I'm DONE Shooting in 24FPS! Here's why...

So many frame rates to choose from but what's the best frame rate? Well, I'm gonna try to find out and I'll let you know: 24fps VS 30fps for cinematic video?

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[JorisHermans]

So, according to some people in the comments YT itself doesn't mess with the frame rate but can someone confirm this is 100% fact? 🤔 And sorry about the audio! Still a lot of work to do in my new studio 😵‍💫💥

[numbersix]

I'm an engineer by occupation, an audiophile and videophile by avocation.
What follows primarily addresses the technical side of this discussion. The issues and impacts are complex. Here's a very simplified synopsis:
The "jitter" you've seen is very real. The degree to which it is a problem varies from individual to individual.

If a video is shot at 24 frames per second (fps), edited at 24 fps and displayed at 24 fps, movement is as "smooth" as a 24 fps capture will allow. The exact same thing is true for 25, 30 and 60 fps respectively. When frames are displayed at other than an integer multiple of the cadence (frame to frame timing) that one's video camera captured, jitter is present. Period. It might not be irritating, you might not even be able to spot it. But it IS there. (Some degree of judder is also present but that's a different conversation.)

Frames per second are frequently changed - usually related to cost. In the U.S., by far, the most common frame rate alteration is "3:2 pulldown." Each two frames of a 24 fps video are converted into five. Two duplicates of each odd numbered frame are created and one duplicate of each even numbered frame is created.

Skipping directly to the effect, with 3:2 pulldown, a display effectively shows the first frame for 1/20th of a second, the second frame for 1/30 of a second - averaging - 1/24 of a second per frame. The TV then rinses and repeats, Every odd numbered image is displayed for a longer period of time than it should have been, every even numbered image is display for a shorter period of time than it should have been. Frame to timing is also impacted. Fast moving objects "jitter." Rapidly brightening or dimming objects "jitter."

I personally do not like corrupted cadence "jitter." Jitter isn't present if neither the source provider nor one's TV mess with cadence. Jitter isn't present if the source material was recorded at 30, 60 or 120 fps. Many love "the cinematic look" so much that they will gladly put up with jitter. I'm not among their ranks.


I'm tired. I'm finished. I hope you didn't find this to be a word salad.

[JorisHermans]

Has anyone else experienced the 24fps jitters and stutters on YouTube? 🤔😵‍💫
And sorry about the audio! Still a lot of work to do in my new studio 😵‍💫💥

[AdrianBacon]

You could maybe try doing everything on a 60p timeline, or at least export at 60p. I often have to take in and edit and intercut footage that was shot at 24, 30, 60i, 60p, and 120p and I find that having a common denominator of a 60p timeline makes everything go so much smoother and allows you to have a lot more control over the frame interpolation so that when it does get uploaded to YouTube, the worst that will happen is they drop every other frame down to 30fps. If it looks reasonably good at 60p, it won't have as much issue at 30. Just my two cents.

[fredstork]

You are right, you should shoot and edit with the knowledge of how the result will be viewed. If it will be viewed in a cinema theater where they have an actual 24 fps projector you should shoot and work in 24 fps… But as you correctly point out phones, tablets, laptops and other flatscreens, with the exception of very high end screens, are 30/60hz and therefore requires pulldown and will show 24 fps footage in 30 fps - with any fast subject or camera movements getting stutter. Worst case scenario is shooting in 30 fps, timeline it in 24 “to make it cinematic” and then uploading it to YouTube, preferably with 360 degree drone panning… remove 6 frames every second to make 30 into 24 and then put the missing 6 frames back with pull down… This said, stutter is actually very “cinematic”, as 24 is too slow to make any fast objects or panning smooth and you see it in most films even if they use dolly moves rather than panning to avoid this. But is stutter the “cinematic” we want? When all screens can show 120 fps natively we will have the choice between 24 and 30 but today 30 fps gives by far the smoothest result.

[Plaughrey]

Can’t wait to see your results!
Something that may be worth looking into is 30 fps with a 1/50 shutter speed instead of the 1/60. Though the 1/10 difference may produce an almost imperceptible difference 😂

[Photovintageguy]

I've noticed that if you're trying to sync music to cuts, 24 just doesn't give you enough accuracy. You end off not being able to cut right where you want. Also if you do pans in say broll you will very easily get stutter, especially for drone shots because the drone is typically not moving super slow. If you're actually making movie then live with the limitations, but otherwise it just doesn't make sense.

[TexpatOTG]

I made a video on this topic too ... we aren't making movies, we are making YouTube videos. We should use the frame rate that works best for that format. Also I get a lot of clips from friends that shoot on smartphone and the are usually 30fps --- easier to share. Good show and good observations. Cheers.

[Drunken_Hamster]

I've learned more since the last time I commented. So long story kinda short, you ARE seeing things. Depending on how your camera works in different modes (PAL vs NTSC) it could be shooting 23.976 when you have 24 selected. This makes a difference if your project timeline is not exactly matched. On top of that, youtube re-encodes 23.976 to 24, which causes judders. On top of that the 180 shutter rule on most cameras for 24 turns out to not function for that reason MIXED WITH the fact that they tend to not have 1/48, and instead have 1/50.

My point is, I know you shot 30 with a 1/50 for a month and decided to go back to 24, BUT, I propose two new trials for you. Shoot 30 with a 1/33.3 shutter (for no flicker but more motion blur to compensate having extra frames. If you can't set that shutter speed, the equivalent in angle is 324 degrees.) and outside of that, shoot 25 (which on most cameras is integer 25 aka actual/real 25) with a slower 1/40 shutter speed for just a touch of extra smoothness. And of course no judder due to timeline mismatch and YT re-encoding bullcrap.

Alternatively, if you wanna stick to the 180 guideline, 25-1/50 works just fine, though if you ever travel to NTSC land, you'll need to change the shutter to 1/30, 1/40, or 1/60 in order to not have artificial light flicker. ((Really my point is if you can't reconcile the extra frames with 30, 25p 1/40 is the best one size fits all setup.))

Let us know what happens in testing! And may your footage be blessed to look great, regardless! After all, composition and lighting are more important that frame rate. (especially when you don't include shutter speed in frame rate and set it to human natural perception with is 1/40-1/50 for lower FPS, and 360-degrees shutter angle for above 40fps.)

[caseywilliams]

I was also thinking the same thing. I switched to 30 on my drone and it helped tons. I also was thinking the same thing. 24 doesn't seem to be doing me any favors on YouTube.

[johnster]

i would post a link to a 30fps clip and a 24 but if you look for comparisons on google you can see a difference in stuttering FOR SURE.

for people saying 24 always looks better than 30 they have the same motion blur, the difference is a few extra frames. panning on 24 is choppier than 30 no doubt. if your camera doesn’t have stabilization 30 will look like a HUGE step up in quality. for youtubers the appeal is that we aren’t a movie, but we also aren’t 60fps. 30 is a great mix of looking realistic with motion blur without all the extra frames. 24 is just a few too little for most walking work. 24 fps also can’t be slowed down. 30 fps can be slowed by 80% to be a perfect 24 frame timeline and adds a nice dreamy look.

also no flickering is huge for me

[malfaris]

I noticed the same thing, maybe its ok on tripod only or gimbal that doesn't involve lots of movements. at 50fps looks much more smoother than 25fps .

[colewilliams]

DUDE this drove me absolutely crazy for the longest time. I've been shooting in 24fps ever since I started videography. Someone tried to tell me that American Tv was all 30fps and I didn't believe them at first. But once I did my research I found out that tvs are all 60hz and 24 doesn't go into it evenly and ends up skipping every 3rd frame. That sent me down a rabbit hole trying to figure out fps and refresh rates. It drove me crazy because smartphones and most laptops are still 60hz as well. Some are 120hz as is mine. 120 goes into 24 evenly so I never noticed jittering or skipping of frames. FOR 3 YEARS IVE BEEN DELIVERY VIDEOS BACK TO CLIENTS IN 24FPS. Their videos are playing like shat when they watch them on their 60hz screens😂 I have an iphone 13 that has variable refresh ad up to 120hz so I never knew what they were playing back like in 60hz. I think what bothers me most about 24fps is that I want so badly to keep using it because I know it looks cinematic and badass on my end but It's looking jittery on someone else's end. Another thing I try to point out to people is that, technically American tv is in 30fps yes but when we do a 3:2 pull down onto a 24fps movie to be broadcast on tv, it's still actually 24fps to our eyes. We're only seeing 24 new frame of movement. The pull down method adds freeze frames in between. It doesn't magically add 6 new frames with movement. Hopefully that makes sense. I figured this out by doing an experiment: Setup a camera on a tripod and film your tv screen and set your camera to 60fps to match the refresh rate of your tv. Every frame you see in the video will be showing a newly refreshed image on the screen. Find something you know for a fact is in 30fps (Just put on the local news or something) Get at least a 1 second video of that. Now open Netflix or any streaming service and put on a movie you know if 24fps. (Stranger Things is 24fps) get at least a 1 second clip of that. Toss them into your editor (I use Premiere) Create a 60fps fps sequence and import the clip you got of whatever was showing in 30fps on your tv (The news). Trim it so it's 1 second long. Then manually go through each frame and keep track every time there is a new frame with movement (NOT FREEZE FRAMES). For 30fps there should be a new frame with movement every other frame because it's 30fps on a 60fps timeline. When you reach the end of the clip you should of counted 30 new frame of movement in the 1 second clip. Now delete that clip and add in the 24fps clip you recorded (Stranger Things) onto your 60fps sequence. Trim it to 1 second and do the exact same thing. Go through frame by frame. Again counting each new frame with movement (NOT FREEZE FRAMES). You should be get a new frame with movement followed by 2 freeze frames. Then a new frame with movement followed by 1 freeze frame. Then this cycle continues. Essentially your getting 3 frame holds on screen then 2 frame holds on screen. This is where the name 3:2 pull down comes. When you get to the end of the clip you should have counted 24 new frames of movement. Even though it is it's being broadcasted and converted into 30fps with the 3:2 pull down, it's still being seen as 24fps to our eyes. This is why I didn't believe the guy when he told me everything you see on TV is in 30fps. Because it's not necessarily true. I used to binge watch movies on FX back when they actually were known for only playing movies. It was so obvious it was 24fps to my eye especially when watching it all day during the summer than switching to the local news which was 30fps. All in all, yes it 30fps but its kind of not at the same time if it's the 3:2 drop down. Don't ask me what method they use to convert British 25fps to 30 for American TV haha. But back to the topic on hand, YouTube. As far as I know YouTube does not perform the 3:2 pull down. I feel like if that were the case then it would look normal on any monitor regardless the refresh rate. Because then it's not going to skip any frames. If it DIDN"T do the 3:2 method and you watched your 24fps video on a 60hz monitor than you would get this effect. But i'm confused because I see exactly what you're talking about in your example video and my laptop is 120fps? Daphuq?

[MotoFamMayhem]

I had to go from 30fps to 60fps for the exact jitters as you're talkin about in this video... Our cameras are always panning or moving at a higher pace because we're filming motorsports so that's likely the reason I feel 60+fps works best for us 👊😎

[juzzonmorris]

You're not the first content creator who's suggested shooting in 30fps instead of 24fps. There's also the added benefit of being able to slow down the footage in 30fps. However you do lose light when shooting in low light situations. This is very all interesting. 🤔
I'll stay tuned to see how it works out for you. 👍🏾

[splendorproducciones]

Yo también experimenté lo mismo. Incluso noto a veces ese tartamudeo de los 24 fps, sin subirlo en YouTube. Para mí lo mejor es 30 fps

[Livingwithken]

There is a reason why most YouTubers like Mr.Beast uses 30FPS you can also get the same cinematic experience if you always use the 180 degree rule. I switched awhile back and never went back. And there is a reason why some companies have to add 24fps as a firmware update later and give you 30-60fps when it’s first released.

[TSGAdventures]

I always shoot in 24FPS but always thought they looked jittery so I switched to 30 FPS and they seem fine now. So sticking with 30 FPS for now it just seems much smoother.

[samueldickes]

In order to be in synch with european 50hz screens, you just have to pay attention to you shutterspeed in order to avoid flickering from lights or monitors. It has to be 50 or 100 and the framerate can them be anything you like and all should be fine. I think that 30 fps is the way to go for most things, because it’s the standard framerate for most video platforms. 50 or 60 can be interesting for slowmo. I only see interest for 24 fps if you want to shoot movies.

[mosesknows]

24fps is just what viewers have become use to since the invention of sound in film, some ninety years ago... 24fps was
the least amount af frames and still get smooth, quality sound... We have become use to the motion- blur that it gives us...
For me, I shoot everything at 30fps-1/60 shutter, I've found it looks better, (smoother), than at 24... Thx, Moses...