Frame rate calculator

How to use the frame rate calculator

Choose one of five jobs at the top:

1. Frames in a clip. Type a duration (seconds, minutes or hours) and a frame rate. You get the total frames, the time each frame stays on screen and a table of the same clip at 23.976, 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 50, 59.94, 60 and 120 fps.
2. Duration of a number of frames. Type a frame count and a rate to get the running time in seconds and as a simple HH:MM:SS:FF timecode.
3. Timecode to frame number. Paste a timecode such as 01:00:00:00 and pick the timecode rate, including 23.976 and 29.97 or 59.94 drop frame. You get the frame number and the real elapsed time.
4. Slow-motion factor. Type the recording and playback frame rates, and optionally how long you recorded, to see how much slower the footage plays.
5. FPS ↔ frame time. Convert frames per second to milliseconds per frame, or the other way round, for games and monitor refresh rates.

Everything runs in your browser as you type.

The formulas

A frame rate is a count of pictures per second, so all of the arithmetic is multiplication or division:

• Frames = duration in seconds × frames per second
• Duration in seconds = frames ÷ frames per second
• Frame time in milliseconds = 1,000 ÷ frames per second
• Slow-motion factor = recording fps ÷ playback fps

Frame counts are always whole numbers. When the duration times the rate isn't whole, the calculator rounds to the nearest frame and shows the exact figure in a note. One minute at 23.976 fps is 1,438.56 frames, so a 60-second clip holds 1,439 frames.

Worked examples

• Seconds to frames: 10 s at 24 fps is 10 × 24 = 240 frames. Each frame is on screen for 1,000 ÷ 24 = 41.67 ms, and a minute at 24 fps holds 1,440 frames.
• At 29.97 fps: 100 s × 29.97 = 2,997 frames, with a frame time of 33.37 ms.
• A feature film: 90 minutes is 5,400 s; at 25 fps that is 135,000 frames.
• Frames to seconds: 1,800 frames at 30 fps is exactly 60 s, or 00:01:00:00. 1,000 frames at 24 fps is 41.667 s, which as timecode is 00:00:41:16: 41 whole seconds use 984 frames, leaving 16.
• Slow motion: 3 s recorded at 120 fps and played at 24 fps runs 5× slower, so it lasts 15 s on the timeline and contains 360 frames. 240 fps played at 30 fps is 8× slower; 60 fps on a 24 fps timeline is 2.5× slower, turning 10 s into 25 s.
• FPS to ms: 144 fps means a new frame every 6.94 ms; 60 fps every 16.67 ms. A steady 8 ms frame time is 125 fps.

Why 23.976 and 29.97 fps exist

Many cameras and editors offer "24" and "30" fps that are really slightly slower: 23.976 fps is exactly 24000/1001 and 29.97 is 30000/1001 (likewise 59.94 is 60000/1001). The 1000/1001 offset dates back to colour NTSC television and has stayed in video for compatibility. Footage for North America and Japan is still commonly shot at these rates. Regions that used PAL, including most of Europe and South Asia, normally use 25 or 50 fps. Cinema projection is 24 fps.

The difference looks tiny but adds up. Over a minute, 30 fps produces 1,800 frames and 29.97 fps produces 1,798.2. Over an hour the gap is 108 frames. That is why picking the wrong project rate can make audio drift out of sync on a long recording.

Timecode to frames, and 29.97 drop frame

Timecode labels each frame as hours:minutes:seconds:frames. At 29.97 fps the frames field still counts 0 to 29, as if the rate were 30. In non-drop timecode every label is used, so 01:00:00:00 is frame 3,600 × 30 = 108,000. Those 108,000 frames take 108,000 ÷ 29.97 = 3,603.6 s to play, so the timecode says one hour while the clock says 1:00:03.6.

29.97 drop frame timecode (written with a semicolon, 01:00:00;00) fixes that by skipping frame numbers. No pictures are thrown away. It skips labels 00 and 01 at the start of every minute except minutes 0, 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50. Over an hour that removes 2 × 54 = 108 labels, so 01:00:00;00 is frame 107,892, and it plays at almost exactly one hour (3,599.996 s). 59.94 drop frame skips four labels per minute instead of two. The calculator rejects drop-frame timecodes that don't exist, such as 00:01:00;00, which jumps straight to 00:01:00;02.

For whole rates there is no drift: at 25 fps, 00:10:00:00 is frame 15,000 and exactly 600 s; at 24 fps, 00:00:10:12 is frame 252, or 10.5 s.

Frame rate chart: frame times and frames per minute

FPS calculator for games: frame time in ms

If you came here looking for an FPS calculator that predicts how a game will run on a particular graphics card, this page can't do that. Game performance depends on the GPU, CPU, resolution, settings and driver, and the only reliable number comes from an in-game frame counter or a benchmark. What this frame rate calculator does give you is the conversion between frames per second and frame time. Many benchmark tools report both, and frame time is the better way to judge smoothness: 60 fps sounds like 30 fps doubled, but in time per frame it is 33.33 ms against 16.67 ms. Going from 144 to 240 fps saves only 2.78 ms per frame. A monitor refreshing at 144 Hz shows a new image every 6.94 ms, so to use every refresh, each frame has to be ready within that time.

Related video calculations

Shooting one photo every few seconds instead of continuous video? That is a time-lapse, and the time lapse calculator works out the interval and the number of shots for a clip length. To estimate how much space a recording takes, use the video file size calculator; the bitrate calculator does the reverse for a size limit. Frame rate also limits your shutter speed: at 24 fps you can't expose a frame for longer than 1/24 s, and the common "180-degree" habit is a shutter of about 1/48 s. The exposure calculator helps balance that against aperture and ISO. The same arithmetic applies to animated GIFs: halving the frame rate halves the number of frames to store, which is one of the quickest ways to make a GIF smaller.