Flick, the new time unit instead of seconds, uses Facebook video frame rate

Not a new feature, but Facebook introduced a new time unit, like seconds, minutes, and hours that we're still familiar with.

According to Facebook and Oculus, Flick is the smallest unit of time, larger than a nanosecond. Specifically:

1 nanosecond equals 1 / 1,000,000,000 seconds.

1 Flick equal to 1 / 705,600,000 of a second.

It means 1 Flick = 1.41723356 nanoseconds.

But why does Facebook have to create this new time unit without using the available and common seconds.

According to Facebook's explanation, Flick (abbreviated from frame-tick) was created to measure the time each frame appears in the video as an integer. This makes it easy for editors and developers to handle video, apply effects, frame processing in the game . If you use a traditional second unit, the result will be a decimal.

For example:

1/24 fps frame: each frame lasts ~ 0.04 seconds = 29400000 flick

1/25 fps frame: each frame lasts 0.04 seconds = 28224000 flick

1/30 fps frame: each frame lasts ~ 0.033 seconds = 23520000 flick

1/48 fps frame: each frame lasts ~ 0.02 seconds = 14700000 flick

Using integers like this will ensure everything is synchronized, especially in film and 3D effects graphics techniques.

In fact, programmers have used C ++ built-in tools to manage accurate frame synchronization types, especially when designing visual effects in CGI. Just deviating from 0.001 is the image you see, so using seconds time units makes each frame become a decimal, making it harder to handle.

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