quick question

[Daniel Waldron]

Quick answer 😉 Google is your friend.

[Ben Oliver]

I did that, all of the information was from 2005.

[Daniel Waldron]

The information is correct. Is there a specific part you are confused about?

[Ben Oliver]

other than non-drop vs drop frame time code, everything is the same. I can use 1080p30 footage and 1080p29.97 files together and they will be exactly the same, given that they are both, let’s say, ProResHQ files.

[Daniel Waldron]

Your biggest issue with that could be audio. It will slowly drift out of sync. 29.97fps is ever so slightly slower than 30fps. Less than .1% I think, but over a few minutes it will add up to a noticeable difference.

[Andrew Kimery]

[Ben Oliver] “other than non-drop vs drop frame time code, everything is the same. I can use 1080p30 footage and 1080p29.97 files together and they will be exactly the same, given that they are both, let’s say, ProResHQ files.”

DF/NDF TC and frame rate are two separate things. As Daniel mentioned, 30.00 and 29.97 are not exactly the same. They are two different frame rates. If you record 1 hour of video at 30.00 you’ll have 108,000 frames of video. If you record 1 hour of video at 29.97 you’ll have about 108,107 frames of video.

[Jeff Pulera]

To the original question, I would answer that there is NO difference, and that 1080p30 and 1080p29.97 refer to the exact same format when discussing camera formats.

Camera makers and NLE software vendors play marketing games with the numbers. It’s easier and cleaner to call things “24p” and “30p” than “23.976p” and “29.97p. Or 60p rather than 59.94.

Adobe Premiere calls 1080i video “1080i60” but it’s really 1080i59.94

One of the early Canon DSLR cameras actually recorded 24p video at exactly 24 frames per second, like film. Later versions started using the VIDEO specs of 23.976 frames per second, as do most cameras claiming “24p” recording.

Of course, if you are exporting for web or something, it would be possible to export at a true 30fps rather than 29.97 for example. But in general, when talking video camera recording formats and editing formats, 24p = 23.976, 30p = 29.97 and 60p or 60i = 59.94

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Andrew Kimery]

[Jeff Pulera] “To the original question, I would answer that there is NO difference, and that 1080p30 and 1080p29.97 refer to the exact same format when discussing camera formats.
“

That’s a dangerous assumption to make. Inaccurate labels/shorthand aside, many cameras will shoot both 24.00, 30.00, 60.00 as well as 23.976, 29.97 and 59.94 as the ATSC spec includes both whole and fractional frame rates.

[Devinda Fernando]

So does 25fps(PAL) actually record at 25Fps or is it also 24.9 something like the rest?

[Jeff Pulera]

PAL is 25 exactly. NTSC was originally 30 frames/60 fields when started back in 1941, when TV was black and white. When they later decided to add color in 1950, they wanted the color video broadcast to still be backwards-compatible with the existing B/W TV sets out there. So they stuffed in a color subcarrier into the B/W signal, which made it necessary to change the signal timing every so slightly, so we ended up with this oddball 29.97/59.94 business unfortunately.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers