Why Video Choppiness Happens?
A layman’s guide to ensure your your videos run smoothly in digital age.
To understand why online videos are increasingly using 30 or 60 frames per second (fps) to avoid choppiness, it’s essential to delve into the relationship between frame rate and the viewing experience.
Frame Rate and Viewing Experience
Frame rate (fps) refers to the number of individual frames or images displayed per second in a video. Higher frame rates result in smoother motion and less choppiness, which is particularly important for certain types of content.
1. Smooth Motion:
— 30 fps: This frame rate is commonly used for live TV broadcasts, sports, and many TV shows. It provides a good balance between smooth motion and file size, making it suitable for content with moderate to high motion.
— 60 fps: This frame rate is often used for high-motion content such as sports, video games, and action scenes. It captures more detail in fast-moving scenes, reducing motion blur and providing a more lifelike and immersive experience.
2. Avoiding Choppiness:
— Lower frame rates, such as 10 or 15 fps, can appear choppy and disjointed, similar to flipping through the pages of a flipbook too slowly. This choppiness can be distracting and reduce the overall quality of the viewing experience.
— Higher frame rates, like 30 and 60 fps, ensure that the motion appears fluid and continuous, which is crucial for maintaining viewer engagement and satisfaction.
Technological Advancements and Standards
1. Streaming Platforms:
— Platforms like YouTube and other streaming services support a wide range of frame rates, including 30 and 60 fps. These platforms have optimized their infrastructure to handle higher frame rates, ensuring smooth playback even for high-motion content.
— The increased availability of high-speed internet and advanced video compression technologies (such as H.264) have made it feasible to stream higher frame rate videos without excessive buffering or quality loss.
2. Device Capabilities:
— Modern devices, including smartphones, tablets, and computers, are equipped with screens that can display higher frame rates. This capability allows viewers to fully appreciate the smoothness and clarity provided by 30 and 60 fps videos.
— As 4K resolution becomes more prevalent, higher frame rates like 60 fps are increasingly used to enhance the viewing experience by providing detailed and lifelike visuals.
Why did most videos were shot at 25fps?
The biggest reason is that 25 fps is the standard Frame Rate for most Broadcasting and Television in PAL countries and default settings on most video capturing devices.
The standard frame rate was influenced by the local alternating current (AC) frequency in most countries. Some country’s AC frequency is 60HZ (NTSC Standard), such as United States, the other country such as China’s AC frequency is 50HZ (PAL Standard). That was where the NTSC or PAL Settings on your Camera originally come from.
In PAL standard countries, the standard frame rate is 25fps, and in NTSC countries, the standard is 29.97fps.
The advantages of using a local standard frame rate.
- Frame Synchronization
In PAL countries, the local AC frequency is 50 Hz. By using a standard frame rate of 25 fps, which is divisible by 50, the exposure cycle of each frame in the camera can be synchronized with the strobe cycle caused by the alternating current. This synchronization helps in reducing flicker and other visual artifacts. - Easier Calculation
Calculations for slow-motion effects are simpler with a 25 fps standard. For instance, to achieve 4x slow motion, you would need 25 fps * 4 = 100 frames. In contrast, the US standard frame rate is 29.97 fps. To achieve the same 4x slow motion effect, you would need 29.97 fps * 4 = 119.88 frames, which is more complex to calculate.
Why 25 fps is no longer sufficient?
In the past, most video consumption occurred on TVs and monitors that supported 30 Hz and 60 Hz refresh rates. Consequently, common video frame rates were 24 fps, 25 fps, and 29.97 fps. However, the primary devices for video consumption have now shifted to mobile phones and tablets, which feature refresh rates of 90 Hz, 120 Hz, and even 144 Hz.
Even if you haven’t consciously noticed this change, your eyes and mind have adapted to these higher refresh rates more than you might realize.
This is particularly evident with the new generation, who are accustomed to using devices with 90 Hz refresh rates. When they watch a video at 25 fps, it can appear choppy and stuttering to them, explaining why they might perceive the video quality as subpar.
This shift in perception is why many video creators have started producing higher frame rate videos. Some creators have begun making videos at 50 fps, thinking this would solve the problem. However, if you pay attention to the comment sections on platforms like YouTube, you’ll notice an increasing number of complaints about videos being choppy. This has puzzled many creators. Is a difference of just 10 fps really the issue? It’s only a 10-frame difference, after all.
The deeper we dig, the more evident the assumption becomes: the TV broadcasting frame rate standard slightly mismatches the frame rate standard adopted by most modern video consumption devices. For smart devices, all refresh rates are typically divisible by 30, such as 60 Hz. Some high-end devices can auto-adjust the refresh rate based on the video content. However, this auto-adjustment is not as smart as we would like. The frame rate must be a factor of either 120 or 360. When the video frame rate cannot be evenly divided by the refresh rate, choppiness is likely to occur.
If you have done all things right at the video source level, but still experience choppiness, Backdrop-filter property in CSS leads to Choppiness in Streaming Video might give you some hints to resolve your issue.
Conclusion
The shift towards using 30 and 60 fps for online videos is driven by the need to provide a smoother and more immersive viewing experience, especially for high-motion content. Technological advancements in streaming platforms and device capabilities have facilitated this transition, making it possible to deliver high-quality videos without choppiness. This trend ensures that viewers enjoy a seamless and engaging experience, whether they are watching sports, video games, or other dynamic content.
Bibliography:
Frame Rate: a Beginner’s Guide | The TechSmith Blog. (n.d.). Retrieved September 4, 2024, from https://www.techsmith.com/blog/frame-rate-beginners-guide/
What Does FPS Mean? Why You Need to Understand Video Frame Rates. (n.d.). Retrieved September 4, 2024, from https://cinema8.com/blog/what-does-fps-mean-why-you-need-to-understand-video-frame-rates
What is frame rate and why does it matter in movie making? — Adobe. (n.d.). Retrieved September 4, 2024, from https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/video/discover/frame-rate.html
(N.d.). Retrieved September 4, 2024, from https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/1am28lx/why_does_60fps_look_fine_and_smooth_when_i_watch/
