Apple Final Cut Pro 7 - Manual (Page 1922)

Stop-motion photography, traditional drawn animation, and computer rendering take a
similar approach. The point here is that the rate of creating a frame does not necessarily
correspond to the rate of playback. This is one of the most exciting propositions of motion
pictures and their ability to manipulate time: you can create images at whatever rate suits
you and play them back at a totally different speed.
Examples of How Different Frame Rates Are Used
Film is especially flexible in that it can be photographed and played back with a diverse
range of speeds. Some examples are:
• 1 frame per hour: Extreme time-lapse photography.
• 1 frame per minute: Time-lapse photography and stop-motion animation.
• 18 frames per second: Early motion picture films.
• 24 frames per second: Worldwide standard for movie theater film projectors.
• 48 frames per second: Slow-motion photography (because it takes twice as long to play
back in a 24 fps projector, the motion is twice as slow).
• 300+ frames per second: High-speed cameras for very slow-motion photography (often
used for miniatures to make models seem larger on screen).
• 2500+ frames per second: Very high-speed cameras for special effects such as pyrotechnic
photography and explosions.
Choosing a Frame Rate
Movies on film are almost exclusively projected at 24 fps. Television, however, does not
have an internationally accepted frame rate. In Europe and many other countries, PAL
and SECAM use 25 fps, whereas NTSC video in North America and Japan uses 29.97 fps.
Other common frame rates are usually multiples of these.
Note: Converting video formats from one frame rate to another is technically challenging,
and there are often unwanted visual side effects. This is especially true when the frame
rates do not evenly divide. For example, converting 30 fps to 60 fps is fairly easy to do,
but converting 29.97 fps to 25 fps is much more difficult. Making sure audio stays in sync
throughout the conversion is yet another challenge.
Some digital video formats support several frame rates within a single format, allowing
variable frame rate video recording and film (24 fps) compatibility.
Description Media Frame rate
This is the universally accepted film frame rate.
Movie theaters worldwide almost always use this
frame rate. Many high definition formats can
record and play back video at this rate, though
23.98 is usually chosen instead (see below). Film; high definition
video 24 fps
1922 Appendix C Frame Rate and Timecode