Mathew Hamilton Green
February 1st, 2007, 02:15 PM
Hi
I've never been happy with the slow-mo in FCP even with my Z1.
After looking into it I realised that it had nothing to do with my Z1 and everything to do with how FCP slows down the footage.
I then read on here I think a way of taking the fields - of which there are two per frame (an upper/odd and lower/even) - and turning the fields into frames thus giving 50 individual frames per second of PAL footage or 60fps for NTSC.
I downloaded an Applescript (that didnt work) but learnt the method. Here it is and info on how you can easily do it yourself.
1) Shoot interlaced video (i) whatever your flavour PAL/NTSC/1080 etc
2) Capture as normal
3) Select the clip that you want to slow down
4) Put it on a separate SEQUENCE
5) Apply a de-interlace filter
6) Choose UPPER/ODD as the FIELD type
7) Export as a STILL IMAGE sequence ensuring that there is no compression, its set to your correct frame rate 25 for PAL or 30(29.97) for NTSC. Name it something eg. walking. Make sure it is in a FOLDER/DIRECTORY called UPPER.
8) Your computer will chug away and export all the UPPER/ODD fields as individual IMAGES.
9) Go back to the de-interlace filter and choose LOWER/EVEN as the field TYPE.
10) Export again - using the same settings and into another FOLDER/DIRECTORY called LOWER.
11) Chug etc
What you have now is a bucnh of images in two folders with the same names and numbers like walking 01, walking 02 etc.
What we need to do is put them in order. So we have the first field of the first frame as walking 01 and the second field of the first frame called walking 01a and so on for all the rest of the images. The reason why i did it this way is that computers list things- by default - in alphabetical order. So why not go with it.
to start off with I manually added a to each of the LOWER/EVEN images but I needed to automate it for time reasons so I designed an AUTOMATOR application on my Mac to ask what files you wnat to add A to and then do it. This little app then added A to the end of all the LOWER/EVEN images.
You now have two folders with files in them. Copy the contents of one of the folders ie. all the files and paste them into the other folder so you have walking 01, walking 01a, walking 02, walking 02a etc.
Now back to the NLE package.
12) Make sure you package had its default still image settings to 1 frame. So every still image you import will default to 1 frame in length. 00:00:00:01.
13) Import the folder with all the walking files in it.
14) Select all of the images and drag them onto the timeline
15) You have now got all the images on the timeline in the correct order
16) You may have to render and then play them.
17) You now have 50% speed of the original clip.
VOILA! Now if you compare your editing packages attempt at 50% speed and then this method the difference is very noticeable. It looks great.
Now what I then do is export that timeline with the individual images as a movie and then import that movie back into FCP. You then have a single file that you can do what you will with and doesn't require rendering every time you do something to it.
If you shoot NTSC you can achieve 60fps slow-mo. PAL unfortunately is only 50fps.
There you have it.
the automator script is atteached if you have a MAC. If you have a PC I don't know your solution. Maybe someone can write something!
I hope this helps.
Cheers
Mat
I've never been happy with the slow-mo in FCP even with my Z1.
After looking into it I realised that it had nothing to do with my Z1 and everything to do with how FCP slows down the footage.
I then read on here I think a way of taking the fields - of which there are two per frame (an upper/odd and lower/even) - and turning the fields into frames thus giving 50 individual frames per second of PAL footage or 60fps for NTSC.
I downloaded an Applescript (that didnt work) but learnt the method. Here it is and info on how you can easily do it yourself.
1) Shoot interlaced video (i) whatever your flavour PAL/NTSC/1080 etc
2) Capture as normal
3) Select the clip that you want to slow down
4) Put it on a separate SEQUENCE
5) Apply a de-interlace filter
6) Choose UPPER/ODD as the FIELD type
7) Export as a STILL IMAGE sequence ensuring that there is no compression, its set to your correct frame rate 25 for PAL or 30(29.97) for NTSC. Name it something eg. walking. Make sure it is in a FOLDER/DIRECTORY called UPPER.
8) Your computer will chug away and export all the UPPER/ODD fields as individual IMAGES.
9) Go back to the de-interlace filter and choose LOWER/EVEN as the field TYPE.
10) Export again - using the same settings and into another FOLDER/DIRECTORY called LOWER.
11) Chug etc
What you have now is a bucnh of images in two folders with the same names and numbers like walking 01, walking 02 etc.
What we need to do is put them in order. So we have the first field of the first frame as walking 01 and the second field of the first frame called walking 01a and so on for all the rest of the images. The reason why i did it this way is that computers list things- by default - in alphabetical order. So why not go with it.
to start off with I manually added a to each of the LOWER/EVEN images but I needed to automate it for time reasons so I designed an AUTOMATOR application on my Mac to ask what files you wnat to add A to and then do it. This little app then added A to the end of all the LOWER/EVEN images.
You now have two folders with files in them. Copy the contents of one of the folders ie. all the files and paste them into the other folder so you have walking 01, walking 01a, walking 02, walking 02a etc.
Now back to the NLE package.
12) Make sure you package had its default still image settings to 1 frame. So every still image you import will default to 1 frame in length. 00:00:00:01.
13) Import the folder with all the walking files in it.
14) Select all of the images and drag them onto the timeline
15) You have now got all the images on the timeline in the correct order
16) You may have to render and then play them.
17) You now have 50% speed of the original clip.
VOILA! Now if you compare your editing packages attempt at 50% speed and then this method the difference is very noticeable. It looks great.
Now what I then do is export that timeline with the individual images as a movie and then import that movie back into FCP. You then have a single file that you can do what you will with and doesn't require rendering every time you do something to it.
If you shoot NTSC you can achieve 60fps slow-mo. PAL unfortunately is only 50fps.
There you have it.
the automator script is atteached if you have a MAC. If you have a PC I don't know your solution. Maybe someone can write something!
I hope this helps.
Cheers
Mat