The best, most effective slow motion

[Toaster]

I've seen a number of posts relating to effective slow motion processes, but I'm wondering if anyone has had a particularly stellar experience with the DVX.

Using:
- DVX, 24p (not pa)
- FCP 4.5

- Did you shoot 60i
- Did you convert 60i to 60fps, then to 24 fps
- How did you do it?

- Did you shoot 30fps
- Did you convert 30 fps to 24 fps?
- How did you do it?

I'll take recommendations/instructins and post using those examples.

(Santa, please deliver the HVX ... now!)

[Justin_Kirch]

Toaster,

As most posts about slow motion come up, we find that people usually shoot 60i and play it back at 60%. That's what is most effective from what I've read 50 times.

[Thomas J. O'Hara]

the best slowmo i've seen on here is a basketball clip...i forget who did it...
i'll try to find it for you.

he has all the specs and his method posted as well:thumbsup:

[Thomas J. O'Hara]

ok found it

http://www.dvxuser.com/V3/showthread.php?t=30563&highlight=basketball

[Thomas J. O'Hara]

aw crap, his link is broken...

well, take my word for it- his slo mo was SLICK

so if you follow his suggestions i think you'll be in good shape:beer:

[khmuse]

Shooting at 30p and inserting the footage into a 24p time line will give you the highest quality results possible from a DVX (but only a 20% speed reduction). Shooting at 60i will give you a much more speed reduction, but with a noticeable loss of quality.

[TimurCivan]

Toaster,

As most posts about slow motion come up, we find that people usually shoot 60i and play it back at 60%. That's what is most effective from what I've read 50 times.


60% or 40%?

[Justin_Kirch]

it clearly says "play it back at 60%"

[Toaster]

Cool. I've run several test and so far i've yielded the sharpest, cleanest, most liquid slo-mo with the following:

- Shoot 30P
- Shutter = 120
- Pull into 29.97 timeline
- Reduce speed to 60%

Looks pretty awesome so far. Will continue to tweek and play around.

Side note: Shutter rtes higher than 120 are producing a very staccato look. Not liquid at all. Also pulling 30p (at 120 or higher shutter rate) into a 24p timeline produces a very staccato look as well. hmm...

Examples coming soon.

[TimurCivan]

kinda thought barrys book said 60i should be slowed to 40% and 30p to 80%... maybe i just remember wrong.

cool lemme try it out.

[Toaster]

Hey X2, yeah -- I have Barry's book (kicks a$$) but I'm looking for a slower slo-mo. At 80% it just hints at slo-mo. 60% seems to be the floor .. anything below that looks forced and unnatural ...

[Justin_Kirch]

x2, i didn't mean to sound like an ass. i've read slo-mo threads about 500 times and most, not all, have said that 60i played back at 60% have been ideal.

[Thomas J. O'Hara]

i did a few slomo tests a while back when i first got barry's book...
I followed his methods exactly and both worked great.
the only problem I found was shooting 60i- the playback on my editor's timeline was flawless, but once I rendered out, it was getting duplicate frames every 5th frame.
so I guess i'm just hitting a wall in my rendering methods.
I kind of gave up after that, maybe I should give it another go.
so I guess i'm just hitting a wall in my rendering methods.

here's my test, if you go frame by frame you can see how every other frame is a duplicate.

http://www.t-mun-e.com/movies/slomotest.mov

[xl70e3]

lol guys it's just that many NLEs are different in that respect. In some you have to enter the desired clip speed, which in the 60i24p case should be 40%. And in the others you have to enter the amount by which you want to slow the clip down, which is 60%.

40% out of 60 = 24

[TimurCivan]

yea it also has to do with your settings. in a few frustrating hours, i have been trying to get this damn 60i clip to play smoothy slowe d down, at 80% 60% and 40%. in a 24P timeline.


and i have been getting that duplicate frames thing.

BUT!!!!!

i discovered somehting, 40% can yield a DEAD smooth super slomotion, in vegas at least. Right click the event in the timeline go to properties, change its playback rate to .4 (40%) and then choose smart resample, with "reduce " interlace flicker checked either on or off ( i am not at my computer now, so i cant remeber exactly.) but i rendered like 9 samples with these various settings. and i found a magic setting.

i actually ( like a dork) too ka picture of the settings scren so i can replicate it. i will post footage of the test tomorrow. you atually can use 40%, you just have to set it up the rightway.

[TimurCivan]

lol guys it's just that many NLEs are different in that respect. In some you have to enter the desired clip speed, which in the 60i24p case should be 40%. And in the others you have to enter the amount by which you want to slow the clip down, which is 60%.

40% out of 60 = 24


yup thatwas probably the misunderstanding.

[Thomas J. O'Hara]

can't wait to see the findings!

[TimurCivan]

Ok herewe go. 60i dropped to Play back at 40% speed. (B&W)

And the origional in Color.


most of the clip wont be used, of course, as its just cut away, and noone wants o see teh same image for 30 seconds in a music video but, they are there in their entirety.

FYI this is the firs time i am posting footage!
I am very excited!

http://www.stickypod.com/stickypod_upload/uploads/Slomotest2.mov


http://www.stickypod.com/stickypod_upload/uploads/Origional.mov

Incase the links dont work, i actualy am not sure how to link it properly.
http://www.stickypod.com/stickypod_upload/index.php?module=main-gallery&gallery=101


the settings were as follows.

IN VEGAS 5.0

<<<<Playback rate .400
29.97 clip framerate

Smart resample.

reduce interlace flicker off.>>>>

it worked great, i ahve been struggling with slomo for weeks now. ( i never needed it before thsi current project)

and this seemed to work.

reduce interlace flicker can be on, but it just seems to further soften the image. FYI the compression of DV really comes out when you slow it down alot. in the shadow side of the guys face, its all pixelated. ( i n the origional ) the .MOV version is kinda pixelated all over.... i am not good with this compression thing.

enjoy. hope its help ful.

[Beat Takeshi]

You Go Boiiii!!!!

[TimurCivan]

haha

[TimurCivan]

hey aram how'd the auditions go?

[Serif]

Xmag, that was slick.

[TimurCivan]

grazie

[TimurCivan]

im not even a very good camera man. i was using a crap 20$ tripod as a steadycam. on the origional speed version it looks really shaky, but in slomo it looks better.

[Thomas J. O'Hara]

awesome man, no duplicate frames!
i'm gonna give it another go.

[TimurCivan]

Tj you using Vegas?

[Thomas J. O'Hara]

yeah, vegas 5d

[Thomas J. O'Hara]

x2mag68- hang on...600+ posts and this is the first time you've posted footage??!:shocked:

[TimurCivan]

yup i never had anywhere to host footage. but i too kup Stickypods offer of 1 gig of free Video hosting space for DVxuser.com members

[Toaster]

Xmag -- are you shooting 24p or 24pa? Are you in pure 60i - F1 (ala soap opera look) or are you in 60i w/24p enabled through the menu (F1, menue = 24p)?

ROCK.

[TimurCivan]

shoot in 60i F1, Then drop the 60i footage into a 24p timeline, set up from the Preferences of Vegas, then just make thoes settings adjustments and Voila.

its frame accurate slomo.

[Toaster]

so you started with that crazy tv look in 60i? I just shot some 60i "regular" and some 60i 24p (i wonder if setting 24p in 60i just overrides the 60i and puts you n 24p???)

[TimurCivan]

Nono for shooting slomo, yo uhave ot shoot either 30p or 60i. The point of slow motion is that you want as many frames to be recorded per second as possible. that way you can slow thoes "frames" to 24 Frames per second, and the motion looks smooth. The Dvx does shoot 24p IN a 60i stream but its just adapting it to a format that any NLE can understand.

but to do slow motion you have to shoot Regualr 60i or 30p. and then slow it downto match the 24P framerate. FYI the time line itself hasto be a native 24p timeline, almost all NLE's do that.

The NLE will take the fields of 60i and duplicatete them, so that each field behaves like a progressive frame.

its way confusing.... it took me like 4 days straight of thinking to under stand this crap. but once you get it youre like.... OH HELL that was so simple why did it take that long......

hope that answered what you wnted to know.

[Toaster]

x2 - yeah thanks man. I've actually been shooting with the dvx for quite some time now (picked up the pre "A" version when it first came out) and am pretty comfortable with it. However, I have never attepted to do any slo-mo. I was always of the "it's not true overcrank, so it must look forced and lame" ilk. But I've been seeing some really nice slo motion, so i thought I'd give it a whirl. I'll probably master the technique right after the HVX is released!

Anyway thanks again. I shot some 60i at 120 shutter the other night, pulled it into a 29.97 timeline (in FCP) and it look pretty decent. Not killer like a varicam ... not by any stretch .. but not so bad. I'm shooting a music vid this weekend .. I think I might test it more extensively on them ... heh heh heh!

Peace.

[TimurCivan]

well the HVx is true Over crank. ..... Me sad....

I think it would be awesome to shoot 720P at 60, then down cnvert to SD on the tape. Full rez 60 motion sample per second........ Drooooolllll

But i have no HVX. and no means for one..... so i cry by myself in a little corner...


Also, Toaster? Whats the crazy TV look you keep mentioning...? i cant figure ot what i did that is the Crazy tv look? lol

[Toaster]

Ahhh .. the "TV" look is simply the 60i interlaced look. Non-progressive. I only use 60i when I shoot bmx/blade/skateboard stuff ... b/c it produces a sharper image for high speed action... unlike 24p, even with the shutter cranked up to 250/500. And it gives the x-sports dyi look/vibe of a consumer cam.

I'm so pumped about the HVX ... that's the shiz and I seriously can't wait to get it in my hands.

Damn... my coffee is cold and i just took a huge swig. Yuck! Ugh!

[Peter Gaudry]

Here's what worked for me:

what I wanted to do was the cliche scene of a group of dudes walking towards the camera looking tough. The whole movie is 24pa, so I shot in 60i them walking towards me.

Then I took that 60i footage, and brought it into JES deinterlacer. That made the 60i into 60p, hence doubling the movies duration (there is an option where you specifically choose 'double duration').

Then I took that into quicktime pro, and exported as image sequence. Then I reimported it back in to quicktime as an image sequence, and chose frame rate of 23.96. QUicktime will prompt you to choose a frame rate.

Once that's done, save the movie as self contained (makes it huge, but stops you from relying on all those wretched image files). Delete the image files, and import your final slow mo movie into FCP, or your NLE.

Once in FCP I still had to render it, not sure why, but it finally sat happy on a 24pa timeline and looked great.

Let me know what questions you have.

[Toaster]

Hey man .. very cool!

- What was your final speed reduction? 40%?
- What is JES
- Do you have a sample clip?

I'm finding that going the 60i route will produce a fairly slick slow motion look, but really looses its effectiveness once you move anywhere above 40-45% (i.e., 60% looks terrible and video-ish).

-K

[Peter Gaudry]

It probably was 40%, although I didn't pay any attention, it just looked great.
Get JES from GOogle, it's free, and easy to use - follow my instructions. I can maybe get a sample clip for all to see tonight.

[HansK]

Get JES from GOogle, it's free, and easy to use
http://www.xs4all.nl/~jeschot/home.html

[Beat Takeshi]

x2mag68- we didnt have them yet. We were going to have them this weekend but its pushed to next weekend.

[Toaster]

Thanks guys ...

[Toaster]

Ok, so I had a music video shoot this past weekend up in New Hampshire. Shot the majority of it with a slo-mo theme in mind. I cranked up the audio to 143% for playback which will give me a nice 70% slomo, but with the vocals perfectly in sync with the "true" audio speed. I dropped a few shots last night and they are looking pretty slick (alas, not as slick as the new HVX slo-mo that was just posted). I'll be posting some examples soon. In short I shot

24P at 120 (regular speed)
30P at 120 (will be reduced to 70%)
60i at 120 (will be reduced to 40%)

Pumped.

[Thomas J. O'Hara]

how do you speed the audio clip to 143% in vegas?

[TC]

WOW, I was just thinking about this thread last night. One thing I needed to do today was find this thread and test the findings.

Then someone else resurects it. Weird.

[konsti]

I did the following:

recording:
50i
1/120

editing using FCP:
25p project, set the clip speed on 50%, deinterlace the interlaced clips with the fcp deinterlace filter
and color-correction :thumbsup:

Here is a short clip (6Mb):
clip (http://www.conveyfilm.com/files/50slomo.mov)

-konsti