Slow motion issue

[mikehende]

My question regards "slow motion",my son is an athlete and I want to be able to play back his films in slow motion to analyse his workouts/performance.I don't have much money to spend on expensive equipment but I would like to have slow motion like the NFL or NBA,I mean true slow motion that goes "fluidly" backwards and forward and not the frame by frame or 1/4 speed nonsense that some call slow motion.
I bought a DVR feature from Dish network a couple of days ago after a Tech of theirs told me that if I were to record an even,their slo-mo will be what I want,well,it is not so I'm back to square one.My camcorder too does not give me the slo-mo that I require,I imported the video file into my pc and searched the net for a slo-mo program to do it but cannot find anything.
So I guess I am looking for 2 basic things right now,

1]A software that will play back my video files with effective slo-mo

2]A way to record the video files in the first place that will give what I need.I was looking at a feature the other day on TV that showed how Steve Sabol,the guy who does the NFL films records the films and I came across something very interesting,he said that they film the game with one camera at regular speed and use another camera and film in slow motion,this suggests to me that when we see "highlights" on TV it might be coming from the slow motion reel so I was wondering if my Canon Videocam can record at slo-mo speed too?

Would appreciate any help/advice/links that will help with the 2 issues above please,thanks.

 

[DerekEastham]

OK,
What you're looking for is video editing software...
most of any basic software available today has a motion effects feature.

Here's the deal though, and I'm going to be brutally honest with you.

That "1/4 speed nonsense" & what not that you talk about... well, that's just how they do slow motion in the NFL/NBS/MLS/etc, etc, etc.

They just have live editing machines to do all of that live.

So... whatever you've got available for video editing software... look for it.

Try a lower percentage rate of slowness...
if you have one that will let you specify a specific percentage... try something between 60 and 74... if you've only got one that gives you fractions... try playing it at around 3/5 to 3/4 speed.

You may not like the outcome... but realize that without the thousands (and yes sometimes millions) of dollars of equipment that the NFL, NBA & filmmaking community use to create slow motion, you're not going to always get the result you want... also, with a hand-held consumer level cam-corder for the home, you're also not going to get the best results... which is why the NFL, NBA, etc. use very expensive camera's where just the camera lense alone costs somewhere between 10 and 50 thousand dollars.

Anyhow...
from an experienced editor... that's the best advice I can give you...

If you have Windows XP, try using windows movie maker... if you have an Apple Macintosh computer, try I-movie.


As for issue number 2... the answer is no.
Unless you have a very VERY expensive camera (we're talking tens of thousands of dollars)... your camera can not record in slow motion. A camera that records in slow motion is actually recording much faster than the normal camera's frame rate.
Normally, a consumer camera (like your cannon cam-corder) records about 30 frames per second (29.97 to be exact)... however... to record in slow motion a camera needs to be running much faster than that. Anywhere from 31 frames per second to 10,000 frames per second... or faster, though I've not heard of a camera recording faster than that.
Also... with sports shows today, most of them are just the same camera, but their slow motion equipment in the control booth is what's actually recording the image... all sports camera's today are just lenses with electronics behind them that send the image to a control room where everything is recorded, and rebroadcast to the public.

So... your options at the moment remain to get your footage in the computer, use the software that was hopefully included on your computer, and use what motion effects are available on there for you to use.


Good luck & happy slow-motion!

 

[mikehende]

Hi Derek,you are absolutely correct,I've been told the exact same things by others.What I've decided to do now is to try to get a "software" that will do the job,I have found 1 so far that cost a little over $500,it's the "Pinnacle Liquid Edition",I am going to try the Demo but from everything I've seen so far,it looks like this software will do what I want but I am looking around for something cheaper just in case there is something out there,if anyone reading this knows of any,then please post here,thanks.

 

[DerekEastham]

Hmm...

Well, Liquid Edition is one that I've heard many good things about... but at a price of 500 dollars... and my experience with Pinnacle & thier line (which is a really good line of products)... I just don't know that you're going to get any better motion effects from their 500 dollar program than you will from their 100 to 200 dollar program.

If I were you I would be sure to check out a Demo of the Pinnacle Liquied Edition product & the Pinnacle Studio version 9 product line as well before making a choice. The Studio products can run you anywhere between 100 and 200 bucks... where Liquid Edition runs you 550... so, if you find the motino effects in Studio to be the equal, or good enough in comparison, you could save yourself 3 to 4 hundred dollars.

There are lots of better software makers out there...
Sony Vegas
Apple's Final Cut Pro/Express
Avid's Avid Express/Pro etc. all the way upto their expensive Nitris system

There are others that are good... but charge too much buck for their bang...
Adobe Premiere

If you narrow your field down to one or two pieces of software...
you'll want to try asking as many people about it as possible before making the final purchase decision... that way you can be sure that you're getting the right software for you.

Personally, I've had experience with the Studio line of Pinnacle software... I found it to be great for what I needed at the time... and the slow motion effects were great for the wedding I was doing... but I don't have experience with their Liquid line of products... so I don't know the comparison.

Anyhow,
Good luck & happy buying.

P.S. In the future, you may want to post on a topic like this in the "POST PRODUCTION" forum... this "After Effects" forum is actually a forum designed for the program Adobe After Effects.

 

[mikehende]

Actually,it was someone on another forum that I had joined for this same purpose who recommended "a cheap program from Pinnacle" that works well but could not remember the name of the product,when I called Pinnacle folowing up on that lead I spoke to a Tech and the only software he recommended was the Liquid.I am guessing now the version 9 line you mentioed might/should be the one the other person was trying to tell me about,now that I have the name I will go try out the demo of that line before deciding on the Liquid,thanks a million for the help,if and when I find something I will post back here.Thanks.

 

[Tim Kolb]

There are others that are good... but charge too much buck for their bang...
Adobe Premiere

If you narrow your field down to one or two pieces of software...
you'll want to try asking as many people about it as possible before making the final purchase decision... that way you can be sure that you're getting the right software for you.

.

Interesting. Pinnacle products aren't bad, but I think Premiere Pro is a change for the better in the Adobe lineup. Certainly far more stable running than the base level Avid products in my experience (I'm a producer/director and I work a bit with Adobe development...yes, biased but not delusional).



You may want to look at Premiere Elements during your search. It's not expensive (129 USD maybe...) and may give you what you're looking for...

 

[mikehende]

Hi Tim, this is THE BEST software I've come across so far for my needs, does evrything I want, easy to understand/navigate and a hell of a lot cheaper than Pinnacle liquid at $500, thank you very much for this referral, all the best to you!

 

[DerekEastham]

(I'm a producer/director and I work a bit with Adobe development...yes, biased but not delusional).

I do agree that the new premiere is their best release yet... but I still stand by my point, and you may want to mention this to Adobe, that their software works the computer way too hard for what it delivers (no matter the effect).

Once they cut down on the useless processing, the program will be a lot higher on my list...
but as it goes, it is still a good product to use.

Best,
Derek

 

[Tim Kolb]

Useless processing?

I guess I have no real response as I don't know enough about programming and I really don't perceive the program "lagging"...and I do most of my work on a laptop. A pretty hi-test laptop, but a laptop nonetheless.

have any insight on what characterizes the unnecessary processing?

(an honest question...not a challenge)

 

[DerekEastham]

Well... I really wish I could be more specific.

I've been editing for about eight years now on various computers, and many different editing systems.

The best I can explain my issues with Premiere, is that when I ask any editing program to do something, I pay attention to how much down time I have between starting a job and getting back to work in the program. From a customers point of view, I can tell you that when I've asked Premiere and Final Cut, from the same computer system, to go to work... the downtime in Final Cut Pro is far less than premiere, and generally has better quality images.
Similarly, using similar PC systems to edit video, I've noticed that Pinacle's Studio line of products generally out performed the down time and end product quality of video.

Really, Premiere fixed most of these things in their newest release... but I've still noticed a longer down time when asking Premiere to do something, compared to asking another professional program to do the same thing on a comprable system. So, to me, when you compare end product and have the same result, or better in the competitor, then I'm going to go (every time) with the one that saves me the most time and allows me the freedom to work continuously in post production. If Adobe can figure out how to reduce their downtime without loosing the quality of the output... then I think they'll really carve out a huge niche in the industry, and steal a lot more business back from Avid & FCP users.

It would similarly be nice if they could figure out a way to streamline the rendering processes in the After Effects program as well.


That's about as good as I can explain it... being an end-user rather than a programer.

 

[Tim Kolb]

It's definitely easy to get used to a workflow, and I guess that PPro is mine.

I just finished a project with a Producer in the room (something rare for me) and he was blown away by how fast PPro was compared to the Avid rooms he's worked in for most of his career...

I'm puzzled by the Pinnacle Studio statement...I suppose it is faster as the Studio line (that I know of anyway) of products are consumer products and have a smaller feature set, but the video quality that I have seen (and I can speak from experience here) isn't at the same level as PPro with DV...and since the Studio products only do DV, that would be the only real comparison. PPro uses Main Concept's exceptional DV codec which interpolates the color space of DV (4:1:1) up to 4:2:2 for very good color correction performance as well as effects, etc. When you start talking about doing uncompressed and HD, then PPro needs to be compared to other products of course.

I think you may be thinking of Premiere v6.x and earlier which used the stock Microsoft DV codec which was not very robust at all...and would be what Pinnacle's DV codec would definitely outshine.

As far as After Effects goes...AE is optimized for PC. Simple as that. I've seen head-to-head render tests done and a 2.8 Xeon (32 bit proc)absolutely smokes a G5 (64 bit proc). You'll get faster AE rendering on a 750.00 Dell than you will on many high end Macs.

Apple isn't really handling 32 bit programs very well in all cases in their new 64 bit world. AMD's Opterons actually do a much more respectable job of doing double duty as 32 and 64 bit math pumps...in my experience anyway.

(Keep in mind that 5 years ago, I had a shop with 9 Macs and if you'd have predicted that I would be down to only one in the ProTools suite today, I would've laughed you out of the building...and out of all the computers we have, THAT one is the most high maintenance...unbelievable.)

 

[DerekEastham]

Actually... you're right about the DV quality statements... that is based on 6x & earlier versions of Premiere.

Also... I think you're right about my concerns likely revolving around work flow... I really found it more natural for myself to synch with an Avid & FCP work flow scenario... though, I wish I could afford to have the Avid suite rather than the FCP suite.

As for Mac v PC... I've seen Avid Nitris do amazing things on a PC that should be a slug compared to my G5... but that's a problem that apple will likely not solve... as they do need to think more about their system reliability. The maintenance on an apple, under constant operation does tend to show... where as I've put my PC's through it all and they keep on goin. I think this is one of the reasons, other than the 64/32 bit war, that Avid has taken all of their highest end suites into the world of PC only.

Anyhow... it's nice to know that Adobe is listening to their customers and continually improving their product!

 

[Baho]

I didnt check to see if this was mentioned already but After Effects 2.0 pro has a new plugin called timewarp that produces an astonishing slow motion quality, works best with raw DV.

 

[DarthPau]

that's easy

in shooting
make sure your camcorder's shutter speed
up to 1/100, that's help you to reduce the motion-blur(make
sure you get the enough light to get the right exposure )

and get the footage into the software which get "speed/duration"
(like pr) get the time to 60-70 percent

done!

we don't need to pay a lot of money to get this kind of effects
hvx-200 and hvr-v1 can do the real slow motion
for rent, it's not very expensive