Philosophical question of the day: What frame rate and resolution is life?
By S Simmons. Filed in from the net |
I asked this question the other day on Twitter as a typical Twitter time-waster: What is the frame rate and resolution of life? The conversation that ensued was full of responses only an editor could appreciate:
twilsbach: Certainly High Definition, & the current rate is 24hours per day, hoping for an upgrade to 28hpd though.
ronsussman:24p definitely. if it was 30fps it would be too sharp, we need a little diffusion to get through the day
jjsanderson: via Google: about 600 megapixels and 500 fps max, but perceptual compression is batshit crazy so that’s an upper limit.
flameop @editblog and what shutter speed do we see?
editblog @flameop Shutter speed … good question. Definitely no motion blur today.
flameop @editblog no MB ? christ I’m like 1/15th at the mo! lol
editblog: I think these life questions of motion blur and resolution depend a lot on how much coffee one has had. Or whiskey.
heywood @editblog whiskey is an effects package
pdxfilms @editblog I find the best motion blur comes from Tequila. Or a LOT of Guinness
mike_barber: today feels like life is playing at about 6fps in a 4:3 resolution… with mucho compression artifacts
pdxfilms: I’d like to think HD, maybe even 4K at 60fps. Lately though, more like pixelvision – 120×80 at 8fps….
comebackshane: What frame rate is life? Dude…I deal with that enough during my work day, I don’t want to have it encroach my life.
heywood: Life is variable framerate. As adrenaline increases so does the framerate. That’s why those critical moments feel like slomo.
nathandowning: Hmmm Life is a variable frame rate 24fps-120fps depending on the day and company! The resolution is at least 10k, don’t you think?
BigPixture: Today – it’s an 8″ black & white with a broken speaker. That’s OK though, I can use the little white mono earplug.
ClintTorres: Brain freq ~90MHz sampling, and ~40Hz response. With Nyquist, that’s 180MHz input and 80Hz stimulus response. http://is.gd/cZhK
rebirthfilms: 24fps with a 180 shutter for sure and it is not pixel resolution, real life is made of of film grain, silver halide crystals.
adamkranitz: I’m going to have to say life is like a VariCam; sometimes you’re running at 4-fps other times 60-fps.
BeetleCarDriver:1 frame/week average……
jasondiamond: Sometimes i feel like i’m seeing in crisp short shutter 24p. don’t know why. other times fluid slo-mo like a Phantom. odd and fun
aaronwolfe: life is 8mm film that you found in your grandfather’s closet which expired years ago. There’s no way to predict how it will look
Sunday, December 28th 2008 at 5:15 pm
We use generalisations as temporary lower-resolution proxies to make life less complex. We use the prefix ‘typical’ to be able to assign the same set of attributes to large complex groups of things and people as well as organisations and industries. ‘Typical man’ ‘That’s typical of the banking industry’ ‘All salesmen are the same’ ‘The weather is always terrible’ ‘I bet he’s a typical lawyer.’
We could look at complex systems without these generalisations, but for some people and some situations, why use the energy?
Tuesday, December 30th 2008 at 2:43 pm
Hard to say, I’m just trying to keep all my media online for as long as possible before the big fade to black.