Peter Jackson: why I'm shooting The Hobbit at 48fps
Writing on his Facebook page, Jackson says the process "requires both shooting and projecting at 48fps, rather than the usual 24fps". The result, he says, is "hugely enhanced clarity and smoothness".
"Looking at 24 frames every second may seem OK – we've all seen thousands of films like this over the last 90 years – but there is often quite a lot of blur in each frame during fast movements, and if the camera is moving around quickly, the image can judder or strobe," says Jackson.
He goes on to explain that film shot at 48 fps is much easier to watch, especially in 3D. "We've been watching Hobbit tests and dailies at 48fps now for several months, and we often sit through two-hours worth of footage without getting any eye strain from the 3D."
Jackson hopes that by the time of the films release in December 2012 there should be 10,000 digital cinemas worldwide capable of screening The Hobbit at 48fps.
You can read more on Jackson's fascinating thoughts about filming at 48fps on his Facebook page.
Follow whathifi.com on Twitter
Comments
Indeed. Cinemas have been projecting films at 48fps for decades (i.e. displaying each frame twice), so this is no huge leap in projector technology.
However, 48fps hi-res video, according to Roger Ebert in one of his anti-3D rants at least, looks phenomenal.
It does sound like we'll have to pony up for new TVs to display 48fps, though. Even if some TVs can be upgraded via firmware, 48fps will doubtless be dubbed the next big thing in TV tech a few years down the line; and there's no commercial logic in offering firmware updates when manufacturers can ask us to buy yet another new TV instead.
I wonder if we will reach a point of consumer technological fatigue? Our minds, not to mention our bank balances, are already struggling to cope with the pace at which new TV features are being introduced. What happenned to the days when you could buy a TV and happily live with it for a decade, or longer?
As Jackson notes in his piece, some digital projectors already natively support 48fps rates, so I suspect he's watching via one of those...
And of course we know TVs support higher frame rates - it's just the 'natively' bit that could be the issue.
I wonder who made the tv's that they are watching it back on in 48fps, i would hope it just means normal tv's can support it anyway.
Stone the crows, we will have a new batch of TVs being able to display native 48fps 3D content soon (i.e. Not just halfed to 24fps)