The Hobbit is finally upon us, and with it, the next step (or misstep) in tentpole movies – 48 Frames Per Second. Even before the film is released, we’re hearing complaints – the most common being that it looks like video and that it causes motion sickness – while exhibitors haven’t exactly embraced the technology with relatively few daring to show the film in its native format. Is all this criticism fair? Or will we be seeing exhibitors clamouring over one another to offer next year’s instalment of the film in High Frame Rate?

Before we get any further into the arguments for and against the technology, it’s probably worth exploring a bit of the science behind it.

When we look at an object, we don’t see all of it. Our eyes scan around it in tiny, imperceptible movements, building up a picture through persistence of vision. These tiny eye movements,...