24fps or 30fps for work VFX?

[jared_gt]

What's best fot work VFX, 24fps or 30fps footage?

[Aruna]

Depends on your source footage. 24fps for film, 29.97 for NTSC video, or 25 for PAL.

[Cainor]

For demo-reels we used 29.97, but yes also depends on your footage as Aruna said.

[Jonas]

If you have the choice, I recommend 24p! With interlaced video you have to de-interlace it for roto and other processes. This actually DOUBLES your work from 30 fps to 60. Plus you've halved the resolution so details get tough to see clearly.
I also see video on TV occasionally where someone re-rendered the fields backwards and it has an awful stutter. Progressive footage takes all those headaches away. You should, however, work with and master both formats... at least for now.

[Tagger]

if you're gonne put stuff on a dvd you have to finish at 29.97 or 25 fps interlaced (depending if you're ntsc or pal), and it's always a good thing to keep your settings the same in your entire production unless it's for something specific.

and don't hide away from interlaced footage. It's just something that's out there and when you know how to handle it and get a good workflow you'll have absolutely no problem with it ... and in your professional career you'll have to deal with that anyways so you might as well learn it while you still have the time to make mistakes

[mbenard]

Hey Jared,

Yes, as everyone's been mentioning your work will eventually end up at 60 fields per second when it goes to television...

Buuut, I highly recommend working with 24P footage and then once everything is complete you "cine-expand" the footage to 30.

Cosmetically I find that any footage that plays back at 30fps "feels" like a wedding video or a cheap infommercial... It's just a cultural style thing... I grew up watching high end television/movies that were shot on film (24fps) with all the lower end shows being shot on video (30fps).

I've seen really beautiful commercials produced that were mistakingly shot at 30fps just because they thought that's what VFX guys needed to avoid the interlacing that you get from the cine-expansion process... Ugh!

Any of the major compositing packages will have tools to convert the cine-expanded footage back to it's original 24fps goodness as well as being able to slam it back in again for shipping back to the broadcaster.

Cheers,

M

[im.thatoneguy]

I like 24 because I have 20% less frames to render.

[alkali]

I like 24 because I have 20% less frames to render.

Bingo!