Apple Final Cut Pro 7 - Manual (Page 1919)

This appendix covers the following:
• What Is Frame Rate? (p. 1919)
• Understanding Flicker and Perceived Frame Rate (p. 1920)
• How Many Frames per Second Is Best? (p. 1921)
• Choosing a Frame Rate (p. 1922)
• What Is Timecode? (p. 1924)
• About Drop Frame and Non-Drop Frame Timecode (p. 1924)
• Timecode on Tape (p. 1927)
• Comparison of Various Timecode Formats (p. 1928)
This appendix explains the concepts behind frame rate, frame rate limits, and timecode
and compares various timecode formats.
What Is Frame Rate?
Think of a motion picture camera as a relentless still camera, taking many still photographs
every second. Movies create the illusion of motion by showing still images in rapid
succession. The number of images photographed per second is referred to as the frame
rate of the movie and is measured in frames per second (fps). Frame rate describes both
the speed of recording and the speed of playback. The more frames recorded per second,
the more accurately motion is documented onto the recording medium.
Recording and playback speed are usually the same, though they do not have to be. For
example, if you film a rubber ball bouncing on a sidewalk at 24 frames per second, your
movie will have 24 unique photographs of the position of the ball. However, if you film
at 100 frames per second, there are nearly four times as many photographs of the ball’s
position during the same period of time. The more frames per second, the more precisely
the exact position of the ball is documented.
Note: If you play back frames at a speed different from the original recording speed, you
can create temporal effects such as time lapse and slow motion.
1919
Frame Rate and Timecode
A
p
p
endix
C