Im going crazy what FPS 25 or 24

[Brock]

Hi everyone,

I need to get this sorted as its driving me crazy, I am in Australia so I have my "hertz" set to 50 so to avoid flickering from artificial lighting. I am recording at "3840x2160" because I want to use up the entire screen real state.

My question is being that I can manually control the flickering, should I record with Pal (Native format in Aus) or should I use NTSC. Do the two formats make a difference in video quality?

With that all said, I record my GoPro in Pal, to avoid flickering as it cannot be manualy adjusted. So I guess that answers the Pal vs NTSC. However with the Mavic using "3840x2160" I have the option of 24fps vs 25fps.

Again, the GoPro is set to record in 50 fps meaning 25fps. However has the option of 48/24, as does the Mavic. What frame rate should I be using, taking into acount that I will definantly be recording in Pal and in Australia.


I realise that I have answerd many of my own questions, but I hope that this will be of use to someone else in my position.

Incase you forgot my final question is, 25 or 24 FPS in Australia using Pal.

Thank you very much.

- Brock

 

[Kilrah]

24 is "cinema" framerate. Unless you have a particular use for it stay on 25(PAL) or 30(NTSC).

 

[Brock]

24 is "cinema" framerate. Unless you have a particular use for it stay on 25(PAL) or 30(NTSC).

Awesome thank you so much, I can now sleep at night.

 

[tmoerel]

It all depends on what you want to do with your videos. If it is for private use you can use whatever. If you ever want to sell some footage for broadcast though it is better to film in the framrate used on TV in the country were you sell.
But anyway regardles on what you choose you can easily slow 25p down to 24p or speed up 24p to 25p. It would change the length of your clips slightly but as there is no audio you will not have any other problems!

 

[Robbyg]

I think DJI created a whole bunch of unnecessary confusion with the PAL and NTSC option. These are both Analog TV throw backs that have nothing to do with modern flat panel TV's or devices. A relatively new TV will play source video made at anything from 240 fps down to 24 fps without an issue.

Unless you plan on shooting video and burning it for use on some old standalone PAL DVD player or you have an old tube TV's in your home this is not even an issue. Even if you have these old TV's or devices you still need to use video editing software to down scale the resolution to work on 625 lines of the old PAL system. The Mavic will not even record in that low of a resolution.

If I was you I would record at 30 FPS minimum. The reason is because when you start to Yaw the craft your going to find that 25fps will produce a lot more stuttering and framing in the motion unless you go really slow. With 30fps you can get a bit smoother video with any maneuver.

To answer your first basic question. Yes in the old days there was a difference in quality. PAL with 625 lines had a better picture than NTSC with it's 525 lines. This became a bit of a Beta Max Versus VHS war because Hollywood was producing the majority of programming and all of it in NTSC format. So unless you were watching video made in a country that used PAL you were actually seeing an upscaled version of USA TV show in the UK.

As the other OP said 24fps is the cinema frame rate and is handled by monitors and TV's without an issue. As for your Anti flickering setting, yes you do want to keep it at 50Hz if your in the UK as that is the frequency your lights get from the power company.

Luckily all this compatibility nonsense has been removed in the digital era and contrary to some rubbish you will find on the internet there is really no need to worry about this anymore. These old standards have no relevance in the digital world. The issue today is do you have equipment that can handle 4K video.


Rob

 

[Kilrah]

That's completely wrong if you intend to do something serious with the footage, any production or broadcaster will reject your footage if it's not shot in the proper framerate for the region or doesn't match their other footage (excluding breaking news stuff of course).

For home/web use it's irrelevant indeed (although you DO want to choose one and stick with it becasue mixing looks crud), but for production it's still very important.

 

[dsmpampis]

I'm filming at 4K 25fps but now I'm thinking to change it to 2,7K and 30fps.

 

[BorisTheSpider]

I agree with Rob, 30fps will give you smoother moves, so that's what I shoot in, but I have wondered if getting the 20% more bits per frame by shooting at 25fps would be worth doing.

 

[Robbyg]

That's completely wrong if you intend to do something serious with the footage, any production or broadcaster will reject your footage if it's not shot in the proper framerate for the region or doesn't match their other footage (excluding breaking news stuff of course).

For home/web use it's irrelevant indeed (although you DO want to choose one and stick with it becasue mixing looks crud), but for production it's still very important.

This comes down to one thing in the UK and that is TAXES!!
Some manufactures who are in cahootes with the EU governments disable the 30fps mode on made for USA market TV's so that the cheaper US version cannot be shipped in via the grey market to be used to watch local TV in the UK.

The sad part is that while the PAL 625 Resolution at 50 lines was a good trade off in that you got more resolution at the sacrifice of some of the frame rate. The current model is purely done to keep the VAT taxes rolling in.

As for your statement about serious footage. I would doubt that even 0.01% of Mavic footage will ever go to a broadcasters and of that footage I cannot imagine that it does not fall into two categories.

1) It's exclusive breaking news and as you said they would not care what it was encoded in.

2) Your trying to sell them footage. In which case you are going to be doing Post production work anyway.

Rob

 

[Robbyg]

I agree with Rob, 30fps will give you smoother moves, so that's what I shoot in, but I have wondered if getting the 20% more bits per frame by shooting at 25fps would be worth doing.

I could never get a good balance between the Jittering and the speed of the Yaw at 25. I found a
Jitter free Yaw was too slow, almost boring to watch. At 30fps its better but I really wish that I could use 60fps.

Rob

 

[Kilrah]

Some manufactures who are in cahootes with the EU governments disable the 30fps mode on made for USA market TV's so that the cheaper US version cannot be shipped in via the grey market to be used to watch local TV in the UK.

I haven't seen system-locked TVs for at least a decade. A few cameras but that's a minority now.

But that's not the point, the point is that the whole broadcast chain is still 25fps like it's ever been, it's not something you can change overnight without years of preparation and great expense since unlike consumer devices the production/broadcast chain typically does NOT have that flexibility. So TV stations will continue to broadcast 25fps, so they want 25fps content for that, end of story.

The true end of that can only come with services like Netflix. Nobody's going to replace production equipment to allow for both, and even if they did it doesn't change the fact that within a given program everything has to conform to the same framerate, and you can't switch a live stream on the fly so it would be pointless anyway.

2) Your trying to sell them footage. In which case you are going to be doing Post production work anyway.

Yeah but the point is that no post-production can convert 25 to 30 or vice versa in a satisfactory way, period. Whichever way you do it comes with drawbacks, and serious productions don't want compromises.

 

[Robbyg]

Yeah but the point is that no post-production can convert 25 to 30 or vice versa in a satisfactory way, period. Whichever way you do it comes with drawbacks, and serious productions don't want compromises.

That is true but lets face it the Mavic is not a Red Camera. Anything that came off a Mavic camera that is broadcast on national TV is being done so strictly based on the content, not the merits of the video itself.

Anyway I think we probably have 100K+ Mavics in the air and I have not seen anything on TV that was shot with a Mavic, except maybe that one TV advert which was done in coordination with DJI to promote the Mavic.

Rob

 

[BorisTheSpider]

I could never get a good balance between the Jittering and the speed of the Yaw at 25. I found a
Jitter free Yaw was too slow, almost boring to watch. At 30fps its better but I really wish that I could use 60fps.

Rob

Yeah 60fps 4k at 100mbps is one of the main reasons I might get a P4P, or probably more likely a P5P when it appears. I don't believe for a second that higher frame rates or bitrates in a mavic form factor aren't possible, they are just being held back to maintain a market for the next model up in the line, what I'd really love to see would be a folding P4P type drone, even if it was much bigger than a mavic it could still be much easier to carry than a phantom.