"I personnally can not stand to watch much film anymore "

Gosh! What DO you watch? Football? Really gets those creative juices flowing.

Actually what ticked me off was after using the new V6d HD-WMV codec at 8 megs in two pass was the judder and flicker like the film guys made the codec to 24p specs. The WMV codec took a very stable flicker and judder free video at 30 fps and managed to butcher it up. (Z1). Some of the older big time Hollywood movies have so much judder in them they could be used for Chinese torture. Lets give up this 24p baloney and save our eyesight.

JJK

Well it's certainly true for motion continuity that 30fps is better than 24fps, and 60 fps is better than 30. Considering your aversion to 24fps I'm surprised that you rendered to that. If, on the other hand, you're doing this for film-out then a King Canute act isn't going to be productive. Perhaps you've done something incorrectly? I render out to 1080 25fps WMV (PAL land) and get very nice images without flicker or judder that are a real pleasure to the eye.

Lets give up this 24p baloney and save our eyesight.

JJ,

You may have an undiagnosed migraine or related problem.

These can trigger lots of unpleasant symptoms at specific low frequencies, including the 48 blinks per second of projected film (each frame is shown twice to eliminate flicker for most people).

You can render to any fps you want. Some people even render WMV to 15 fps and ask the WM player to create intermediate frames that then don't have to be downloaded.

i never have a problem with 24p, but it's IS a good point, why does it even exist anymore? Film is old, let's update. :)

this would be a heck of a lot easier if there wasn't ~6/7 "standard" HD formats. Last I recall, before HDTV there was 2: NTSC & PAL. HDTV should be as simple as those.

24p has a psychological impact that some folks really love. It definately feels "surreal" and for some projects, folks want that, especially the indie crowd. Nothing wrong with that IF they're producing the project as though it were shot on film.
Last month we had some media sent to us shot on DVX, all footage was correctly acquired, but the way the pans were managed, it was impossible to make look good due to the serious judder. Because the camera op didn't know what he/she was doing with the cam. Badly shot video only looks much worse when shot at 24p.
Most high motion looks like hell at 24p too. So for sports, it's not an optimal format. But for television commercials, film/dramatic works, it certainly has its place.
that said, most Hollywood shooters interviewed prefer higher framerates.

Well it won't be too long before all remaining cinemas go digital projection. Digital distribution to audiences through the internet etc will probably kill broadcasting as well as theatres once enough people cease to care about quality of image. People who've been using video have got used to the severe limitations of the medium (8-12 bits compared to film 22 bits) and are instead enamoured of its flexibility and low cost. Unfortunately every medium has its limitations and any viewer who develops a phobia about any of them is going to be irritated when watching that format. Edge enhancement, 8 bits and interlace artifacts are mine, but I'm working on developing tolerance.

Edit: Agree with DSE; when shooting you must know your medium and work within its limitations. And oh boy! is 8-bit a limitation!

I like to compare to the old days of Hi-Fi LP records and expensive phono cartridges - the days when we spent a fortune to emulate the orchestra pit in our living room. Now we are happy to have 15,000 mp3's on our iPod or 'phone - seeking for music hi-fidelity has evaporated. Choice and convenience drives the market now and to the next wave of evolution a lot of this talk will be semantics. No matter what the indi guys feel, I expect it's not long before everything is 1080p and ultimately we will be have multiple format files where the viewer can "choose" his format and quality to suite his delivery platform.

Michael

I don't see D Cinema as a step down, well not as a step down to what ends up in many commercial cinemas today, at least we don't have to wonder if what we're seeing on this print is remotely related to what the makers intended, that's got to be a big step in the right direction.
The rest of that prediction I think is going to come true, just look what's happened with audio.
And now the distributors are wringing their hands with glee over being able to stream movies etc to our phones and onto screens in public places, does anyone understand what 'common' means. And what a public health hazard, drivers talking on mobile phones are bad enough, now we''ll have to dodge pedestrians wandering onto our freeways, walking off railway platforms etc 'cause they're too busy watching a movie.

BTW Serena, the recently announced camera from SI should make you happy, all that's missing is the smell of bromine and the scissors :)

Ah, indeed, Bob. Perhaps they can supply a "film camera" scent along the style of the "new car" perfume used by car yards. Are you talking about the Infinity camera from Grass Valley? Lots of "don't believe it" from various quarters. I think I just can't afford it!

Serena

edit: Agree that D-cinema will be fine. Suspect that by the time cinemas are prepared to invest in the equipment, the mass audiences will be watching on ipods.

edit 2: ah yes: Silicon Imaging SI-1920HDVR Digital Cinema Camera. Someone pointed out that 2/3 inch isn't 35mm frame size (more like 16mm) and anyway the sensor is actually smaller than that. 10 bits is a big improvement on 8, but most of HD cinema is working around 12 bits. Anyway, I still can't afford it! Perhaps just the bottle of "film camera scent".

re edit 2:) SI do make a point though re DOF. The 16mm lenses that it's designed to work with do open several stops more than most 35mm primes so you can get very similar DOF. Internally it is working at more than 10 bit and then via a custom LUT the data is converted to 10 bit. 10 Stops of latitude is kind of impressive compared to what we're used to and as the matrixing is done in post there's way more opportunity to manipulate the image.

Agree it's not cheap although if you campare it to running a lot of 16mm through the gate you'd recoup your investment fairly quickly.

Bob.

Yes, it looks like a good camera and I guess you'll be checking it out at NAB. Have fun. I've been watching all the to and fro-ing by the CML people and they always have exciting debates (not always involving facts).

people have never really cared about visual quality as compared to movie quality. Look at "Star Wars." It's got so many clitches yet was (and is) a classic.

People are just not going to see movies in theatures anymore because there isn't anything anyone wants to see. That's not the hardware manufacture's fault, it's hollywood's fault. I'd rather see a great movie with scratches, the ocational judder, etc.filmed on cheaper hardware then watch a boring, high budget movie with top notch equipment that looks great. :)

Well I'm all better now. Venting the 50 years of blinkies helped my outlook on life.

JJK