What is the fps of various sources?

PAL is dead. Freeview can be either 50 Hz or 25 Hz Frame rate, depending on the resolution of the individual program source and whether converted for transmission...but HD 1080 i/p are 25 Hz only. These can be converted to alternative frame rates for output, such as 1080i to 1080p and conversions for alternative frame rate equipments, e.g 30/60 Hz. Note that Allocated Bit Rate, and whether Fixed or Variable (adaptive), also affects video quality:
http://www.avforums.com/forums/freeview/1261357-quality-freeview-sd.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/researchanddevelopment/2011/04/software-upgrade-for-bbc-hd-on.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-definition_television_in_the_United_Kingdom
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_HD
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeview_%28UK%29
Edited by holl_ands - 1/15/13 at 2:27pm

There are many answers to this question. Film is typically 23.976, but doesn't have to be. TV shows today are typically 23.976, but can also be 29.97, although when they are broadcast they are either 29.97 or 59.96. On a PC, LED, or LCD doesnt matter, it will be shown at whatever the refresh rate of the monitor is.

You can't compare an HDTV to a CRT. They are two different technologies.

You might want to explain by what you mean by camera "cuts". If you mean how long a scene is shot with a single camera without an edit, that has nothing to do with frame rates.

No, this has nothing to do with frame rates.

If played back at a faster frame rate than recorded, yes, obviously.

the director or producer.

The source framerate, of course.

Or editor.

In other words they happen because someone wanted them to happen.

Film is normally shot at 24 fps. 24P video is commonly slower by .1% @23.98fps to match the NTSC standards pulldown. Conversion from 24P to 25hz has often used a 4% speedup. Audio pitch is usually compensated. This may be why some cuts seem faster. Obviously material shot at 25fps wouldn't be affected this way.

Unless some speed-up or slow-down is being done, then it will be replayed at the source fps, though it may not be displayed at this rate.

If you play a 25fps movie on a 60fps display, you don't speed up the 25fps to 60fps, instead you repeat frames (or in some cases interpolate new ones). Hmm - lots of confusion here.
In broadcast there are two major territories :
50Hz (Europe - inc UK, much of Asia inc India and China, Australia/NZ, some of South America)
60Hz (North America, Japan, Korea, some other bits of Asia and some of South America)

In 50Hz territories broadcast video is either shot at 25Hz or 50Hz. 25Hz is usually shot 25p, 50Hz is shot either 50i or 50p (50i is sometimes called - confusingly - i25) Most broadcasters broadcast 25p as 50i - it still looks 25p and has 25p motion. Usually 25p is used for drama, high-end documentary, and quite a lot of factual. Usually 50i/50p is used for entertainment, sport, some soaps, news etc. 50i/50p native has twice the image rate of 25p - so motion looks much more fluid. 25p is displayed at 50p simply by showing every frame twice. 50i is displayed at 50p by de-interlacing.

In 60Hz territories broadcast video is usually shot at 24Hz or 60Hz (with some 30Hz). 24Hz is shot 24p, 60Hz is shot 60i or 60p. 24p is displayed at 60i/p by repeating one source frame 3 times, the next source frame twice, giving motion judder to linear movement (some people see this more than others) 30p would be displayed at 60p by repeating every frame twice. 60i is shown at 60p by de-interlacing.

Producers/directors will chose whether to shoot 'film look' (24p in 60Hz or 25p in 50Hz) or 'video look' (50i/p in 50Hz or 60i/p in 60Hz)

1080i can be considered 50Hz - as each frame is made from two fields, which can be captured 1/50th second apart, delivering 50 different images per second, compared to the 25 images per second of 25p.

display device refresh rate and the number of recorded frames per second are not related in any way.

Frame rates are set by various standards organizations, not the director.
You still seem to be confusing frame rate with "creative vision".

Played, yes. Displayed, no.

Absolutely not. The framerate is decided by the network. It's either 720 at 60fps, or 1080 at 30fps.

Again, whatever your tv's refresh rate is, that's what it displays content in, no matter the source.

1080p is not 25hz ONLY. And no, SD is not "faster" than HD.

Yes and no.

You are correct that the final broadcast (and transmission master) frame rate is set by the broadcaster. It's likely to be 720p (720/60p or 720/50p) or 1080i (1080/60i or 1080/50i) in HD-land or 480/60i or 576/50i in SD-land.

This is the frame rate that the playout area operates in and that the MPEG2 or H264 encoders (*) are likely to operate in. It is likely to be the format that the show is delivered in. (**)

However - it is possible, for artistic reasons, to shoot in more formats than this. There is a choice as to whether to shoot 50/60Hz native or at a lower frame rate, to look more like film.

For a 'film look' you can shoot at 24/30p (for 60Hz) or 25p (for 50Hz) and then use 3:2 or 2:2 pull-down/frame-repetion for mastering. The resulting 60i/p or 50i/p master will retain the 24/30p (***) or 25p motion of the acquisition format.
For a 'video look' you can shoot at 60i/p or 50i/p natively - which has a much higher temporal resolution (i.e. motion looks smoother).

The two different acquistion formats look very different and are chosen for aesthetic reasons.

If you ever watch the BBC series Top Gear you'll see them mixed. The location reports are shot 25p, the studio and 'star in a reasonably priced car' laps are shot 50i. The final broadcast is 50i. The two different types of footage look very different.

(*) The BBC now run H264 encoders that switch from 1080/25p to 1080/50i encoding on-the-fly to improve compression efficiency - though the output of the decoder is likely to be a constant 1080i signal.
(**) Some broadcasters will accept 1080/24p or 1080/25p masters for movies and drama and convert to 1080/60i or 1080/50i on ingest to their transmission servers.
(***) 24p as 60p/i has additional motion artefacts introduced by 3:2.

Please see my above comment.

Also beware that with interlaced format the frame rate is NOT the image rate. Many people see 720p60 and 1080i30 definitions of progressive and intelaced transmission systems and assume that 720p has twice the image rate of 1080i. Native interlaced content has an image rate twice the frame rate, as the frame is split into two interlaced fields, which are captured independently, 1/50th or 1/60ht of a second apart. These days most native interlaced content is generated by cameras with 1080p sensors running at 50/60Hz, which are the interlaced to 540 line fields at 50/60Hz - but with a line-offset between the two fields.

The network decides whether they will broadcast at 720/60p (50p in Europe) or 1080/60i (50i in Europe). However the source material can be originated at 24/30/60Hz (25/50Hz in Europe) and this source material's 'motion look' will continue through broadcast.

One of the most commonly asked questions by cameras crews when you shoot with them in the UK is 'Do you want to shoot 1080p progressive or 1080i interlaced?'. Which is another way of asking if you want to shoot 25p or 50i. 25p has half the image rate of 50i - so looks a lot more 'film like' (UK TV film is shot 25fps)

It is replayed at the same speed (usually) - but the source frames (24 or 25fps) are likely to be displayed more than once on a computer screen (which could be running between 50 and >72fps) If you are lucky then your source fps and your PC display fps will be a nice multiple of each other (25fps European DVDs look better at 50Hz than at 60Hz for instance)
Sport (and most entertainment, news) is usually shot natively at 50Hz or 60Hz rather than 24/35/30Hz. Or 720p broadcasters they will shoot at 720/50p or 60p, or for 1080i broadcasters they will shot at 1080/50i or 1080/60i. (50 for Europe, 60 for North America)

For other content broadcasters/directors (or the network) may chose to shoot at 720/25p (24/30p in 60Hz territories) or 1080/25p (24/30p in 60Hz territories) This has half the image rate of the 50/60Hz native acquisition stuff, and appears less fluid. PAL 60 is a confusing term. In Europe it was used to describe VHS machines that would play back 480/60i NTSC VHS - and later 480/60i DVDs and games consoles running at 60Hz - as 480/60i PAL - as some TVs would lock to 480/60i inputs but wouldn't decode NTSC composite colour signals, but would be fine if fed PAL composite colour. Ignore it. European broadcasters usually take US movies and series shot 1080/24p (most drama and US sitcom) and replay them at 25p with 4% speed-up. This was also used for European DVD releases.

However most 1080/24p content is released on Blu-ray at 1080/24p - and you'll often notice if you watch a lot of US series on Blu-ray AND broadcast TV in Europe that you can hear the speed change. (The TV is faster as the shows are sped up a little. This is widely referred to as 'PAL speed-up' - though PAL has nothing to do with it and is just an obsolete composite colour system we no longer use...)

I think you are using 'faster' in a way you don't mean. When you watch a show on BBC One SD on a CRT and BBC One HD on an HDTV the show runs the same length. It doesn't run faster or slower (can you imagine the scheduling nightmares if it did?!)

Instead what you may be seeing is that lots of HDTVs have 100/200/400Hz displays. Some of them have image processing that tries to smooth out the motion between frames, making 1080/25p 'film look' content look like it was shot at twice the frame rate (and 'video like') This is purely an image processing trick - and not usually that well done. i'd always switch it off.

And also - 1080i isn't 25Hz only. 1080i is 50Hz and can carry both 50Hz and 25Hz native content.. If you watch shows like EastEnders, Strictly Come Dancing etc. they are shot 1080/50i native interlaced - and you get 50 images per second. If you watch shows like Holby City or a high-end doc like Frozen Planet or Africa, they are shot 1080/25p native, and you get 25 images per second.

If you display 50Hz content at 60Hz, then you have to either repeat frames (what usually happens) or interpolate frames (what happens in high quality conversions)

If you imagine a 720/50p sporting programme, where there are 50 different frames every second. If you need to display this at 720/60p - those extra 10 frames have got to come from somewhere. You can't just speed up 50 fps to 60 fps as everything would be moving 20% faster (and how would you do that live - you'd need a time-machine as you'd need to show frames that hadn't happened yet!) Instead cheap conversions - or conversions that are done without any knowledge that the conversion is taking place (which is the case with video on a PC monitor usually) - will just repeat 10 frames each second of the 50.

Usually every 5th frame will be shown twice, whilst the previous and following 4 are just shown once. This means that every fifth frame is shown twice as long as the previous 4 and following 4. This gives a stutter 10 times each second, as if the image is freezing slightly. If you have a nice smooth camera pan (or a smoothly scrolling ticker crawling across the bottom of the screen) you'll notice nasty judder.

This is really obvious if you watch 50Hz Freeview or Freesat broadcasts on a 60Hz PC monitor, or 50Hz DVD ISOs/VIDEO_TSs on an incorrectly configured Media Player running at 60Hz.

It's similar in reverse in reverse, if you convert from 60Hz to 50Hz you have to discard 10 frames every second. If you throw away every 6th frame, you'll end up with a 50Hz signal, but you've then got 'gaps' where motion appears to jump.

For broadcasters, who have to convert 50Hz and 60Hz content between framerates (US broadcasters have to watch European sporting events and vice versa). In these cases, the source frames are analysed, the different moving areas detected, and vector tracked, and a whole new set of destination frames generated based on where the conversion system estimates the moving elements of the source video should have been if they were shot at the destination frame rate.

As for your other comment - I still don't really understand what you are asking. If I cut every 3 seconds, whether you are watching on a CRT or an LCD, whether in SD or HD, the cuts will still happen every 3 seconds. The video isn't sped-up or slowed-down by the viewing medium. It is possible that motion is being 'smoothed out' on a modern HDTV with Motion Flow/Natural Motion etc. enabled (which interpolates new frames in-between the source video frames) - I guess this could make a cut appear to happen more sharply?

Again, it all depends on what device you are displaying that content on.

Depends. Most streaming services run at 24/25Hz - so don't carry 50/60Hz native content at full motion. (BBC iPlayer on Sky+, and a few other platforms, is a notable exception - it's full 50Hz and pretty much identical to broadcast, in some cases higher quality in SD. On PCs and many boxes it is all 25Hz though) ISTR that in the UK Lovefilm often runs at 25Hz but Netflix runs at 24Hz. However many media players with Netflix functionality don't output 24Hz - stuffing you if you have a nice 24Hz True Cinema-type display.

If you connect your PC to a TV using HDMI (or DVI) you can usually match the display refresh rate to the content frame/field rate (50Hz for UK TV and DVD) and avoid judder. However if you're watching using VGA or watching on some PC monitors, you are often stuck at non-ideal refresh rates and introduce judder.

When it comes to media players - most now let you manually select output refresh rate (and all European HDTVs cope with 50Hz and 60Hz, and many also 24Hz) - and many will change refresh rate automatically (as will XBMC on many PC platforms) My Popcorn Hour is identical in playback quality to my DVD / Blu-ray player on all material - the only difference is the lack of noise from the spinning disc!

Some PC DVD replay software (WinDVD I think) has interpolation software processing - I think it was branded as 'Trimension'. It was horrible...

Your TV, if a European model, will not need to interpolate frames to display 50 or 60Hz sources - it will almost certainly change its refresh rate to match the input source - removing the issue (Switching between 50 or 60Hz refresh based on input - or 100/200 or 120/240Hz if its a higher refresh rate type).

It may well also 'smooth' 25Hz sources up to 50Hz by interpolating extra frames - which has the effect of giving material shot on film (movies) and 25p video (most UK drama and high-end documentary) a 'video' look (i.e. smooth motion like EastEnders, sport or Strictly).

Custom Gaming PCs - in fact almost all PCs - will depend on the capabilities of the monitor. Most PC graphics systems let you select your output refresh rate in the graphics drivers - usually 50Hz, 60Hz and 24Hz (with 59Hz and 23Hz also offered - and usually the better bet as they are the 'real' 59.94Hz and 23.97Hz refresh rates used in reality) - and if you are feeding a monitor that can cope with these there is neither interpolation or repetition if you match your source and display rates.

On systems with integrated displays - like iMacs - you may find you are stuck with a fixed refresh rate - and it's unlikely to be 50Hz-friendly. (This is why European video editors don't use iMacs...)

On Freesat you should be able to get iPlayer via the Red Button if you have a recent Freesat HD box. However I think the Freesat iplayer stuff is 25p. The Freeview Red Button iPlayer can be 50i - my mum's Freeview PVR gets 50i via the Red Button.

Can't comment on Netflix on that platform. No - don't think either of them do. You'd need to change refresh rate manually depending on the source you are watching. You need to set the refresh rate based on what you are watching. XBMC can do this automatically - but if you use other players then your drivers may support hot keys to do this.
50Hz for UK TV and DVD
59 or 60Hz for gaming, and 59Hz for US TV/DVD/Blu-ray and 24p content.

Doesn't look like your TV supports 24p native though - so you'll get 3:2 cadence on 24p content at 60Hz I suspect.
(Ignore the "i" options - they're interlaced and of no benefit with a PC)