60fps isn't high enough for realistic motion. 60fps on a sample-and-hold display gives you obvious blur, and 60fps on a low persistence display gives you obvious flicker. It would be better to standardize on 120fps (as with Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk), because that gives acceptable motion quality even on a sample-and-hold display, and it's an integer multiple of common frame rates so it's backwards compatible with legacy equipment with minimum quality loss.
Technically superior only for still shots. 24fps has such poor motion quality that all the advantage is lost whenever something moves or pans. Digital projectors are available for 4K 120fps, which produces more realistic video than any film format (even Showscan).
Unfortunately, probably not. 70mm on a Vic8 already can be prone to tearing if not handled correctly, I wouldn't trust tape splices any faster than 24fps. IMAX already has zig-zag shaped splices to survive the faster film speed of 8 perf 70mm.
I saw the Hobbit movies at 48fps and it was not good. There is something about our brains that makes us reject higher frame rate footage as being... subjectively unappealing.
A casual perusal of the reviews of the Hobbit HFR films, reveals that most people agree with this assessment.
I don't think anyone who paid extra to go and see one of the HFR showings could be labeled as "stuck in the past", but at this point I am definitely not going to advocate for 60fps in the future. Not because I am resistant to new formats but because I like movies that I watch to be "good" and higher frame rate presentations (whether by frame interpolation or by original photography) seem to be less good.
I believe Kubrick would have loved the challenge of exploiting HFR. NASA cameras for Barry Lyndon and all that...
The Hobbit films were a terrible choice to introduce the tech to a mainstream audience for any number of reasons, the heavy dependence on makeup and other “artifice” for the production not least.
I think it's because of the motion blur. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8793346#8794004 With only 24 fps, we have come to depend on motion blur on each frame to give us motion information. It can be manipulated intentionally (like removing motion blur to make moves in a fight scene feel more abrupt), but if changes don't match what we expect it can feel weird.
On the other hand, I feel almost nauseous every time I see a panning shot in a standard 24fps film. They look choppy to an extreme that makes me wonder how anyone let that through production but I guess it's just standard now. I would really like to see the switch to higher frame rates made for that problem alone.
Panning shots and faster motion become much less choppy at 60. This is why sports are broadcast at 60fps today. Imagine if you could watch the Bourne Identity and actually tell what was going on.
On the other hand, this not being able to "actually tell what was going on" is a desirable feature for most films. Because what was actually going on was a bunch of actors feigning fist fights, etc. I think if 60fps is to catch on, the state of the art in film production is first going to have to improve so that it looks "realistic" even in live action. Otherwise it looks like a stage play; we accept the obvious artifice when watching stage productions, but we're used to far more realism in our films.
