what is the best fps to film at if you are planning to transfer to dv later

also, ive heard that 18 and 24 are the realtime frame rates, but ive

what is the best fps to film at if you are planning to transfer to dv
later


I assume NTSC. If you have no use for the film version, you might
consider
shooting at "30 fps" (really 29.97 fps). This gives one frame of film for
every frame of video, with no judder frames.

If you shoot 24 fps you can show it in a theater. For telecine it will be
transferred to video at 23.976, and a 2:3 pulldown will be used. (more
sophisticated transfers may use a 2:3:3:2 pulldown). This spreads two
frames
of film over five fields, or four frames of film over five full frames of
video. With a 2:3 pulldown, there will be some frames of film that are
not
rendered anywhere as a full frame of video (the information will be spread
across two fields of adjacent video frames). With a 2:3:3:2 pulldown,
every
frame of film will be rendered at least once as a complete video frame.

18 fps is transferred at 17.982 (all these numbers are one tenth of a
percent
slower than the 'nominal" values - that is 17.982 is one tenth of a
percent
slower than 1. The pulldown is 3:3:4 and every film frame gets at least
one
rendering in a full video frame.

Be careful at transfer - some machines will transfer at exactly the
nominal
frame rate by dropping a field every thousand, shifting your judder
frames. Be
mindful of the tenth percent slowdown when synching sound. If you
recorded (or
resolved) to nominal frame rates, you'll need to slow the sound down by a
tenth
of a percent for NTSC video.


also, ive heard that 18 and 24 are the realtime frame rates, but ive
also heard that 24 is slow motion, which is correct?


18 and 24 are the "nominal" frame rates (and are what is used with real
film
projectors), but the actual telecine transfer rates are a tenth% slower to
lock
to video. Video's nominal frame rate is 30, and in the old black and
white
days it really was 30. However when color came out they had to slow it
down by
.1% (if somebody could explain why I'd appreciate it!) so the actual rate
is
29.97.

Slow motion is achieved by filming faster than the ultimate projection
speed,
and not making pulldown adjustments. For example, shoot at 48 and project
at
the normal 24 FPS, everything will look slow. Shoot 24 and project at 18
it
also looks slow. Shoot at 18 and project at 24, it looks speeded up.
Shoot at
18 and tranfer to video AS IF IT WERE 24 (i.e. faster) and it will look
faster.

Jose

--
(for Email, make the obvious changes in my address)

So, If I wanted to shoot super 8, process it, transfer it to mini dv, put in

So, If I wanted to shoot super 8, process it, transfer it to mini dv, put in
on my comp via firewire and edit on my comp and export from there to VHS
then what FPS should i shoot at? thanks

It doesn't matter. You can do either. They'll look different in
movement, but you can essentially shoot at whatever speed you want so
long as the telecine can transfer at that.

But if you want it to look like an everyday movie, pick 24.

-J. Theakston