Why is TV 29.97 frames per second?

I look at the historical quirks which gave us TV at 29.97 frames per second. In North America at least. It's a comfortable 25 fps in Europe.

More on that thing I mentioned at the end of the video here:
https://www.patreon.com/standupmaths

Here is the spherical video I was making with Henry Segerman which made me research NTSC frame rates in the first place:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp12c3-IL-I

Yes, technically, if you divide 4,500,000 by 286 you get a horizontal frequency of 15,734.26573 lines per second. That matches a frame rate of 29.97002997002997… and so old TVs used 30/1.001 = 29.97002997002997…

CORRECTIONS:
- A lot of people pointing out that increasing the number of horizontal lines without increasing the bandwidth would be a loss of resolution. Which is a good point.


Music by Howard Carter
Design by Simon Wright

MATT PARKER: Stand-up Mathematician
Website: http://standupmaths.com/
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/standupmaths
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