1 I know. What were they thinking? Were they thinking? Or was this just the first kludge that worked, and we've been stuck through the need for backward compatibility ever since?

2 That's the actual frame rate per second for theater films, right?

3 No, theaters went with the more logical 24 fps. NTSC was originally 30 fps, but when they added color in 1953, they fudged things to a misbegotten 29.97, using the saved bandwidth on color while retaining backward compatibility with the extant black and white sets. In order to play back 24 fps material in a normal seeming fashion on 30 fps televisions, you have to repeat frames every so often - every fourth frame. The simplest solution in dealing with the problem for 29.97 fps sets was to keep the same ratio of 1:1.25 (24:30) - and that's how we ended up with dvds formatted in 23.97602 fps... and the consequent truly irritating problems in converting video from one format to another. To say nothing of the problems involved in synching the audio up again.