Can you over/under crank the a-1

BillyHoyle

BillyHoyle

Member
1.) I just saw some amazing undercranked(fast-motion) footage on the HVX200. Can you do the same with the XH-a1?

2.) Does anyone know if the Brevis35 works well with the a-1?
 
The A1 can shoot at 30fps and 24fps and that's it. Depending on which format you are shooting, you can of course shoot the other for basic limited over/under cranking. That's about it.

Offspeed shooting is one of the big features of the HVX-200 thanks to P2

- Mikko
 
you can certainly simulate it with slowshutter speeds and speeding up in post. or shoot 1080i and slow down like on a dvx.
 
Timur's correct. While there's no doubting that the HVX is easily the most suited for the purpose, (off-speed fx) much of the "overcrank/undercrank" look and feel can be achieved with an A1 by a combination of shooting modes and post-processes.

Forgot to say: yes, the Brevis can work quite well with the A1.
 
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thanks fellas

thanks fellas

thank you guys for the info...especially brandon Roy(elton) for that amazing footage. I was worried I couldn't get footage anything like the HVX, but your footage reassured me that I should go with the a1...much appreciated. Is it easy doing all those conversions in FCP?
 
You're welcome...and you're the first to recognize the fella in the avatar. What can I say, I'm a Blazer fan and ecstatic about having the ROY and also getting Oden.

FCP--it's extremely easy to speed up 24F footage...you just need to shoot with a shutter speed in mind for the intended effect. Slow shutters look good for hyper-speed effects.

For slowmo, it's more complicated. The built-in frame blending slowmo in FCP is not bad at all if you stay in a 1080i timeline, but to integrate 24F and 1080i footage together takes a little know-how about pulldown.

There's a great plug-in for FCP made by Graeme Nattress called "Standards Conversion" that has a nice deinterlacer called "Fields to Frames" which will make each 1440x540 interlaced field a standalone frame and put into a 60p sequence. This is the fastest method I've found for converting i to p, but if you have the patience for render time, Compressor does an absolutely phenomenal job of converting 1080i into 720 60p or even 1080 60p, believe it or not. It does a wonderful job of anti-aliasing and can make 1080i footage intercut with 1080 24F so that nobody--and I mean nobody--can notice any sort of resolution drop.

Lots of ways to go. Good luck with your decision.
 
Elton,

I have a quick question. In Compressor, can you just select a clip and tell it to export as a 1080 60p or 720 60p clip, or do you still need a deinterlacing application? The reason I ask is I will be buying a Mac soon, and I will need to plan for any additional software purchases in addition to Final Cut Studio 2.

Also, has anyone out there tried to capture their footage in slow mode. Both the A1 and HV20 remotes have a slow playback speed button. I was playing back some footage the other day, and I have to say it looks pretty good. It may not look as good as Elton's FCP method, but for those of us without FCP, After Effects, or Twixtor it is one other option.

Currently I have Premiere Pro 2.0 for editing, so those other options are not yet available to me. I haven't attempted to capture footage in slow playback mode yet, but I am planning on shooting some tests soon.
 
Compressor IS the deinterlacing application. There's a tab in the Inspector called "Frame Controls" which if you set almost all the options to "best" you can get great results...just expect some signifigant render time. This is the optical flow stuff that was inherited from Shake.

The tab should look something like this, with the frame dimensions being either 1920 x 1080 (for 1080 60p conversion) or 1280 x 720. (720 60p conversion)

1187127318.jpg


I suggest exporting HDV 1080i as ProRes HQ or uncompressed and then integrating in a ProRes timeline with (presumably) HDV 24F material. (a final 23.98 ProRes sequence)

This minimizes recompression and gives you a CineForm-like super high-quality intermediate format to finish in. The problem with going back to HDV is it's another pass of heavy compression on the footage when you manipulate it further in post. When converted to ProRes it can hold up better through multiple passes.

Slow playback mode: It worked well for me when I captured through my Kona card, but results weren't so good through firewire. I agree, the tape slow mode is surprisingly good but I believe it messes with the GOP structure through firewire so consider getting a HD capture card if you need this mode.
 
I am a big fan of the 'Optical Flow' which Elton mentions. Is FC Studio 2 you can now bring clips into motion, render an optical flow Slow Mo, and zap it back to FCP.

In my humble opinion this technology is even better than the pixel blending which AE uses.
 
The best way IMO to do under/overcrank with any camera that shots on tape is shoot 60i with the right shutter, then deinterlace to 60p, then do your speed changes. More frames, slight loss in quality but its worth it to have 60 frames to work with.

- Kyle
 
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