What frame rate should I use? 24, 30 or 60 fps explained

What frame rate should I use, and what does it change?

The one that suits the motion and the look you want, so start with what the number changes. Frame rate is how many still pictures a video shows each second, written as fps, frames per second. At 24 fps each picture is on screen for about 42 milliseconds; at 60 fps for under 17. More frames make motion smoother and more literal; fewer frames, each with a little motion blur, give the slightly dreamy movement people associate with cinema.

The rate is chosen before you press record. You can lower it later by dropping frames, but you cannot add real motion that was never captured, which is why slow motion has to be shot fast.

Is 24 or 30 fps better?

Neither is better; they look different and come from different places. 24 fps has been the rate of cinema for nearly a century. 25 and 30 come from television: 25 where the mains electricity runs at 50 Hz (Europe, most of Asia, Africa and Australia), 30 where it runs at 60 Hz (North America and parts of South America and Asia).

Shooting at your local mains rate also avoids flicker: under lights powered at 50 Hz, a camera at 30 fps can show bands rolling through the frame, which 25 or 50 fps avoids.

The odd numbers are a leftover from colour television in North America: 29.97 and 23.976 run a thousandth slower than 30 and 24. Most cameras sold there record 29.97 when they say 30.

Should you film in 60fps?

Film in 60 fps when motion is the point, or when you want the option of slowing it down. Sport, dance, gaming and fast screen recordings look sharper and smoother at 60. Footage shot at 60 can also be played at 24 or 30 for clean slow motion at 40% or half speed, with every frame real.

For a person talking to camera, 60 fps buys little and can look slightly like live television. It also doubles the frames to store and process. Shoot 24, 25 or 30 unless you know you need the motion.

What shutter speed goes with each frame rate?

About double the frame rate, which film-makers call the 180-degree rule. It comes from film cameras, whose spinning shutter was open for half of each frame's time, giving the amount of motion blur audiences are used to:

A much faster shutter makes each frame crisp but motion jittery, the staccato look of some action scenes. A slower one smears movement. In bright daylight, an ND filter lets you keep the shutter at double the frame rate without overexposing.

What frame rate is best for YouTube?

The one you shot at. YouTube's recommended upload settings say content should be encoded and uploaded at the frame rate it was recorded, and list 24, 25, 30, 48, 50 and 60 as common. Converting between them before upload adds judder for nothing. Only the bitrate changes: YouTube asks for 8 Mbit/s at 1080p up to 30 fps and 12 Mbit/s at 48 to 60. The best export settings for YouTube has the full list.

What happens when you mix frame rates in one edit?

The timeline converts everything to its own rate, and that conversion can show. Footage at 25 fps in a 30 fps edit has to repeat some frames, which looks like a small stutter every few frames on movement. Footage at 60 fps in a 24 fps edit drops frames and plays smoothly, or can be slowed down to use every frame.

Good practice:

• Choose one project rate before you start, usually the rate most of your footage was shot at.
• Treat high frame rates as slow motion. 60 or 120 fps footage in a 24 or 30 fps edit is best slowed, not sped through.
• Watch phone footage. Phones often record at a variable frame rate, speeding up and slowing down with the light, which some editors read wrongly.
• Keep timecode honest. At 29.97, drop-frame timecode skips frame numbers (never frames) so the clock keeps pace with real time.

How does Sharpy handle frame rate?

Exactly, to the frame. Every frame sits on its own instant, on a clock that holds it: at 29.97, 30,000 frames add up to exactly 1,001 seconds, and drop-frame timecode round-trips over every frame of an hour. Picture cuts land on frames and sound cuts on samples, which are not the same instants at 29.97.

• Files read on their own grid. A 29.97 file is read as 29.97, not 30, and a phone's irregular recording is named by the rate its camera states. The bin lists each file's frame rate in its own column.
• Mixed rates conformed cleanly. A 25 fps source's Out landing between frames of a 30 fps edit is made a whole number of the edit's frames.
• Slow motion that never stutters. Sharpy reads each shot's frame rate and shutter before retiming, and slowing a clip past its frames makes new in-between frames. Where repeated frames would show and you did not ask for them, it refuses and says why: "0.50x of 25.000 fps footage on a 25.000 fps edit shows each of its frames 2.0 times".
• Motion blur at 180 degrees. Clips moved by keys, punch-ins and moving transitions are drawn with film's 180-degree shutter, so they smear like camera movement instead of strobing.
• Timecode you can type. The transport's timecode field is checked against SMPTE's drop-frame rules: frame 1800 at 29.97 is 00:01:00;02.

When Sharpy assembles a new edit from your recordings, it asks the frame rate along with the shape and quality before a word is transcribed, and you can change an edit's frame rate and frame size after it is made, not only at export. Decide the shape and quality once, and every render follows it.

Frequently asked questions

01

Is 24 or 30 fps better?

24 fps looks more like cinema; 30 fps looks like everyday video. Choose 24 for a filmic piece and 30 (or 25 in a 50 Hz country) for talking heads, tutorials and social video.

02

Does a higher frame rate mean better quality?

No. It means smoother motion, not more detail. A 60 fps file needs a higher bitrate to look as sharp per frame as a 30 fps one.

03

What is the difference between 25 and 30 fps?

Where they come from. 25 fps matches 50 Hz mains power and PAL television; 30 fps matches 60 Hz mains and NTSC. Shoot the one that matches your local lighting to avoid flicker.

04

Can I change the frame rate after filming?

You can convert it, but not improve it. Lowering a rate drops frames; raising it repeats or invents frames, which can judder. Slowing high-frame-rate footage is the clean exception.

05

What frame rate should I use for slow motion?

At least double your project rate: 60 fps for half speed in a 30 fps edit, 120 fps for quarter speed.

Sources

Checked on 18 October 2026.

• YouTube Help: recommended upload encoding settings