Planning to see ‘The Hobbit’ in 48 FPS 3D? Not so fast. . .

While Peter Jackson has made a big deal out of filming his new trilogy of Hobbit movies at 48 frames per second, twice the standard speed in use for over 100 years, Warner Brothers has stated that it plans a slow rollout of the film at 48 FPS. In fact, it will only be available in full 48 FPS in a “handful of theaters”, and “perhaps not even all major cities”, according to Variety.

This may be partially due to the underwhelming response to ten minutes of test footage at CinemaCon last April. Critics said the new process was “too accurate — too clear” and “looked like a made-for-TV movie.” Apparently that footage had not undergone full post production processes, and the full film is supposed to look much better now.

It may also have something to do with that fact that there aren’t any theaters that actually have the capability to project at 48 FPS at the moment. Depending on the type of projector a theater has, it is supposedly as easy as a software upgrade on the latest generation of projectors, which they should be able to do in time for the December release date. But even some relatively new projectors need an extra piece of buffering hardware installed on the network if a theater keeps its digital movies on a central server. Many first generation digital projectors simply can’t be upgraded to both 48 FPS and 3D at the same time. And don’t expect to get 48 FPS, 3D & 4k resolution. There simply aren’t any projectors (or theater networks) designed for that much data all at once, and to do all three at the same time would require a complete infrastructure overhaul.

The plan is to do a very limited release of the first of the trilogy in 48 FPS, and then, assuming audiences don’t totally hate it, slowly expand the release into more 48 FPS theaters with each successive movie. It looks like either way, 48 FPS is the future of movies and it will probably come about eventually whether we like it or not. But it’s pretty crazy, because the downconvert back from 48 FPS to 24 FPS for standard theaters isn’t as simple as just skipping every other frame. Effects work needs to be down to add blur between frames, because otherwise it will look choppy and distorted. So until a full 48 FPS infrastructure exists in all theaters nationwide, you basically have to make two movies with all the expense that entails: a standard 24 FPS version, and a 48 FPS version.

So assuming you in fact do get lucky enough that your local theater is capable of the full experience of 48 FPS and 3D, expect to be crammed in with a whole lot of other nerds, or at least more than you would normally expect for a movie like this, because they will all want the full experience and only have maybe 50 screens at best nationwide to see it on.

And assuming we eventually do get awesome 48 FPS high resolution 3D films, does that mean I’m gonna need a new TV and there will be yet another DVD format for this new high density media? I just broke down and bought a HDTV to replace the one I’d had since college, it’ll be another 10 years before I want to upgrade again.

JohnScott is the proud owner of a life size replica Captain Kirk Chair. He is a hoarder of Comic Books, Transformers, and Star Trek action figures. He attended Space Camp as an adult. He has taken vacations to the closing of the Star Trek Experience and the final night Shuttle launch. He has been known to yell at his television when the kids can't put together the damn statue in the Shrine of the Silver Monkey. When not writing for InsufficientScotty, he is a Software Engineer for a major healthcare communications company. You can Email or follow on Twitter @NotEnoughScotty or Facebook