Dynamic frame rate: a study on viewer perception of changes in frame rate within an animated movie sequence

Dynamic Frame Rate (DFR) is the change in frame rate of a movie sequence in real time as the sequence is playing. Throughout the majority of the past century and after the introduction of sound in films, frame rates used in films have been kept at a standardization of 24 frame per second despite technological advancement [Salmon et. Al 2011]. In the past decade, spatial resolution has been increasing in display systems while the temporal resolution, the frame rate, has not been changed. Because of this, researchers and filmmakers stress that motion judders and blurriness are much more apparent and they propose that high frame rates will solve the issue [Emoto et. Al 2014] [Turnock 2013]. Some industry experts and critics, however, oppose the use of high frame rates [Wilcox 2015]. Despite all the research and attempts in using high frame rate, the idea of using dynamic frame rate in digital cinema has not been explored in depth. As such, there is very limited information on how people perceive DFR and how it actually works. By understanding DFR and how viewers perceive the changes in frame rate, it will help us adapt new techniques in the creation of cinema. We can utilize high frame rate in sequences that could benefit from high frame rate while keeping the rest of the sequences at standard frame rate. This thesis aims to understand the basics of DFR, how different implementations of DFR changes viewer perception and how people perceive a change of frame rate in an animated movie sequence displayed.