[geeks] 1080p TV broadcasts?

[Joshua Boyd]

On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 02:47:44PM -0400, Andrew Jones wrote:

> With today's consumer televisions, 24 fps anything is a waste of time.
> 
> 1. We can all agree 3:2 pulldown kinda sucks.  It makes scenes with panning
> jerky.  It's just best to avoid it.
> 
> 2. 3:2 reversal won't help you: only a few TVs support 5:5 pulldown. Most 
> "120 Hz" units just do interpolation on 60 Hz inputs, not any real 120 Hz
> display modes.  No 5:5 pulldown means no decent 24 fps viewing.
> 
> Very little TV is shot on film anymore, so there's no intrinsic advantage
> to 24p over 60i.  I'd much rather have 60 interlaced fields than jerky
> progressive-scan, particularly if the source material was 60 Hz.  (And it
> usually is.)

I don't think that very much material is flagged 24p unless it was
originally shot at 24p.  If a TV show is flagged 24p, then I would have
thought that they were using cameras set to 24p.  

What framerate the camera is set at when shooting a TV program is
considered a creative choice (albeit one that does have technical
ramifications). 

One reason why 24p is often chosen is because it is believed to give the
material recorded a more "filmic" look.  That is obviously an over
simplification but, as you observed, 24p does have different motion
characteristics than 60p.  24p also allows you to use 1/48th of a second
exposure times, which will give more motion blurring then you can get
with 60p. 

24p also reduces the data rate, which can lead to better quality
compressed output for DVD or online video.  For uncompressed or high
bitrate workflows, the disk space and bandwidth savings can also be
quite significant.