Category Archives: Explanations

Metric Frame Rates: Banishing the Bizarre

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Metric Frame Rates: Banishing the Bizarre

In a digital world governed by binary precision, there is a ghost in the machine. It appears in the settings menus of our cameras and the export windows of our editing software. It is the spectral presence of fractional math: 23.976, 29.97, and 59.94.

These numbers are messy. They are relics. It is time we fully embraced a concept that brings sanity back to video: Metric Frame Rates.

Defining the Metric Frame Standard

What are Metric Frame Rates? They are the clean, integer-based measurements of time that align perfectly with the way we count seconds. They are the logical progression of temporal resolution:

* 25 fps: The cinematic baseline.

* 50 fps: The standard for smooth, lucid motion.

* 100 fps: High precision and clarity.

* 200 fps: Extreme fluidity and slow-motion capability.

Unlike the fractional legacy standards, these rates—25, 50, 100, and 200—do not require a calculator to determine how many frames exist in an hour of footage. They are absolute.

The NTSC Hangover: Where the “Weird” Came From

To understand the beauty of Metric Frame Rates, you have to look at the chaos they replace.

For decades, North America and parts of Asia have been stuck with the “NTSC” standard. Originally, black and white television ran at a clean 30 frames per second. But when engineers added color in the 1950s, they hit a snag: the color signal interfered with the audio signal.

Their solution? Slow the video down by exactly 0.1%.

Suddenly, 30 fps became 29.97 fps. 60 fields per second became 59.94. Cinema’s 24 fps was slowed to 23.976.

This “fractional frame rate” created a nightmare for editors and engineers. Timecode became a headache (Drop-Frame vs. Non-Drop Frame). Audio drifted out of sync over long durations. We have been carrying this baggage for over half a century, long after the analog cathode-ray tubes that required it were thrown into landfills.

The Elegance of the Metric System

Metric Frame Rates (rooted historically in the PAL/SECAM regions and 50Hz power grids) bypassed this absurdity. They stuck to the integers.

1. The Mathematical Harmony

Metric rates scale perfectly.

* 25 fits into 50 exactly twice.

* 50 fits into 100 exactly twice.

* 100 fits into 200 exactly twice.

This base-2 geometric progression makes frame-rate conversion, math, and compression algorithms significantly more efficient. If you shoot at 100 fps and want to slow it down to 25 fps, the math is flawless: play every frame for 4x slow motion. No “pulldown” patterns, no jitter, no ghost frames.

2. 25 fps: The Aesthetic Sweet Spot

While Hollywood clings to 24 (or the dreaded 23.976), 25 fps offers a nearly identical aesthetic experience with a slightly higher temporal resolution. It retains the “dreamlike” quality of film without the fractional headache.

3. 50 fps: The Reality Standard

50 frames per second is the metric answer to the “soap opera effect,” but used correctly, it provides the “being there” feeling required for news, sports, and documentation. It captures reality with fluid precision, free from the flicker of lower rates.

4. 100 and 200 fps: The Future of Clarity

As we push into high-refresh-rate displays (120Hz, 144Hz, 240Hz), Metric Frame Rates like 100 and 200 are becoming vital. They offer a hyper-real smoothness that 29.97 can never achieve. Furthermore, 100 fps serves as the perfect “universal donor” for slow motion—fast enough to capture high-speed action, but mathematically simple enough to conform down to 50 or 25 for delivery

We no longer live in an analog world of interfering radio frequencies. We live in a digital world of absolute values.

There is no technical reason for a modern digital creator to be forced to use 29.97 unless they are broadcasting to legacy television networks. For the rest of us—creating for the web, for streaming, and for the future—it is time to reject the bizarre numbers of the past.

It is time to standardize on the clean, logical, and precise integers of 25, 50, 100, and 200.

World Stage in AES Standards Webinar Series

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This is exciting… I’m presenting in September

In the fourth webinar on September 20, Anthony Kuzub will discuss the new AES72 standard from SC-05-02 for transporting either analog or digital audio over quad twisted pair cable, including documentation of RJ45 connector pin-outs.

Http://www.aes.org/blog/2021/3/audio-standards-and-interoperability-in

Arduino Project – Digitally Controlled Analog Surround Sound Panning – Open Source

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For your enjoyment:

Digitally Controlled Analog Surround Sound Panning

 

Presentation:

 

Circuit Explination:

 

Presentation documents:

0 – TPJ – Technical Presentation

0 – TPJ556-FINAL report DCASSP-COMPLETE

0 – TPJ556-FINAL report DCASSP-SCHEMATICS V1

 

 

Project Source Code:

Continue reading →

On Compressing the English Language

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Someone picked my brain the other day looking for a technique to compress language files.

After walking away to think about it… my method was to re-order the ASCII code to the letters by their frequency and the most common words by their frequency.

Where lowercase e is stored as an ASCII value using 1 byte
ASCII  e = 0x61 = 0b1100001 = 7 bits
vs
APK e = 0x1 = 1 bit

… this method stores an E in 1 bit.  This is similar to the Huffman Code with the addition of whole words being included in the code.

For example:

“because” is the 94th most used word in the english language and in this method is stored in 7 bits.

I don’t know if this has been done before… but I would imagine it could compress Language files substantially.

I have thought about a third addition of using the most used 2 or three letter combinations commonly used.

APK ORDER APK LET FREQ WORD FEQ APK BIN APK HEX APK BITS USED
0 space 0 0 1
1 e 12.70% 1 1 1
2 t 9.06% 10 2 2
3 a 8.17% 11 3 2
4 o 7.51% 100 4 3
5 i 6.97% 101 5 3
6 n 6.75% 110 6 3
7 s 6.33% 111 7 3
8 h 6.09% 1000 8 4
9 r 5.99% 1001 9 4
10 d 4.25% 1010 A 4
11 l 4.03% 1011 B 4
12 c 2.78% 1100 C 4
13 u 2.76% 1101 D 4
14 m 2.41% 1110 E 4
15 w 2.36% 1111 F 4
16 f 2.23% 10000 10 5
17 g 2.02% 10001 11 5
18 y 1.97% 10010 12 5
19 p 1.93% 10011 13 5
20 b 1.49% 10100 14 5
21 v 0.98% 10101 15 5
22 k 0.77% 10110 16 5
23 j 0.15% 10111 17 5
24 x 0.15% 11000 18 5
25 q 0.10% 11001 19 5
26 z 0.07% 11010 1A 5
27 the 1 11011 1B 5
28 be 2 11100 1C 5
29 to 3 11101 1D 5
30 of 4 11110 1E 5
31 and 5 11111 1F 5
32 a 6 100000 20 6
33 in 7 100001 21 6
34 that 8 100010 22 6
35 have 9 100011 23 6
36 I 10 100100 24 6
37 it 11 100101 25 6
38 for 12 100110 26 6
39 not 13 100111 27 6
40 on 14 101000 28 6
41 with 15 101001 29 6
42 he 16 101010 2A 6
43 as 17 101011 2B 6
44 you 18 101100 2C 6
45 do 19 101101 2D 6
46 at 20 101110 2E 6
47 this 21 101111 2F 6
48 but 22 110000 30 6
49 his 23 110001 31 6
50 by 24 110010 32 6
51 from 25 110011 33 6
52 they 26 110100 34 6
53 we 27 110101 35 6
54 say 28 110110 36 6
55 her 29 110111 37 6
56 she 30 111000 38 6
57 or 31 111001 39 6
58 an 32 111010 3A 6
59 will 33 111011 3B 6
60 my 34 111100 3C 6
61 one 35 111101 3D 6
62 all 36 111110 3E 6
63 would 37 111111 3F 6
64 there 38 1000000 40 7
65 their 39 1000001 41 7
66 what 40 1000010 42 7
67 so 41 1000011 43 7
68 up 42 1000100 44 7
69 out 43 1000101 45 7
70 if 44 1000110 46 7
71 about 45 1000111 47 7
72 who 46 1001000 48 7
73 get 47 1001001 49 7
74 which 48 1001010 4A 7
75 go 49 1001011 4B 7
76 me 50 1001100 4C 7
77 when 51 1001101 4D 7
78 make 52 1001110 4E 7
79 can 53 1001111 4F 7
80 like 54 1010000 50 7
81 time 55 1010001 51 7
82 no 56 1010010 52 7
83 just 57 1010011 53 7
84 him 58 1010100 54 7
85 know 59 1010101 55 7
86 take 60 1010110 56 7
87 people 61 1010111 57 7
88 into 62 1011000 58 7
89 year 63 1011001 59 7
90 your 64 1011010 5A 7
91 good 65 1011011 5B 7
92 some 66 1011100 5C 7
93 could 67 1011101 5D 7
94 them 68 1011110 5E 7
95 see 69 1011111 5F 7
96 other 70 1100000 60 7
97 than 71 1100001 61 7
98 then 72 1100010 62 7
99 now 73 1100011 63 7
100 look 74 1100100 64 7
101 only 75 1100101 65 7
102 come 76 1100110 66 7
103 its 77 1100111 67 7
104 over 78 1101000 68 7
105 think 79 1101001 69 7
106 also 80 1101010 6A 7
107 back 81 1101011 6B 7
108 after 82 1101100 6C 7
109 use 83 1101101 6D 7
110 two 84 1101110 6E 7
111 how 85 1101111 6F 7
112 our 86 1110000 70 7
113 work 87 1110001 71 7
114 first 88 1110010 72 7
115 well 89 1110011 73 7
116 way 90 1110100 74 7
117 even 91 1110101 75 7
118 new 92 1110110 76 7
119 want 93 1110111 77 7
120 because 94 1111000 78 7
121 any 95 1111001 79 7
122 these 96 1111010 7A 7
123 give 97 1111011 7B 7
124 day 98 1111100 7C 7
125 most 99 1111101 7D 7
126 use 100 1111110 7E 7

Dolby atmos

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I was lucky enough to get to visit the new Atmos mix room at Deluxe Toronto.  This was the deadest big room I’ve ever been in.  It was impressive to hear the system.  Being a part of the AES gave me an incredible experience of A/B-ing the new IMAX mix room at Technicolor and the Atmos room at Deluxe.   In my opinion the ideas of IMAX immersive technologies translate much better.   The guys at IMAX got it right.

Screen Shot 2015-01-25 at 12.36.21 PMMartin Pilchner did an amazing job.
They had a guy from dolby explaining a little about how Atmos renders… very interesting how it translates from room to room.


2015-01-20 20.03.45More information from the Dolby Site:
Screen Shot 2015-01-25 at 12.23.00 PM Screen Shot 2015-01-25 at 12.23.13 PM Screen Shot 2015-01-25 at 12.25.36 PM Screen Shot 2015-01-25 at 12.25.54 PM Screen Shot 2015-01-25 at 12.26.21 PM

IMAX- The Next generation of IMAX sound – 12 Channel configuration – and LASER projectors, about time

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Imax – The Next generation of IMAX sound –  12 Channel configuration – and LASER projectors, about time!!

Had a fantastic experience with the new IMAX sound system at the AES meeting held at Technicolor.

The “Upper Quad” ceiling speakers really bring it together.IMG_8687

VBAP is going to need some work… and a HUI

I walked away asking: “If it were truly immersive, there would never be idle speakers”  Cory said: “Backgrounds are the first thing to go…” I think those will become crucial.

I also walked away wanting a dozen U87s…

IMG_8678 IMG_8673
Of course you could hear the birds chirping and running away WHILE the rocket was launching…
IMG_8699