Are you might be one of the many who suffer splitting headaches after watching 3D movies in the theater? Well Peter Jackson is going to up the frame rate which films to address the problem some have from watching 3D movies. The Hobbit movies will be the first he shoots a 48 frames per second, bucking 90 years of filming and projecting tradition of 24 frames a second.
Shooting at 48fps is one thing, but until now the need to project at that rate would likely have called for a complete refit of the world’s projection systems, a stumbling-block overcome by the increasing use of digital projectors.
“Now that the world’s cinemas are moving towards digital projection, and many films are being shot with digital cameras, increasing the frame rate becomes much easier. Most of the new digital projectors are capable of projecting at 48 fps, with only the digital servers needing some firmware upgrades. We tested both 48 fps and 60 fps. The difference between those speeds is almost impossible to detect, but the increase in quality over 24 fps is significant”, said Jackson.
He Continued, “Film purists will criticize the lack of blur and strobing artifacts, but all of our crew–many of whom are film purists–are now converts. You get used to this new look very quickly and it becomes a much more lifelike and comfortable viewing experience. It’s similar to the moment when vinyl records were supplanted by digital CDs.There’s no doubt in my mind that we’re heading towards movies being shot and projected at higher frame rates.”
Blu-ray already operates at 60fps, and can take advantage of the upgraded frame-count of The Hobbit. So this is just not an Hollywood industry attempt to force another round of consumer re-buying of software and hardware on us.
