Smoothcam Analysis Time
 

Hello,has anyone been using the smoothcam filter? I placed it on a 30 second clip yesterday at 5 pm. The analysis window came up and it said estimated time 10 hours. I though I would let it run just to see the results. Its 12 noon the following day and its still in analysis. Im using a quad core 2.6 with 3 gig of ram and 900 gig raid 0 ......why so long?

If your 30 second clip is part of a longer clip (say an hour long capture) then for reasons I don't comprehend, FCP wants to look at the entire hour long clip. I don't understand the reasoning behind this at all, but that's how it works. I haven't done any software updates lately, anyone know if they've fixed this problem or if they are going to fix it?

According to Heath McKnight's review, it takes a while, but having seen the before and after, the results are worth it.

-gb-

A good work-around the this issue is to export a self contained QT Movie with handles and then analyze that clip, the same method works when sending a clip to Motion for optical flow speed analysis

That's my frustration with both these tools, there shouldn't be any work around needed, it should just work. Anybody know the technical reason why FCP can't just analyze between an in and out point, or why motion can't do the same? Maybe I'm just lazy, but I find it frustrating.

Ethan,

The Steadycam filter is unique in that requires not just the application of an algorythm like most other filters, but a subroutine combining ANALYSIS of the underlying footage to set parameters in advance.

The convention of placing in and out points and exporting a new clip makes it easy and foolproof for the program to know PRECISELY which part of the master clip you wish to apply the long and relatively complex analysis to.

Essentially: Affect THIS clip ONLY and leave everything else (the parent clip, the bracketing transitions, sub-sequences, whatever) ALONE.

Since it's a "special case" request for processing, doing it this way is much easier, I suspect, than having EVERY clip in your timeline "look" for Smoothcam processing changes/parameters all the time.

My guesses anyway.

Personally, I'm just delighted to have the capabilities, even if it does require a small bit of work around. (Probably because I had a project come through with "client-shot" awful handheld footage that smoothcam handily saved.) The profit from that job alone will pay for years of FCP upgrades - so thanks FCP team!

Thanks Ethan,thats exactly what it did. The short clip is part of about an hour of Dv footage. I will try the self contain Quicktime movie.

Ok,I exported the clip and imported back in. I dropped it into the time line ,applied the filter and now it just sits....saying "Queued for Analysis" How do I execute the analysis?

I found SmoothCam to be alot like my wife...some days it loves me, some days it does not. Try it again, see if it will analyze it the next time, if not, delete render files, close FCP, re-open. analyze, the render again.

That did kick it into gear Jim. Thanks. However the easiest way was to go back and only capture what I want to apply the smoothcam to. Then it jumped right on it and rendered in 7 minutes.
However after looking at the results....nothing beats steady footage