer vinyl over cd, which is at least arguable. And other people prefer DVD over Blu-Ray, for reasons that don't make a lot of sense. Some people don't like 120hz TV's, and others can't tell a difference. This industry has a lot of purists who prefer 35mm over digital, so a better digital to them still isn't "good enough", even though it is visbly better to the majority of people.

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Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Awesome

[UttBuggly]

Decline? It's shit like this that gets me into theatres. Before Avatar came out, I hadn't seen a movie in a theatre in a decade. Since Avatar came out, I saw it, Up and Star Trek, all 3 in 3d, and two of three in IMAX. If you're not showing off top of the line equipment, I'll just watch it at home.

If my local theatre can display The Hobbit in 48FPS, I will attend. If they do not, I will not. Simple as that.

Amen. I have better sound, video, and a pause button at home. Plus, the local metroplex wasn't keen about my showing up in jammies and slippers.

However, they do have a brand new IMAX theatre, so films like The Dark Knight Rises will get me there. The other draw is an adults-over-21 area with 2 screens that serve food and liquor. The food and drink are overpriced and mostly lousy BUT no teenagers with cell phones and nicer seating is terrific. Without one or the either....technology I don't have at home (yet)...or a dumbass free environment, I'm keeping my butt and dollars at home.

I will check out one or two films shot at 48fps, especially if one is The Hobbit, and see what I think. My local theatre is very good at the latest gear upgrades and I expect they'll go with the 24-48fps costs if it's at all feasible.

Re:In other news

[Moike]

Home theater buff reporting in. It really isn't about the "traditional frame rates", and you can already see LOTR in higher frame rates if you want to make a comparison. The LOTR blu-ray displays video at 24 fps, but most modern displays allow you to turn on some version of "frame interpolation" which generates additional frames to smooth out motion. The result eliminates the judder that is very noticeable and distracting at 24 fps on a large screen. I was very excited about being able to run movies at 60 fps instead. HOWEVER, I quickly discovered that as bad as the motion jerking is, it was essential to the cinematic experience. For example, in one scene Sam and Frodo are climbing a hill toward the viewer. At 24 fps, it is a beautiful scene with fantastic landscape, and two hobbits walk uphill toward the viewer. At 60 fps, 2 actors dressed as hobbits walk toward the camera. The frame rate directly affected my ability to suspend disbelief and lose myself in the movie. I really wish I could enjoy high frame rates, since motion judder drives me crazy. Prior to doing this test I would have scoffed at the idea that a high frame rate could impair the visual experience. But it does. Try it yourself. I cannot be sure that frame rate is really what drives this experience. Perhaps there is some other related element that changes as the frame rate changes and there is some way to replicate the 24fps experience at a higher frame rate. I hope that is the case, but I am not very optimistic. There is also a chance that I will be able to acclimate to a higher frame rate and not experience the dreaded "soap opera" effect. It hasn't happened yet. Another problem plagues 3D movies: Focal plane. For any (non-animated) movie, the limited depth of focus of the film makes some portions of the shot in focus and others blurry. Viewing in 3D you can look around the scene and what happens is unnatural. Specifically, when you are looking at the intended scene subject everything looks correct and in focus, but when you try to look around the scene and look at something that is not within the focal plane you will find you can resolve depth, but you cannot focus on the object, since the film is unable to compensate for where you are looking. In 2D, this effect forces your attention on the portion of the screen the director intended you to view. But in 3D you are free to look around. When you do so, you break the illusion of a true 3D world. Shooting with a very high depth of field minimizes this problem, but requires a very small aperture, which in turn requires lower frame rates and/or increased lighting. For some scenes, it just won't work well. As camera sensors improve hopefully this will get better. Both of these problems are not applicable to an animated production, where there need not be a plane of focus, and you won't ever feel like you are looking at actors on a set. If you want to watch Pixar movies, by all means go for the high frame rate and 3D. But if you want to watch a cinematic masterpiece, these technological advances are a giant leap backward.

Re:3D Anyone?

[Colonel Korn]

One person in a small minority with visual issues, responding to someone else in that minority, doesn't actually make any kind of point. It's not normal to get a headache from 3D done well, so you shouldn't project your personal variance from the average onto the general population.

Actually, it is quite common to get headaches from theatrical faux-3d. In fact, the people who suffer from this are those with superior visual acuity and visual processing in their brains - they perceive the difference between the depth perceived from parallax and focal distances and the forced changes in focal depth as physical impossibilities. Those of us who have visual issues or poor spatial processing are just fine with theatrical 3d.

So what?

[kommakazi]

Of course the cost will go to theatre operators...who else? Who do you think paid for upgrades to 3D capability? And digital cinema? This is a very worthwhile upgrade. 24fps is juttery and looks terrible for any scene with lots of fast movement. This is amplified on bigger screens... Take a look here: http://frames-per-second.appspot.com/ [appspot.com] Set one ball to 24fps and the other to 48fps. Swap the background to one or the other as a reference. Now sync and up the pixels per second for all of them. Watch the terrible blur at higher px/sec on the 24fps ball. It hurts my eyes. Especially on a huge screen where everything is moving quickly and that blurry. Sure you can call the blur "cinematic" but guess what, directors can still at that blur in post production when it will bring something more to the picture instead of leaving you to suffer through it on scenes where it only takes away. Unlike 3D on shitty 24fps film, this is an extremely worthwhile upgrade, and one side effect is it will actually enhance the 3D experience in movies which are 48fps and shot in 3D. Call me a troll if you want, but anyone who thinks 48fps is bad clearly doesn't know what the fuck they are talking about, end of story.

Re:Awesome

[phayes]

I have Amblyopia (one eye is stronger than the other) so 3D really doesn't do much for me. In addition I live in France where like most of the world outside the US, people who want to see movies in english have to put up with subtitles. The last movie I saw in 3D (Avengers) put the subtitles about a foot away from your face, which was really distracting & tiring (you don't want to focus on the subtitles but THEY'RE IN YOUR FACE). and decided once again to abstain from 3D if at all possible.

I saw Prometheus and feel that all your points on how great the movie was in 3D are overblown. The worm in the eye scene didn't need to be 3D to be creepy. The guys eyeball was most of the screen so 3D added little to nothing. The people I saw Prometheus with who all have normal vision are of the same opinion. 3D is a useless money grabbing technique that adds little & often distracts from the experience.

Re:Awesome

[weszz]

As a former movie theater employee (some 15+ years ago) when you pay for a movie, the theater sees very little of it.

I think the way it broke out then was they kept ~2% of opening week ticket box revenues, after a few weeks it jumped to ~6% and I think topped out around 10% before they weren't around anymore. Budget theaters keep a much higher percentage, but they have really old movies...

The theater makes all their money on concessions (thus the ultra expensive popcorn and soda) one of those bags back then cost maybe $30 for mountain dew syrup (which btw pours out as an interesting sludge/slime that tastes nasty without mixing), it makes a crapload of soda, and as you know, popcorn kernels are cheap, the canola oil is also reasonable, but that is where they make the money (or did) not sure if the 3d surcharges go to the theater or not... I'd imagine the distributor keeps a good amount of that too!

Re:Awesome

[k31bang]

Already invented: Speech Jammer [slashdot.org].