Updated: October 25, 2026
Why frame rate turns into a post-production problem
On most Miami shoots, nobody plans to mix frame rates. It just happens. The main camera rolls at 23.976 because the director wants a film look, the drone operator leaves the aircraft on 30, the B camera shoots everything at 60 so the editor has slow motion options, and the client sends over phone clips from the event that came in at whatever the phone decided. By the time the footage lands in the edit suite, the project has four frame rates and one timeline.
Frame rate decisions made on set show up in post as stutter, judder, odd motion blur, audio drift and exports that look fine on one screen and jerky on another. Most of these problems are avoidable, and the rest can usually be managed if the editor knows what each clip is and what the final delivery needs to be.
This guide covers the frame rates you will meet on a Miami project, how to choose a timeline frame rate, what happens when footage is conformed or converted, and how to deliver versions for broadcast, web and social without losing quality along the way.
The frame rates you will actually see
Here are the common rates and where they usually come from:
- 23.976 fps (often called 24). The standard for narrative, commercial and branded work in the US. It gives the familiar cinematic motion, with a little blur on movement.
- 24.000 fps. True 24, used mainly for cinema deliveries. It is easy to confuse with 23.976, and mixing the two causes slow audio drift over long clips.
- 29.97 fps (often called 30). The US broadcast standard and a common default on drones, action cameras and many phones. Motion looks smoother and more "video" than 24.
- 25 and 50 fps. European and Latin American PAL standards. You will meet them when footage comes from a crew or client based outside the US, which is common in Miami.
- 59.94 and 60 fps. Used for sports, gaming content, smooth screen recordings and as a source for slow motion.
- 120 fps and higher. Recorded almost always for slow motion, then played back at the timeline rate.
Phones add another complication. Many record variable frame rate (VFR), which means the actual number of frames per second drifts depending on light and processing load. Editing software handles VFR better than it used to, but it remains a common cause of audio sync slipping in long clips.
Choosing the timeline frame rate
The timeline frame rate should match the main delivery, and ideally the main camera. Pick it before the edit starts and do not change it halfway, because changing a timeline frame rate later can shift every edit point.
Questions to answer first
- Where will the finished video mostly play? A TV spot for a US broadcaster has different rules from an Instagram reel or a YouTube channel.
- What did the main camera shoot? If 80 percent of the material is 23.976, a 23.976 timeline keeps that footage untouched.
- What look does the client want? Fast-moving sports or product demos may suit 29.97 or 59.94. Brand films and testimonials usually suit 23.976.
- Will there be a version for another region? A Spanish-language cut for a client in Spain or Argentina might need a 25 fps deliverable.
Once the timeline rate is decided, every clip that does not match it has to be conformed or converted. The two terms mean different things.
Conforming versus converting
Conforming high frame rate footage for slow motion
Conforming tells the software to play every recorded frame at the timeline rate. A 59.94 clip conformed into a 23.976 timeline plays at roughly 40 percent speed, which gives clean, smooth slow motion with no made-up frames. A 120 fps clip conformed to 23.976 plays at about 20 percent speed. This is the right approach when the camera operator shot high frame rate on purpose for slow motion. For more on controlling speed and pace in an edit, see our guide to speed ramping and retiming.
Converting footage that should play at real speed
When a clip needs to play at normal speed in a timeline with a different rate, the software must drop, repeat or blend frames. A 29.97 drone shot in a 23.976 timeline loses about one frame in every five. On slow aerial moves that is often invisible. On a fast pan across the Brickell skyline it can show as a small hitch.
There are three common conversion methods:
- Frame sampling (nearest frame). Drops or repeats frames. Sharp, but motion can stutter.
- Frame blending. Mixes adjacent frames. Smoother, but adds ghosting on fast movement.
- Optical flow. Calculates new in-between frames from motion analysis. It can look excellent on simple shots and produce warped edges, wobbling hands or melting backgrounds on complex ones. Always check it at full resolution.
An experienced editor chooses per clip. Optical flow for a slow drone push over Biscayne Bay, frame sampling for a handheld crowd shot where warping would be worse than a slight stutter.
Audio, timecode and the 23.976 trap
The quietest frame rate problem is the gap between 23.976 and 24.000, or between 29.97 and 30. These differ by 0.1 percent. On a 30-second clip nobody notices. On a 40-minute interview recorded on a separate audio recorder, the picture and the sound can drift apart by more than two seconds.
That is why camera and audio settings should match on set, and why the editor checks the frame rate and sample rate of every source before syncing. If you are cutting interviews from several angles, our article on multicamera editing and syncing angles explains how sync is set up and checked.
Timecode also matters. Broadcast deliveries in the US often specify drop-frame timecode at 29.97, while many commercial projects use non-drop-frame. The difference affects how durations are counted, which matters when a station expects a spot of exactly 30 seconds.
Delivering versions at different frame rates
Most Miami projects now ship as a family of files, and frame rate is part of each spec. A typical package might include:
- A 23.976 master for the website, presentations and YouTube.
- A 29.97 version with drop-frame timecode for a US broadcaster, if the spot runs on TV.
- A 25 fps version for partners or media in Europe or South America.
- Vertical and square social cuts, usually at the master rate.
Social platforms accept common rates and generally play 23.976, 25, 29.97 and 59.94 without trouble, but converting during upload is something you cannot control, so export at the native rate and avoid letting the platform guess. Our guide to export and delivery specs covers codecs and bitrates for each platform, and the piece on aspect ratios and reframing covers the shape of each version.
Converting a finished 23.976 master to 25 fps for a European broadcaster is usually done by speeding it up by about 4 percent and pitch-correcting the audio, which is the traditional PAL speed-up. The running time changes slightly, so check whether the broadcaster wants the exact duration or accepts the shorter version.
How to avoid frame rate trouble before the shoot
The cheapest fix is a short conversation in pre-production. Before cameras roll, agree on:
- The project frame rate, written into the call sheet and shared with every camera operator, including the drone pilot.
- Which shots need high frame rate for slow motion, and at what rate, so they conform cleanly to the project rate (for example 47.952 or 59.94 for a 23.976 project).
- Audio recorder settings that match the project rate, plus a clap or timecode sync at the start of each take.
- A note to the client about phone footage: lock the frame rate if the phone allows it, or flag that VFR clips will need extra prep time in post.
When footage arrives anyway in a mix of rates, which it often does on event and documentary work, the editor should log each clip's rate during ingest. A clean media management routine makes this a ten-minute job. Discovering it three days into the edit costs much more.
Mixed frame rate projects with Miami Video Services
Our editors handle mixed-source projects every week: cinema cameras next to drones, GoPros, phone clips from guests and archive footage from older formats. We log frame rates on ingest, choose the conversion method shot by shot, check sync on long interviews and deliver the masters and regional versions your distribution needs, with timecode and duration specs matched to each outlet.
If you already have footage shot at several frame rates, or you are planning a shoot and want the settings right from the start, send us the details of your project. A short note listing the cameras and the places the video will play is enough for us to tell you which timeline rate to use and what each delivery will look like. You can also read more about our post team or browse other editing guides on our blog.