23.98 fps Vs. 24 fps vs 29.97 fps

i think this is interesting as it gets back to why shoot 24p video at all. most people say for filmic reasons. well, then get a nizo or a bolex and shoot the real stuff. also, 30p accomplishes the same "look" with no pulldown fall-da-rall. it's an interesting argument that will be around for a long time. i think if one is going in the direction of shooting 24p, then they should go whole hog and dive into it with all of it's pitfalls, that's all.

24P does look filmic. The cadence does give it more of a filmic feel than shooting normal 30i or 60i does. That all looks like a news broadcast or really home video. Too smooth. Thus the want and desire for 24p. Heck, I want the 24P look. But it is the 24PA pitfall and the feeling that one needs to edit 23.98 to get that look that hits people.

And how many people can afford to shoot film anymore? Darn few. Not me, that's for sure. I could, but then my kids wouldn't be able to do things like play baseball or eat.

I don't know about FOX paying all that close attention to cadence. I have never heard of that before. But then again, I am an editor and that is the territory of the Post Supervisor and producers.

Shane

After reading the comments given and understanding the complications of our digital revolution I thought I'd give my 25 cent summary of how the world works.
Many years ago we created film motion. There was no standard at first. They shot at several different frame rates and then soon realized it was very expensive. Technically, the process was slowed down to a 23 fps recording and playback at 23 fps and realized there was motion artifacting and a flicker was too apparent. 24 fps was tested the same way. Recorded and played back at 24 fps. the artifacts were diminished and the flicker was too. This became the UNIVERSAL standard to creating and distributing films worldwide. This standard is alive today. Film is technically 24P. ( 24=fps and P = progressive ) Interlaced was not invented yet.
Then, years later( 1930's) Television was invented. They were posed with the similar physical problems that film had. What happened with film at 23 fps was happening with TV/ Video at 24 fps.( in short, FLICKER). Physics did not allow projected light( film) and electronic display ( TV) to respond the same way. So, eventually interlaced was born. The process of taking a progressive image ( a frame of film ) and creating an interlaced image ( Video). The process of shooting light through the progressive film frame ( Full frame) differs from how electronics and tube phosphors reacted back in the 1930's. So, basically, the concept is to flash the same image twice like a shutter speed trick and trick the eye into believing it is a smoother playback. Look up white papers on progressive vs interlaced. This process helped but wasn't good enough yet. By combining scan lines, fields and double flashes of those fields still needed more help. There were two basic standards being created back then and they are known to us as PAL ( phase alternate lining) and NTSC ( National television systems committee). PAL simply took the interlaced playback of 24 fps and sped it up to 25 fps. America, had other ideas. Which is also the most complicated between the two adopted formats. NTSC used the conversion from a progressive image ( full frame) to interlaced image ( two fields) as well but rather than speeding up the playback to 25 they added duplicate fields to create more frames to playback than the original. Thus expanding a recorded 24 fps progressive image, then interlacing it and finally expanding by duplication of fields creating a 30 fps version. This is technically called 2/3 pulldown. Not 3/2 pulldown. Reason being, for every 2 film frames a 3rd phantom video frame is created by duplicating one field of each adjacent frame. This is a standard A-Frame telecine transfer. ( which means film to video tape).
Film ( progressive) A B C D
TV/ Video ( interlaced ) AA BB CC DD
2/3 pulldown AA BB BC CD DD or AABBBCCDDD ( A-frame pattern)
-You can see the 2/3 expansion of frames to fields-
PAL = 25 fps or technically 25i ( i for interlaced) ( 720x576 pixels or 625 scan lines)
NTSC = 30 fps or 30i ( 720x486 pixels or 525 scan lines)

O.K. that is Film and TV up to 1930's. Then around 1954ish, color TV is invented. Because of rabbit ear antennas and frequencies not allowing the rgb spectrum to align properly ( ghosting images) by using Americas standard power of 60HZ. They soon slowed the 60HZ down to 59.94HZ. Thus slowing down our 30fps standard to 29.97fps.( This is called House reference, House Sync or Black-burst). Technically, slowing the playback down by .1 % This also uses the term PULLED DOWN to describe this process. Because of this slowed down playback the 30fps TC (time-code) counter needed to be pulled-up to offset the slow play. So, normal 30 fps TC = 1-30 frames( NON DROP TC ) counting and 29.97fps needed new counting called Drop Frame TC. This counts 1-30, 1-30, 1-30......and at every minute it will drop two numbers counting 1-28. Then on the 10th minute it will count 1-30 and not 1-28. This is to offset the fractional difference between 30fps and 29.97fps.

PAL = interlaced and sped playback from 24fps to 25fps

NTSC = interlaced and 2/3 pulldown or insertion from 24fps to 30 fps

These are the two Standard Def formats. 25 and 30.

Now, that we are moving into HD resolutions we are simply adding more pixels to the screen and more scan lines.

To simplify the re-adoption of 24 fps and comments I am responding to, I will not mention any other frame rates besides 24, 25, 29.97, 30 and then finally 23.98. These are the main formats that depict film to video processes.

Since we have surpassed tubes/ phosphors and rabbit ear antennas we don't really need to use interlaced technologies, 29.97fps or drop frame TC anymore. We can achieve progressive image playback and non ghosting images by using satellite and cable.

So, by taking us back to the beginning of the adoption of Universal distribution of film ( 24 fps also technically 24P) it is obvious that if you shoot at 24P and convert to any other format you will still see the artifacting of 24 fps recording. Or should I say a film look.

Being that since 1999 24P was re-introduced and patented by Avid Technology, the concept of using video with the same frame rate as film is a no brainer! Why because you can distribute to anywhere on the planet. You can output the 24P video to 24P film or to any other standard format without compromise.

23.98fps is only a slowed down playback of 24fps. This is to accommodate apples to apples with 29.97fps workflows. Which is basically American TV.
By pulling down, this is also describing a telecine to NTSC.
Telecine to NTSC standards (film transfer to tape)
24fps pulled down to 23.98, then interlaced into fields and then adding a 2/3 pulldown creating phantom frames and 29.97 playback of originated 24P material.

One example: Film project needs to be distributed to TV.

Shoot HD @ 1080P 23.98 ( 1920x1080 at 23.98 fps with progressive or full frame recording)
Record Audio @ 29.97 ( audio and picture are locked by a 59.94 house sync pulse.)
Edit @ 23.98P
Output to HD tape @ 23.98 ( apples to apples)
Output to Pal by 23.98 pulled up to 25 fps( 4.1%) 1080 is down converted to 576 scan lines)
Output to NTSC by 23.98 introducing 2/3 pulldown to 29.97 DF( drop frame TC) 1080 to 486)
Output to Film by 23.98 pulled up to 24 fps(4%) 1080 up res'd to 1440 pixels) leaving letterbox)
Output NTSC DVD by 23.98 introducing 2/3 pulldown to 29.97
Output to Pal DVD by 23.98 pulled up to 25 fps( 4.1%)
.......etc.........

This is the basic concept of frame rates. This does not include how gamma, grain filters and resolution could effect the film look you are trying to achieve
I hope this helps.
Bradford

If you are going back to film, particularly if you are going to tape inbetween, there could be a real advantage to editing in 23.98 and outputting a tape master with a consistent pulldown cadence.

Also, for DVD, there are some advantages to encoding in 24p(23.98) as opposed to 30i (29.97). Here, though, the difference between 23.98 and 24fps can be important.

I was recently delivered an indpendent film for DVD encoding/authoring, which came as a self-contained quicktime at 24fps/48.048k audio. I dropped that sucker into a 23.98 timeline to clean up handles and sync up the director's commentary, but nothing I could do would compensate for the duration shift in the audio caused by the difference between the 24 and 23.98. I had to have the client send me new audio commentaries wiith 24p reference video to duplicate the duration shift that occurred in the film as FCP re-conformed it to 23.98.