FAQ Stock Footage

What you need to know about Common Video Formats and Codecs

See MotionElements answer.

 

At what frame rate (fps) should I shoot?

Unfortunately, this is a somewhat difficult question to answer. Common frame rates are 23.976, 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 59.94, 60. Each one has it’s own history. The rules of thumb are

  • Try to always use the same frame rates or multiple there of in your projects.
  • The higher the quality of your work, the more you should try to use the “cinematic” Hollywood standard of 23.976 fps. (23.976 fps is better for digital, although you can slow down 24 fps easily without seeing any difference.) Note that the main bottleneck in filming is often the camera’s maximum recording bitrate. If a lower frame rate is used, each frame will possibly have a higher quality (less artifacts).
  • However, your frame rate might affect your footage under artificial lighting. Electricity in the US and Japan runs at 60 Hz and in most of the rest of the world at 50 Hz. This can cause heavy flickering in your shots, so these scenes are best shot at 25 fps in Europe and 30 fps in the US. Converting 25 fps shots to 23.976 by slowing down the footage might be a good idea afterwards.
  • For slow motion, the higher, the better.
  • Some like high action scenes to be displayed at higher frames rates to make them feel “more real”, e.g. The Hobbit by Peter Jackson, but this is contested.

Best sources on the subject are: