for unedited funny cat videos and the bulk of youtube stuff there isn’t a problem, as youtube handles a variety of frame rates, as does most domestic playback kit. In fact most “30fps” cameras aren’t even 30fps or 29.997fps drop frame but something in between, leading to even more headaches.

but if people are collaborating on a video the project needs to be at a uniform frame rate, and all applications and equipment handling picture and sound standardised to this, or everything will go adrift sooner or later. Similarly transmission streams (for instance even online radio plays up when there is a mixture of 128k, 192k and 256k on the streams, some players handle it, others don’t).

And local community broadcasters are going to be using the prevaling tech standard of their area (EBU or SMTPE based).

At least in analogue days video kit was either PAL/SECAM or NTSC and it was extremely unusual to get content from both mixed up in the same country. Now it is all jumbled up everywhere.

The playout and editing systems of local TV stations tend to still choke on “foreign” formats unless dealt with even though everything is digital and most of them are still using at least one piece of legacy kit or software (same with radio and bitrates for audio).

You can use avidemux to alter the frame rate of 30fps content (or vice versa) but its an extra stage between ingest and editing. With the digital “revolution” essentially downsizing local media to hobby projects weaved in between others day jobs and reducing the time for post production (whilst insisting on near immediate release) any extra work isn’t really a good thing.

Its not nostalgia, 25fps/ (sometimes 50fps progessive) is still the standard used everywhere in Europe for professional broadcasting even in the digital age, “normal” television and its associated transmission methods still remains popular and analogue kit has not completely disappeared – even though the mains frequency is not used as a timing reference as often as it once was. Many organisations are going to have loads of legacy content at the countries frame rate.

Hollywood still uses 24fps for its productions even though film isn’t used as much.

So non linear editing software is set for a project frame rate and converting content is an extra hassle. (its even more complex for USA showing hollywood productions on telly, which gets really complicated).

Most higher end camcorders sold in the UK, EU and the bulk of Asia will still be 25/50fps, and DSLRs sold internationally let you select frame rates. (it would therefore have been simple to put a setting in the firmware for this!)

EBU TECHNICAL – Test Sequences

there are (perhaps optimistic) plans to replace current HDTV by other resolutions, but the broadcasters and producers are all sticking to their frame rates (or exact multiples thereof), especially as cinema films worldwide still are shot at 24fps, and there will still be some legacy analogue kit around for decades (professional equipment is meant to last much longer). Playback equipment can now handle global standards anyway.

There is a recommendation for 120fps globally for the ultra HD TV (as well as all the other legacy frame rates!) but that is very new and in reality most remaining production facilities the world over have only just converted to HD production at their national frame rates.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rec._2020

Switching frame rates/aspect ratios etc on broadcasted content (whether digital/analogue) is far from trivial – I rarely watch normal telly nowadays but when I do Arqiva is still struggling with correct switching of 4:3 and 16:9 content and they started struggling with it 12 years ago when I was working as a broadcast engineer as a day job.

That said I’m not sure if these will ever get implemented as technology is diverted from peacetime stuff like broadcasting and entertaintent back to military usage in a less certain world. Given the world can’t agree on law, religion or other politics any further standardisation in the market is unlikely (especially as even 30fps has some oddities like being actually 29.97fps). In any case production and content quality has declined and resource constraints lead to very high compression rates, so most “HD” stuff isn’t half as good as it is claimed to be.