Overcranked Slow-motion samples from HD200/250
 

Carl Hicks and Keith DeCristo sent me some 720P60 clips to play with recently. I've conformed them to 24P (23.98fps) to see the effects of overcranked slow-motion.

Here's a short segment of Keith's clip of some Kung Fu in either H264 Quicktime (11.3MB) or Windows Media (6.8MB).

Here's Carl's clip of a juggler in either H264 Quicktime (15.7MB) or Windows Media (9.3MB).

It looks like 1/60th shutter speed was used when at least 1/120th should be used for overcranked slow-mo. Even so, these clips clearly demonstrate that overcranking works very well.

I should also mention that Keith's clip came straight from a m2t captured on a DR-HD100, but Carl's had already gone through Premiere Pro 2 and had been re-encoded into m2t before I did anything to it. Therefore, there are some extra compression artifacts.
Here is Carl's original sample (49MB) that he had slowed down in Premiere to 50%. I noticed that the frames had been improperly interpolated so I took the first part and conformed it properly to 24P.

So how do you shoot your own slow-motion?

Here's the method on Apple MacOS X.

1. Shoot some footage on a HD200 or HD250 in 720P60 (or 50). HD100/110 users can shoot standard definition 480P60 or 576P50.
   NOTE: If you are attempting to shoot 50P in North America with any type of flourescent source (KinoFlo) or gaseous lamp (sodium, mercury, metal halide, HMI,) you may have to set the variable shutter to around 1/60 or 1/120 to avoid flickering. (1/59.92 or 1/60.01) or (1/120.1 or 1/119.4) Square-wave HMI ballasts should cause no problems.
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2. Capture an m2t with HDVxDV, LumiereHD, or Apple's DVHSCap/VirtualDVHS.
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3. Open the m2t file in MPEG StreamClip. Cinema Tools can only conform the frame rate on quicktime I-frame based codecs, so we must transcode the m2t to quicktime.
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4. Choose "Export to Quicktime" (⌘+E)
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   Attachment 1714
5. Set the compression to your desired I-frame based codec. I chose "FCP Uncompressed 8-bit 4:2:2" in this example, but if you would like to save hard drive space this method also works with Apple Intermediate Codec.
   I also selected "1280x720 (unscaled)" because this was already a 720P clip, but you can also use this feature in MPEG Streamclip to uprez your 480P60 or 576P50 files to 1280x720 (or 1920x1080 for that matter.)
   I also set the frame rate to 59.94, but you can leave it blank and the file should still default to its current frame rate.
   NOTE: It is important NOT to set the frame rate to 23.98 at this point. Doing so would create a 24P file that plays in realtime. This could be useful if you want to pull 24P out of a 60P file, but for our slow-motion purposes we will leave it at 60P.
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   Attachment 1709
6. Now Launch Cinema Tools and open (⌘+O) your new Quicktime file.
   NOTE:Hit Cancel if you are asked to open a Cinema Tools database during launch. This is normal.
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   Attachment 1710
7. Click the Conform button and set the frame rate to 23.98 (or 29.97 if you plan to work in 30P.)
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   Attachment 1711
8. Cinema Tools will instantly modify the quicktime file by simply telling it to play at the new frame rate. You will notice that the sample rate of your audio has been lowered by the same amount to maintain sync, so 48khz becomes 19.2khz.
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   Attachment 1712
   You can now open the quicktime file and it plays in slowmotion. Cinema Tools has a little quirk that modifies the display size preference to 50%. Simply change this in the Quicktime Pro player to Actual size (⌘+1.)
   You can skip this step if you are going straight into FCP.

MPEG Streamclip has a batch export and Cinema Tools has a batch conform function if you need to process more than one clip at a time.

I'm going to re-shoot using higher shutter speeds- I love the motion trails generated by the slower shutter speed, but it may not be ideal considering the target audience for this test. I'll try to keep the sequence within 15-20 seconds.

Tim, I hope I can bother you again to do some web encoding?

Tim,

Thanks for posting these. Almost doesn't look like slow motion. Its minimal. Would love to see something like running or other really fast motion, slowed down.

I have another question. Can I shoot a whole movie in 60P and edit it in 24p making some clips slow motion and others not? I use FCP5. I am shooting a small action short and some of it will be slowmotion, but to change camera from 24f to 60f on set between shots may be too time consuming.

How about posting the original m2t's please.

Yes, it is actually very easy to do this with Mpeg Streamclip.
You just need to enter 23.976 into the frame rate box when exporting to quicktime. Mpeg Streamclip will cherry-pick 24 frames out of the 60 and create a new file 24P quicktime. This is similar to a reverse telecine process from a 60i transfer, but of course the math is easier and the process is "dummy proof" because every one of the 60 frames is progressive.
You should test it out first and make sure sync is maintained with long clips. I tested this only on Keith's short clip.

I actually shot some running in 60P over a year ago. Here is the link:
http://homepage.mac.com/timdashwood/...lo-mo_test.mov

Here's the small bit of Keith's original m2t. I had to trim it to just a few seconds to make the download manageable.
Right-Click here - 13MB

I posted a link to the original m2t Carl sent me in the top post. Unfortunately, it isn't original straight from the camera, but had been through PP2. Carl is going to try to get the original clip for us.

Great clips, but for some reason the slo-mo didn't look as smooth and filmlike as expected or as smooth as the HVX200 60P footage. Was that because of the shutter speed? I have seen some very smooth SD60P footage with the HD100, and expected the same, but with higher resolution from the HD200/250.

Here is the type of slow motion rendition we've been getting from the HD-250. I've added a sample clip with slowed down footage, and on part of the clip I slowed down the audio as well to display how slow it really is. The first part is strobed on purpose.

The clip is 60p with the default shutter speed for 60fps and laid on a 29.97 timeline and then slowed 50%. I'm pleased with the motion rendition so far.

Click here for Windows Media HD

S.Noe

How fast is your processor?

I can assure you that 720P60 clips, when slowed down properly, are as just as "smooth" as shooting 60fps on film or 60P on the HVX.

With that said, I tried playing the clips I posted on my Dual1.2Ghz G4 and I couldn't keep the frame rate constant. However, when I play these clips on a Duo2Ghz Macbook Pro they are as smooth as smooth can be.
H264 and WM HD need alot of processing horsepower, especially at the 6-8Mbps rates I used to compress them.
The 1/60 shutter speed used is the equivalent of using a 1/24th shutter when shooting 24P, so the motion blur is unnaturally long. The shutter speed really should be above 1/120 to exactly mimic the look of overcranked film at 60fps.

Stephen,

Would you mind sending me the original captured m2t of the shot where the gun drops? It looks like your NLE is interpolating the frames and I'd like to try the Mac process on it.

Wouldn't that create a light issue, especially when I use my Mini35 which already lose 2 stops of light.

Duke

Yes, by approximately an extra 1⅓ from 1/48th, but that is the price of hi-speed shooting. That's one of the reasons you see sets so "overlit" when the DP is planning to shoot high-speed.

Also, 60fps isn't really considered that fast when it comes to action movies. 60fps is the norm on most film cameras with a hi-speed capability.

I know. it didn't really seem that slow at all, considering I am going to shoot people flipping through air etc, I am not sure 60p will be slow enough. What to do? Slow it down in FCP?

Brian, that's what has been bothering me too-the motion is just not slow enough. I wish it were half what I'm seeing now, but how do we achieve that? Anyone have any ideas?

Yes, it did interpolate those frames. I used the trailing slomo effect (cumulative effect of 2 frames) on the gun drop and gun pickup on purpose. The mother grabbing her head and the other woman entering the room are straight slow motion (frame for frame).

For some reason the m2t's slow motion doesn't look so slow. When I played it back at full speed, the woman is moving very quickly. I tried putting the file at 20% speed but then it becomes stop motion and I'm forced to use a mixed frame method in order to get it smooth @ 20%. 20% would be an effective framerate of 12fps. In this case (super slow motion) the Varicam and HVX200 are the champs.

None of the current HD camcorders can exceed 60fps. The Panasonic Varicam, Panavision Genesis, Arri D20, and I think even RED's maximum framerates are 60fps.
The Dalsa Origin can only go as high as 32fps, but the SI-2K seems to be the winner with a max of 72fps in 720P mode.

1080i and 1080PsF cameras generally only have a maximum framerate of 30fps because of the restrictions of 60i (even though some filmmakers have successfully used 1080i60 HDCAM for slow-mo ie:Once Upon A Time in Mexico)
The F350 XDCAM HD is the exception and can go as high as "60P" but I think Sony does this by using a single field of 1080i leaving you with 540 lines (Nate, can you please confirm this?)

There are hi-speed CCD/CMOS alternatives to hi-speed film cameras, but these are usually specially designed for research and need to be attached to a computer for direct capture to hard drive.
Dalsa makes some hi-def chips/cameras that can capture 100fps. I have seen footage from some hi-speed research CCD cameras that can capture as many as 1000fps!

The bottom line is that contrary to popular belief, film is far from dead.

If you are shooting action scenes and want frame rates higher than 60, your film options are:

• 35mm Wilcam hi-speed - up to 300fps. $1500/day
• 35mm Arri 435 - up to 150fps. $800/day
• 35mm Arri 35-3 with hi-speed control - up to 130fps. $375/day
• 35mm Mitchell 35R3 - up to 120fps. $350/day
• Super-16 Arri 16SR3 Hi-Speed - up to 150fps. $500/day

She is actually doing her Kung Fu very very quickly...That is why everyone thinks it doesn't look so slow.

The calculation of perceived speed is playback speed divided by camera speed. In this case 24 divided by 60 = 40%
Therefore shooting 60P and playing back at 24P is 40% speed of 'real-time', shooting 50P and playing back at 24P (or 25P) is around 50% speed.

No, 20% would be an effective frame rate of 120fps. As I mentioned in my post above, none of the currently available CCD/CMOS HD camcorders are capable of framerates above 60fps.

When you speak of 12fps in the Varicam and HVX200 you are referring to "undercranking" or "fast-motion." It is very easy to undercrank at 12fps on the HD100 by setting the shutter to 1/24th (for equivalent 180° shutter,) shoot in 24P, and then speed the clip up in post by 200%. This will effectively drop every other frame and you will have under-cranked footage shot at 12fps! Think "Keystone Cops."

I think there is misunderstanding. 20% of 60fps would be 12fps effective which is how my NLE calculates slow motion. ie with 60fps footage, I need to "conform" it in the time warp editor to 50% in order to make the framerate match up to 30fps on a 30fps timeline. If we're talking in camera then yes, we'd need to crank @ 120.

Oh... your 'playback framerate' is 12fps. That makes sense, but each frame would be doubled as you mentioned, and would require motion interpolation software if you wanted to create "in-betweens" to smooth it out. Twixtor can do this and I've used Avid Symphony's "timewarp" (I think that is what it is called) with success.
A few years ago I saw a demo at IMAX head office of some motion interpolation software they were working on to create smooth slow motion in post production. It was quite convincing - I wonder if they ever went anywhere with it? It still not as ideal as overcranking, but works in a pinch.

Is it just me or is the kung-fu clip really soft? The juggling clip looks good (if a bit dark) but the kung-fu looks like upconverted SD to me.

No it's not just you. I was going to ask Keith if he had checked his backfocus.

The clip played back fine, I believe it was just the motion blur I was noticing, especially in the Kung Fu clip. The motion blur tends to make the clip more like a 24P clip slowed down in post than a 60P clip. Either way Tim, thanks for the quick update and it's good to see that some 200/250 60P clips are starting to see the light of day. I am anxious to see some more soon.

thanks for posting the m2t file, it gave me the chance to do a test. im in europe working with pc and was wondering how to crank with edius pro.
opened a 720p 25 project, imported the m2t file into edius changed the framerate of the 60p clip to 25 in the clip property window, put it on the timeline, voila, nice slowmo.
i'm very excited! expect to get the hd200 this week.

Thomas

Hi, thank you Tim for posting all of this useful info. It will make my test-shooting shorter, anyway I was wondering as you talk about shooting in 60p and transfer over to 24p is it possible to shoot 50p an transfer that over to 24p with MPEG-streemclip. Or is it better to shoot 60p? (more frames when you do slowmo) I have a JVC PRO HD-111E

Also I heard that when shooting a music video (on film-mostily) they spreed up the music on the set by 20% shoot the video in 30fps and then in post (editing it in 24fps) they slow the hole video down, about 20% so they keep lip-sync but get a nice dreamlike effect. Has any one done that with the JVC cam. or a HDV cam. for that matter.

Sorry about my spelling, I come from a land far far away.

Yes. Both will work, but 50P will only give you about 50% speed, and 60P will give you 40% speed.

Yes... that works and I have done it before. In fact, I shot a music video once on an NTSC XL1 in frame mode and sped the music track up 125% speed. Then we slowed the footage down to 80% speed which equaled 24fps for instant 'filmlook.'
I know the math doesn't seem to make sense at first glance, but here's how it works.

30 ÷ 24 = 125% (speed your soundtrack up 25% for on-set playback.)

24 ÷ 30 = 80% (slow your 30P footage down to 80% speed to playback at 23.98fps. Perfect sync will be maintained.)


If you really want to make it hard on performers, try running at 50P! The calculations aren't as clean because 50P actually is 50fps, but 24P is only 23.976.
So...
50 ÷ 23.976 = 208.5% (speed the soundtrack up to 208.5% speed)

23.976 ÷ 50 = 47.95% (slow the footage down to 47.95% speed for 24P playback in perfect sync.)

Pouring wine in slow motion - HD200 60P
 

Here is a test I did with my new 200!

Originally shot at 60p with the iris fully open and a 100/shutter. I've used aspect HD with Premiere so they are not native HDV files and then compressed to sorenson video 3 for web.

http://www.andrewkramer.net/60pat24fps.mov
This is 60p slowed to 24 frames per second.
47MBs


http://www.andrewkramer.net/30ptest.mov
This is 60p at 30p in real time. (no slow motion)
19MBs

Process:
1. Filmed at 60p with shutter at 1/100 with aperature all the way open
2. (with aspect HD installed) created a new 60P project from the 24p 720p cineform preset and simply changed the frame rate to 60. I'm not sure if this is nenessary but I didn't see an option for 60p at 720p resolution.
3. Opened in After Effects and interpreted the footage as 24p and put on a 24p timeline.

Thought I would share.

Thanks Andrew. I'm going to append this to the stuck thread with the other slow-motion examples.

Can you please explain your process step by step?

Slowmo with Aspect HD and PP2
 

I was trying to make a slowmo-clip based on the description in the beginning of this thread, but then discovered it was for Mac users only, since there is no Cinema Tools for PC.

But I captured some 720/50p footage with Aspect HD from my HD201, put it in the Premiere Pro 2 timeline and set the framerate to 25p.

It plays back in slowmo and looks really good. But is this just about the same procedure and end-result as described in the beginning of this thread, just for PC? Will it give me the same quality slowmo as with Quicktime and Cinema Tools?

So I've got a strange issue with this. It's really got me stumped.

I shot a whole bunch of scenes on my GY-HD100 in SD 60p with the intent of slowing it all down using this method.

Everything, captures nicely into V-DVHS and looks good when loading into Mpeg Streamclip.

However, on the output of Mpeg Streamclip, everything is just a solid green screen. I know I've done this before, so I tried to figure out what it was that i was doing wrong. It seems that the ONLY way that I can get it to work is by using the upscaling feature. If I try to leave it at native resolution it fails every time. I'd prefer not to have to scale this back down in edit, but at least it's going to work!

Just thought I'd post a warning to anyone who's in the same situation.

I'm just curious. In jpg 1 Why did you choose 720p (unscaled) when there was a HD 720p setting?

It looks great, I'm just asking.

Dead Links
 

Both of these links are dead.

Now (er soon) the new FCP will incorporate Shake's wonderful Flow technology. Combining Flow interpolation with camera overcranking should allow you to get about as slow as your most "filmic" situations would call for.

I actually played with it at the JVC booth. They had my Sundance 720P60 test footage loaded into FCP6 (with 720P60 support.)
It is pretty cool, but you still have to "send" the clip to motion and apply re-timing. Optical Flow doesn't seem to literally be in the FCP app itself.

Well, that would be a little disappointing. I know that Smooth Motion is now a plug-in. I could have swore that re-timing could now be done right on the FCP timeline as well, and that behind-the-scenes it will be using the Flow technology.

Tim or others,

I tried to capture a 60P clip from my DR-100 into HDVXDV but for some reason it keeps capturing it as a 2 second clip, even though its like a minute. I open HDVXDV and then find the clip on the Firestore DR100 and hit open. It does open it and it does play the full clip, but when trying to export it it only exports as a 2 second clip, not the full clip. What settings do I need to use?

If it is on the DR-HD100 then you don't need HDVxDV. Simply plug the DR-HD100 into your mac as a hard drive and open the m2t file with MPEGStreamclip. Convert it to quicktime (AIC, uncompressed, photo-jepg 75%, etc.) without changing the frame rate (don't enter anything in the frame rate box.)
Then use Cinema Tools to conform the new quicktime clip to 23.98fps.

Thanks Tim. I may sound stupid, but is "MPEGStreamclip" a program, or is it part of FCP?