Why is TV 29.97 frames per second?
Stand-up Maths4 HN recommenders · recommended in 4 months, 2016-2025
2.2M views · 10 years ago · explainer · evergreen
Matt Parker explains the history behind NTSC television running at 29.97 frames per second rather than 30, tracing it to the backward-compatible addition of color. He walks through the arithmetic behind the odd ratio.
Go-to explanation whenever the strange 29.97 frame rate comes up, praised for its clarity and presenter.
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5 comments from Hacker News
For anyone this deep on the thread, check out this video (great presenter!) explaining TV spectrum allocation, NTSC, PAL, and the origin of 29.97 fps. ▶ this video
Vaguely related, anyone who hasn't seen it, definitely go and watch Matt Parker's legendary explanation of why NTSC runs at 29.97fps: ▶ this video
Cool video. I found another interesting one: Why is TV 29.97 frames per second? [0], which refers to NTSC's frame rate. [0]: ▶ this video
That comes from the old NTSC standard and the history of adding colour in a backwards compatible way: ▶ this video In the case that the above posters are mentioning, this probably has less to do with NTSC compatibility and more to do with bad timing hardware or cameras that attempt to do too much in PIO mode instead of using real encoding hardware.
If anyone wonders where the odd NTSC frame-rate ratio originated from, Matt Parker (standupmaths) did a comprehensive video, with some original write-up on this recently: ▶ this video