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Comment by andybak | Hacker News Reader

It's just peculiar that all the director's named in that article and almost everyone I know who thinks in any depth about this issue disagrees with you.

It's conceivable I might "get used to it" but that's like telling someone who hates cilantro that that will "get used to it". They don't want to and neither do I.

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It's not peculiar in the slightest when, as Upton Sinclair famously put it, "it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." The industry is under increasing financial pressure (e.g. see https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/01/why-hollywood-as-we-... ), so why increase costs when customers are still buying 24fps material?

So you're saying the listed film directors have some vested interest in 24fps? And all the film lovers are just following their lead?

I don't buy it.

How on earth would increasing the frame rate increase costs? It's all (mostly) shot on digital media, so there's no extra film costs like in the pre-digital era. Storage costs are trivial for digital media. It wouldn't increase the time for setting up shots, and probably wouldn't cost extra in postprod.

Brighter lighting required. Scenes become impossible to shoot with natural light. Props and sets need more detail. Unless the actors are very good, more takes are needed to get the acting right. More work needed on continuity, and more reshoots because a mistake is obvious. More VFX render time (and more manual work in some cases, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20600107 ).

And storage costs are not trivial. Assuming a modest 10:1 shooting ratio, 8K resolution, 120fps, and 36bit color (12 bits per channel), that's 1.29PB of raw data for a 2 hour movie. Some genres (notably documentaries) have much higher shooting ratio.

1. Most scenes are lit with extra lights. It's extremely rare to shoot with just natural light. 2. Prop and set detail has nothing to do with FPS, but with final image resolution. 3. Actors are always good. They're pros. You'd be amazed at how good. Regardless, the FPS has no bearing on the amount of retakes due to talent performance. 4. FPS has nothing to do with continuity. Either the script supervisor catches the error, or it's noticed in post and corrected then. 5. Storage costs are trivial compared to most production costs. Above the line costs dwarf storage.

> that’s like telling someone who hates cilantro that that will “get used to it”. They don’t want to and neither do I.

This is an important point, and has more to do with the debate than whether or not 24 vs 60 is actually better. Many people don’t care if 60 is better and don’t want to hear the argument.

I expect that TV manufacturers aren’t intentionally trying to change anyone’s mind, but rather are looking at the future generations of viewers. Kids don’t seem to mind HFR as much, and kids outnumber adults who prefer 24fps. Today’s kids are tomorrow’s TV buyers.

A good answer might be to appease today’s vocal film lovers by adding settings or changing defaults, but they might also reasonably choose to cater to the preferences of the next generation over the current one.

It's interesting that you, of all things, chose cilantro for your simile, when there are indications that dislike for cilantro is actually primarily genetic[1].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriander#Taste_and_smell

Cilantro. The worst! In 24fps or otherwise.

Directors are artists. They pretty much always prefer the old inferior way because it is more arty. C.f. film vs. digital.

You say "arty" like it's a bad thing. How peculiar.

It is in this context. Directors like 24 FPS because it is more arty than 60 FPS, but really it is strictly inferior. Even if you prefer a lower frame rate for weird aesthetic reasons, just shoot at a high frame rate and then cut every other frame so people can choose.

It's like, nobody thinks 1080p is better than 4k. Or that 8 bit dynamic range is better than 10 bit. So why do some directors think that 24 FPS is better than 60? Art. Right.

Course they do. If 1080p is all you need, the extra cost of 4k is pure waste. Bigger numbers do not mean better.

4k is definitely better than 1080p, unless you have pretty bad eyesight and no glasses.

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