Watching HD, looked like videotape ... what gives?

Doubtful.

When I first got my flat screen, 120 hz, interpolation and all - the very first thing I noticed and that was jarring was that everything blu-ray and/or HD looked like a soap opera because of the higher frame rate. It bugged me quite a bit…for about 2 weeks. Then I got used to it, and I can’t even re-create that reaction anymore.

The brain adjusts. It makes sense to go to higher frame rates (film’s 24 FPS is an ancient artifact, and fast motion on film has all sorts of of blurring and distortion.) My own prediction is that people will bitch about it for a month or two, but once a few films have been released this way nobody will even notice anymore.

Nope. 3D does not half the frame rate, otherwise a 24fps film would be 12fps for each eye, completely unwatchable. You shoot both cameras at the full frame rate.

Now, take a second to think about the amount of data a single second of The Hobbit used during shooting: 2 cameras at 4k (so about 8 megapixels) recording 48 pictures per second - uncompressed I imagine. If you take 24 bit color depth (not sure about that) you get a mindboggling 2.3 GB per second! :eek: