Solution: Cinematic specification - NYT Crossword

This is the rabbit-hole entry of the day for me. “Cinematic specification” solves to FRAME RATE, the rate at which images are displayed in a moving picture. Commonly, this is 24 f.p.s., or frames per second, and it applies to digital cinematography as well as film. Silent movies had a lower frame rate, 16 f.p.s., but the addition of sound created an issue of synchronicity that was resolved by increasing the rate to 24. More recently, directors like Peter Jackson and Ang Lee have experimented with high frame rates of 48 and 120 frames per second. The human eye doesn’t seem to like this, but some people, notably fighter pilots and video gamers, can perceive very high frame rates, so this may be an acquirable trait.