Movies at High Frame Rates
Monday, April 4, 2011 at 5:36PM People have been asking for me for my thoughts on Jim Cameron’s recent presentation at CinemaCon stating that “the future of cinema” is higher frame rates. I haven’t felt the need, really, since I’ve been mouthing off here about how much I love good, old-fashioned 24p for years. I’ve even gone to pains to try to explain why I like it, and why I think others do. Maybe the best example of this is the interview I did with MacVideo last year, but I’ll link to more at the end.
Now it’s been announced that Peter Jackson’s 3D production of The Hobbit will be shot at 48 fps. Maybe it’s time to say something.
I find the notion odd that “the future of cinema” is the recent past of video. Whether it’s 60 fps or 48 (which is close to PAL video’s 50 fields per second), we’ve seen these frame rates before. And audiences have rejected them to varying degrees for as long as I can remember, dating back to my childhood, when my mother would skip over perfectly good BBC dramas because they “looked like soap operas.” No one cared about Showscan, and no one wanted to watch a movie shot on video until 24p came along (unless it had been converted to 24p using something like Filmlook or Magic Bullet). That anyone thinks a movie shot at 60 fps is going to look any different than a well-lit reality TV show is confounding to me.
Still, if James Cameron and Peter Jackson, whose films are hugely influential to me, want to experiment with higher frame rates, I’m happy for them to have the freedom to do so. In the same way that I don’t want my TV set changing the frame rate of the movies I love, I would never dream of telling a filmmaker that they shouldn’t try something about which they are creatively excited.
There’s a big difference between Jim Cameron, who is a filmmaker, choosing a frame rate that he feels is appropriate for his movies, and anyone telling anyone else what frame rate they should shoot. Roger Ebert, I love ya man, but your job is reacting to movies, not dictating their technical specifications.
Still, speaking only for myself, I’m disappointed. When I was growing up and learning filmmaking, Jim Cameron could always be relied on to use technology to push filmmaking forward. Now, I fear that he’s using filmmaking to push technology forward.
Lest the glibness of that remark drown out my meaning, let me explain. Cameron has left a trail of technology improvements in the wake of his films. People couldn’t talk to each other underwater until he made The Abyss. On his budget-conscious Terminator, he drafted the plans for the metal exoskeleton himself. He used his fluency with tech to make his movies better.
But now it’s the other way around, His highly-developed abilities as a writer/director are fooling people into thinking that his technology initiatives are important for all of cinema. Avatar is a great movie. So enjoyable that it left some people thinking, “performance capture is the future!” Or “3D is the future!”
The truth is, Avatar is good because the filmmaking is good. To draw any conclusions about production technologies in general from its success would be akin to suggesting that “Super 16 is the future!” after The Hurt Locker won best picture, or that the tremendous box office of Toy Story 3 means that all films should be animated.
I have no doubt that Avatar 2 will be a good movie. Jim Cameron doesn’t know how to make anything else. What I’m concerned about is that people will attribute their enjoyment of it to 3D and high frame rates, rather than Cameron’s unparalleled skills as a filmmaker.
And then I’ll find myself sitting in some executive’s office trying to explain why I don’t want to shoot their movie at 60 frames per second 3D, instead of just explaining why I don’t want to shoot it in 3D.
See also:
Slumdog Millionaire, Feb 23 2009
Less is More, March 18 2006
Canon Adds 24p to the 5D Mark II and I Blame You, March 1 2010
MacVideo Interview, the part about 24p, Feb 22 2010
Seven Fetishists and Why They Should Relax, July 8 2010
Reader Comments (37)
Well STU,
People always believe 3D is better shot & projected on higher framerates possibly 48 or 60fps!
Its not just James or Peter!
My idol Mr.Jijo Punnoose (director of first 3d feature film "My Dear Kuttichathan" in india) in 2005 shot using Two Panasonic Varicam using Beam Splitter 3d Rig(designed by him) to shoot on 720p60 and projecting it in 60fps way back. So higher frame rates are ways in which to introduce audience to new experience. To know more about Mr.Jijo test please visit the website http://www.netmoviebank.com/
I think sitting in a cinema looking at 48PFS from a RED camera with all its latitude and progressive motion is light years from the video of yore, with 4 stops of latitude, no resolution and interlace.
It's these things that drove people away from video. There's nothing cool about interslicing (technical term) time like interlace does, or reducing light to a smaller band like old video latitude does. IMO these things suck because that's not how we see the world. We do see the world in stereo.
Cinema has always moved towards more realism, ever since the 16PFS days at the beginning of the 20 century. With each change comes a new approach to cinema.
With brighter projection, and higher frame rates, and good lenses on the 3-D glasses, I cannot identify any technical or aesthetic sin about stereo cinema.
Save for the poor application thereof. And I think that's how it's always been with technology and art.
The higher frame rates are for 3D, not 2D. Even 360 degree shutter is probably appropriate for 3D. So, here's what I think will happen:
3D movies will be shot in 60fps, 360 degree shutter, because that's compatible with 80% of the existing installed digital cinema projectors and gives the highest quality 3D experience.
2D prints for films that were shot as 3D will have 24fps extracted via 3:2 pulldown from the 60fps source material. That gives a shutter angle equivalent of 144 degrees for each of those 3:2 frames, slightly choppy, but not enough to matter.
That will give the best 3D possible and a more-than-acceptable 2D print (including shutter artifacts) from a 60fps 3D source.
2D films shot in 2D will continue to be shot at 24 fps/180 deg shutter.
Great...As if 3D wasn't bad enough working on left and right eyes, now gotta work at double the length. Seems to me like the future of cinema is no longer about the cinema. Wish Imax and its theaters were the adopted technological push.
An excellent post, as usual. I also think a basic principle of art and design is appropriate here
Less is more.
Composition is framing less of the world that the whole. Color correction (or shooting B&W) is reducing the palette of colors in nature, focus is selecting less of the frame to see, editing is removing as much of the footage as possible, sound design is distilling only the essential sounds.
It's like white space on a page or the "low resolution" of Van Gogh - we are aiming to be filmmakers, not military simulation manufacturers that aim as close to 100% reality at all times.
The next logical step flowing from Cameron's 48fps (more is always better!), is for him to suggest paying professional actors to have sex on scree-
48 = cheap throwaway story ;/
Well said Stephen, clearly I agree.
Excellent blog. Really well articulated and to the point. Loved reading it and it has inspired me to respond with my own.
I agree that 60p doesn't work for 2D cinema, never has never will. I also agree with you on the current 3D fad and the TVs with their crazy 120hz smoothing effects, and 3D glasses which make the image dark.
But you are missing a crucial point here, that 3D and 60p is how the human eye sees the world in reality and that 60p suits 3D and makes it more immersive not less. Jackson and Cameron are not wrong on this.
My response: http://www.eoshd.com/content/602
Thanks Andrew. If you'd like to read my thoughts on the "how the human eye sees reality" thing, you'll find some here.
I think Jackson and Cameron can do whatever they want! they don´t need to proof anything to anyone! If they want to go Black and white 4:3, that would be just a artistic decision!
I think as you think!! now everybody will want to shoot at 48 or 60 fps!
That's another good article dude, I remember it. The depth fetish thing with Cameron is interesting.
He says 3D is more immersive, and yet his films are already immersive, especially the 'old 2D ones' :)
But here's a thing - he's not making the mundane come to life in 3D. He's not making a play. He's trying to make an incredible world come to life in 3D, an incredible world that you immerse yourself in.
TV soap or reality TV in 3D would be a living nightmare.
The Hobbit is still escapism, and more so in 3D in my opinion.
It may surprise everyone to learn that I totally agree, Andrew! Avatar had a great reason to be in 3D. It was conceived that way by Cameron and everything about it was designed to enhance and be enhanced by the 3D experience. And, on top of that, it was a good movie that engaged people emotionally. And then everyone got confused, and credited the 3D for their enjoyment rather than the filmmaking.
The mind is associational. Soap operas suck by definition, TV stories are by definition prosaic.
There's going to be a whole generation of filmmakers who aren't that enamoured of the 'film look' (an ever changing thing, BTW) because they grew up watching movies shot on digital cinema cameras shot in new ways.
In 1927, people were adamant that no one wanted people to talk on screen with sound. 'It's just not the movies" "If we want theater, we'll go see a play".
Without having seen either, I'm going to assume that there's as much of a disparity between the perception of 48fps and 60fps as there is between 24fps and 30fps (or possibly even more of one).
Could it be that the feel of 48 is closer to 24 than to 60? (And likewise, that 60 is closer to 30 than to 48) by virtue of being double the rate? Maybe not, and I don't know how math or vision works, but if so, I could buy 48 being the film framerate to 60's video.
Have you seen both, Stu? And if so, do you notice any such difference?
Either way, F having to work on twice as many frames. That's no bueno.
I think that Avatar was an awful movie, and that James Cameron is one of the worst people in Hollywood. Let him make his 48p films. He has a god complex and is just trying to do anything he can to become the single greatest figure in motion picture history (and he's doing this by all means possible except for telling a good story).
I'm not adverse to higher framerates on 3D projects. I've experimented with Higher framerate playbook, and while some of it can look pretty interesting, it just didn't have that cinematic feel to me. But some people do like this sort of look. Some people actually prefer this super clear LCD look over a warm Plasma look. I think we're headed to a place where music has ventured. CD quality, and digital quality is generally favoured over analog quality, like vinyl. Ask any audio engineer whats better, recording to 2 inch tape or to a hard drive, and if they're competent, they'll tell you tape sounds better. Unfortunately, the consumer leans toward the digital quality. Hoping this trend changes.
Stu:
That's funny - I knew I'd heard that somewhere before :)
I suspect a big factor in the desire to use higher frame rates in 3D is to reduce the strobing that occurs with fast motion across a big screen in 3D.
Stu, I would have agreed with you a year ago. But after spending the last six months working on a large stereo 3D project, I've been won over.
I agree that 2D cinema works on the level of dreams. We immerse ourselves in the visual story and that is what draws us in. And one of the most interesting things is that there are a whole host of non-realistic effects that seem to enhance the sensuousness of the 2D images (shallow depth of field, the flicker of 24fps, vignetting, etc). Some of these are cultural, but some of them seem to work on a deeper level.
Stereo 3D works somewhat differently. It draws us in by creating the illusion of a physical space in front of us (this is assuming you have a story that is worth watching in the first place). My experience is that many of things that seem to enhance the sensuousness of 2D images, break the illusion of the spatial reality of stereo. Try throwing a vignette on top of a stereo image. Stuttering and flicker that would be tolerable in 2D is a serious problem in 3D. Shallow depth of field can, and should be used in 3D, but needs to be treated differently than 2D.
Anyway, I think 3D requires an evolution of our technique that is suited to the medium. What works in 2D doesn't necessarily work in 3D. Conversely, what works in 3D shouldn't be mindlessly thrown back at 2D. I still believe high frame rate 2D films are a travesty.
And of course, all of this is assuming that what comes first and foremost is the story (something you can't always assume in the business, but that we should be able to assume on this forum).
Geoff,
I agree that the strobing in 3D is highly objectionable (and one of the reasons I avoid 3D when possible). I think 3D makes a ton of sense for simulations, games and other "you are there" experiences - for those high frame rates make perfect sense. 3D also needs huge improvements in color, contrast and projection brightness.
But the question is for what end? The only film I've enjoyed more in 3D than 2D was U23D. Everything else, I prefer to watch in 2D thus far.
You rightly talk about story as what comes first and that is the crux of the matter. 3D + narrative is an open question. Every narrative film done in 3D thus far that I've seen -- is a better film in 3D. The technical problems with 3D distract me from the story. The stereoscopic depth still seems to be eye candy that distracts me from the narrative story.
I waited to watch Up! on Blu-ray in 2D and as soon as the film started, my non-technical wife, having seen and enjoyed the film in 3D, said "Wow, that's so much clearer than in the theater. I can really see the movie now."
So perhaps higher frames will be less distracting for 3D? Or more distracting as now, like the TV's that are ruining movies, 3D will now look like soap operas and be more distracting than before.
I agree with you Stu, don't give up man, 3D is nothing more than approximation of reality with a lot of detrimental effects to eyesight. Several cases of Vitreous detachment due to shutter active glasses have been documented since this whole fad started in IMAX a couple of decades back. Not to mention problems in children's eye muscles.
We will probably get to a point where you can have real 3D environments projected into your mind where there are no frame lines and it feels like a realistic world. That will probably be the future of cinema called 4D or something like that.
But why force this into the public when part of going to the movies is to escape reality and 24p gives you that feeling of watching something more grand than the regular day to day world.
Cameron is a master and a genius, he could do a better film than most anyone in Hollywood even with an HV20 camera if that was the only tool he had. But geniuses get bored and strive for something that makes it new and creates challenges, I am thinking that this extra frame rates will be a test of how it can be done and stick for certain productions as yet one more hook for people to pay $10 a ticket.
The best part about 3D nowadays is that you can still get a 2D 24p version in the theaters and at home. If they kill that option I probably will have to watch more old classic flics to fill the void.
Stephen,
I think we agree (and Stu's post as well) that what we really should be objecting to is a knee-jerk response that says that stereo 3D, or 48fps, or any other technique is automatically the right choice for every movie. That is the current problem. Every tent-pole movie is being filmed in 3D regardless of whether the film has really been conceived in a way to benefit from it, etc.
Not every project is right for 3D. I kept thinking about the imaginary studio meeting where Columbia tried to convince Fincher to shoot Social Network in 3D. Some projects were meant to be in 2D.
That said, I'm not ready to throw aside 3D as a mere fad quite yet. I thought it DID add something to Avatar. Was it the only thing? Of course not. Cameron is a very talented director. But it serve a story of discovering yourself in a new world. I'm very curious to see Herzog's new doc shot in 3D.
And of course, some of this is personal preference. I like Avatar in 3D. You didn't. But the truth is, whether it's a good thing or not, we're stuck with it for a while. This is not BetaMax, or Laserdiscs. The studios and theater chains now have too much invested not to ride the train for a while. If nothing else, gaming will assure a medium term success for 3D television. So it seems to me the discussion should not focus on why 3D is bad, but on which projects can benefit, which are not appropriate, and when it is used, how can it be made to serve the story.
As viewers and artists you can have your preferences. As professionals, you can't just bury your head in the sand.
The weird thing about stereoscope 3D is our acceptance of it brokenness. Even the best 3D films go to distribution with only about 95% of shots actually working, and some ship with a lot more broken shots then that. Thats a strange situation for the most modern of film-making solutions?
I agree that it has its uses, but mostly seems to me to be a classic 'Square Peg, Round Hole' technology. A peg that we constantly batter into that hole with thousands of hours of clean-up and occular post...
And even then after all of that only 95% of shots work. And some things will never work - like shots that dont have their focus plane picked in advance, or uncontrolled crowd shots, or simple dollies with spit levels of FG action...
If 3D is the future of cinema, that future is going to be, well, very limited...
sorry i have been on reddit a lot lately.
http://i.imgur.com/mlOcX.jpg[/IMG]
Please. One of the more interesting things about being in audio (and a professional) for 25+ years is sitting back and watching the moving image crowd tread over new (to them) ground we left behind quite some time ago. From storage to bandwidth, to bit depth, to compression, to dithering, to jitter, to A/D & D/A quality/design, to file types/compatibilities to format competitions. These issues are largely conquered and the continued refinements about eking out percentile improvements. If you want to start a pissing match in audio dork circles, bring up DSD, not 2-inch.
To imply that digital = CD quality = recording to a hard drive is like calling low bit rate MPEG-2 a la DVD an acquisition format. CD's 16 bit/44.1k is a delivery format. 24 bit/48k is the minimum in the field while studio work at the more serious levels happens at higher sample rates. (after all, how long did we love Nagra's at 7.5 ips when 15 ips in the studio was clearly superior?)
Ask any audio engineer what's better; 2 inch or digital and a pro will ask you, "What are you recording and what kind of sound are you after?"
I have personally, painstakingly converted projects in the past into 24p mode to approach the normal cinematic feel we are used to for theatrical movies (also elaborate adjustments of levels,curves, dips in channels etc)
Recently I noticed the promotion of LCD tv's with 120hz in effect with anti-judder processing. I saw "Avatar" on blu-ray on two tv's side by side. One looked like clean , live video and of course seemed to be "cheaper". The other was the normal film look. Me and my friend could not stop marvelling at how dramatic the difference was. It really looked like you were seeing the feed of a different camera. But it did seem to ruin the movie.
But... there are new audiences that might like this ultra clean, fluid, live look. This might be how things will be... less cinematic.... more lifelike in the future.
Read these key parts of a CNET review from 2007:
"Six things you need to know about 120Hz LCD TVs
Well, the knock against LCD TVs--which doesn't apply to plasma or rear-projection HDTVs--has been that their slower refresh rates and response times leave them susceptible to motion blur with fast-motion content. To combat this perception, LCD manufacturers are pushing 120Hz--it's the hot spec of the moment, the 1080p of 2007. The question is, how much of difference does it make?
3. Anti-judder can have a major impact on picture quality. The smoother is designed to eliminate judder in film-based content, which is most noticeable in scenes that incorporate slow camera pans or in scenes shot with a handheld camera. We mainly looked at the effects of engaging the Sony's anti-judder, which has two settings: standard and high. Even at the lower setting (standard), the difference in the picture was immediately apparent. The image just looks more stable. Kick it up to high and everything becomes rock solid--it's night and day.
4. Eliminating judder is not for everyone. Judder is part of what makes film look like film, so when you remove it, it starts to look like video. Now, some folks like the look of video and contend that it looks more true-to-life. Both Matthew Moskovciak and I are judder-free fans. On the other hand, David Katzmaier likes the effect only in certain scenes--he generally prefers to leave it turned off during Hollywood films and turned on for some other film-based content, such as the nature documentary Planet Earth--because, in some instances, it can really alter a scene, or at least take away from what the director intended the scene to look like. This is called "director's intent," and movie purists would argue that anti-judder tarnishes the viewing experience much in the same way that performance-enhancing drugs might change the outcome of a sporting event. OK, maybe that's a stretch, but I couldn't help myself.
5. If you're a fan of anti-judder, it's hard to live without. Moscovciak says he now has a hard time watching movies with judder; he finds it excruciatingly irritating. I personally don't feel quite that strongly, but I kept asking Katzmaier to crank the Sony's Motion Flow setting to "high." I was willing to live with the artifacts in exchange for that rock-solid image. (Katzmaier strongly disagrees.) I'm quickly becoming an anti-judder junkie.
6. Smoothing will only get smoother. As I said, some smoothers are better than others. But remember, this is a relatively new technology, and most of these companies are taking their first cracks at these special video-processing modes. Sony's Motion Flow and others will get better with time, and chances are you'll see you'll see fewer--or hopefully, no--artifacts in future televisions when the anti-judder mode is engaged. For the record, we've tested only three HDTVs with anti-judder technology so far: the Sony, the Pioneer 5080HD, and the Toshiba 52LX177, but we'll check out more as soon as we can get our hands on them.
So, is it worth paying extra for a 120Hz model now? If you can afford it, I'd say go for it, so long as you get a model that does anti-judder well--and offers good picture quality based on the fundamentals: decent black levels, color saturation, color accuracy, and resolution. Ultimately, reducing judder, not motion blur, is the real game-changer here. Get a demo yourself. Maybe you'll see what I mean."
For the last 30 years I have been interested in getting the “Film Look” with video. Ten years ago it was a revolution to have a video camera do 24p, the DVX-100. We have wanted 24p for a long time. Now you are about to throw it our the window. Do I want my media productions to look like soap operas? Yuck! When I saw “Avatar” on a 260 htz set it looked like a soap opera. The motion was wrong. I purposely use a data projector to watch movies at home so there will be no post processing.
There is a reason motion pictures have standardize on 24p, it looks right to the human eye. When I watch a film, I want to be lifted out to reality into a good story. I don’t want to see reality, I want to escape to the movies. I first saw Doug Trumbell’s Showscan at Showwest before it was released to the public. It was truly amazing. I then called it “Live Film”. It looked like real life. I thought the person on the screen was there. But it proved to not work well for long form dramatic films. It did work great for theme park rides where you want to simulate reality. Even IMAX uses 24p for it frame rate. There is something pleasing about watching a good film. Don’t through the baby with the bathwater.
Don’t get me started about the silliness of 3D and how it takes you out of the film experience.
I think that Cameron being a strong proponent of 3d believes that 3d is, in fact, the future of cinema. I disagree, but in the case of 3d itself a higher framerate does make sense just as deep focus makes sense. Is it possible that 48 fps is technically correct to keep the transfer from 3d to 2d pleasing without having to interpolate any new frames? If that is true then any multiple of 24 would suffice I suppose. That's why I think 48 is 24 for 3d... if that makes any sense at all.
3D, so far, hasn't made any film I've seen any more "immersive" for me. At best I forget I'm watching stereo, at worst it's intrusive.
On a positive side, I've never, even in cheaper stereo film, experienced headaches, nausea or even been seriously annoyed by strobing movement.
However, the format is here for now, and may stick around, so we all have to deal with it. As a VFX artist my biggest concern is adapting the CGI and compositing workflow to stereo, and doubling the frame rate is only going to add to those issues.
Stu, of all the recurring themes on this blog this is one of my favorites. I really enjoy your posts on this topic. As Stephen van Vuuren pointed out earlier in this thread your position on frame rates makes perfect sense to anyone coming to film-making (as I do) from a visual arts background. Yes less is more. A single, static frame of a pair of shoes can have incredible affective power, (especially if that frame was painted by Van Gogh). Or even an empty white room lit by only yellow fluorescents can produce an intense experience http://www.speronewestwater.com/cgi-bin/iowa/works/record.html?record=1061
Artists totally get this, and poets perhaps even more so. They know that removing, (or not writing), words to hit on a phrase that resonates with possibility is more important than adding a word to try to more accurately "represent" something. 24p is part of the poetics of film, 60hz is prose, and this is not just convention. Poetics is about removing enough explanation and accurate representation so that images can resonate with the possibilities of becoming something else. 60hz prose is just too clearly defined to cross the threshold of becoming.
Will the higher framerates do anything to alleviate the 'focus and convergence' issue that Walter Murch talks about? Having just finished reading 'In the Blink of an Eye' and 'The Conversations', I wouldn't discount anything Mr Murch says...
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2011/01/post_4.html
Peter Jackson on filming 48fps:
http://www.facebook.com/notes/peter-jackson/48-frames-per-second/10150222861171558
When I watched the first interview Mr.Cameron mentioned he will shoot the next film at higher frame rates it made sense to me. I hated the flickering at fast motion in 3d that made my first imax experience a huge disapointment.
If you're watching traditional 2d movies your brain knows it's an illusion and passes by its beloved non-life-like imperfections. 3d is so close to reality (to our brain) that such flickering is not tolerated as well.
I think (as many others) the new standard for 3D will be 48 fps with 360° shutter. There will be no light loss, no video-like motion blur, but fluid motion and an easy conversion to 2d's 24p without the need of any pulldown.
Cheers!
Adam
considering that Avatar was 'crafted' as a result of wanting to demo some tech, i dread to think what story will be born from the central premise of 'i want to throw more frames at my audience'
All avatar did was make me feel compassion towards trees and have a desire to stab pappa smurf...
I understand your affection for classic 24p progression because I share the same affection. Everyone can remember growing up as a child, watching movies and getting immersed in the story, which is something that sticks with you, no matter how old you get. But how long can that system last? There are a lot of things to take in consideration when explaining the "future" of cinema.
In the early years of cinema, storytellers stressed that the reason(s) they shoot in 24fps is because it takes less film, but still produces a progressive live motion experience. There's even phenomena that with fluid 24p motion, the human mind imagines the in-between frames. The reason for this is because the mind interprets image close to 60fps or higher. A theory explains how some people with healthier brain function can actually tell that they see life and motion extremely smoothly. The reason I bring this up is because Reality has been the bases of film and video sense the beginning and 24fps video no longer exudes representation of the real world. In fact, rather you know it or not, the reason human minds are allured by 24fps is because it's not REAL, at least not anymore.
The fact of the matter is, 24fps puts us in a dream-like state. Wile watching a film in 24fps, It takes us out of reality and gives us the feeling of escapism. Sure, that is entertaining, but for my mind, seeing choppy 24p takes me out of the story. Some productions can pull off 24p very well, others can't. So I want to wrap this up by adding that Mr. Cameron and Peter Jackson aren't millionaires for no reason. They know what they're talking about. The real argument is, "are human's ready to see movies the way they see everyday life, or are they holding on to a fading art.
Isn't the low 24 fps that gives cinema its dreamy quality?
I mean look at the short film "La jetée", from which "12 Monkeys" was inspired.
It had 1 frame every few seconds and was a very effective experience.
I record the Twilight Zone every night and love watching it. When one of the six episodes come up that were recorded on tape I cringe. The episodes stand out and not in a good way. They look different but most important I think is that they FEEL different than the rest of the series. Those episodes just don't do it for me at all.
When I heard about the whole 48 fps thing going on I immediately thought of the 6 TZ episodes and how they stand out and feel different. I really hope this isn't the case but this isn't a good start.