Twixtor at DVinfo.net

Josef Crow · December 4th, 2003, 04:12 AM

have just ordered the full version of Twixtor 3.0.4. Working with After Effects (importing as Cineform HD codec and exporting as uncompressed), Twixtor goes from 29.97 to 24p. Yes, it works. I did notice a couple areas of blur in the rendered clip (on just one clip). I haven't shot that much with my HD10u yet, so i'll post more if there're any new problems.

And haven't been able to sync the sound up yet. I'd like to just import the rendered clip back into Premiere and work on the sound, but the Twixtor demo's rendered product just shows up with an X in Premiere. In Windows Media 9.0, the rendered 24p clip looks... beautiful.

By the way, Aspect works like a charm. The Adobe video suite is.... sweet. Now it's time to make a movie.

Josef Crow · December 4th, 2003, 04:33 AM

Oh, I should add, takes forever to render in Twixtor. Something like an hour+ per minute. Then again, if it's what finally makes it possible to show your film as... well, film, i'd say it's worth the wait.

Josef Crow · December 4th, 2003, 06:07 AM

okay, if anyone cares, i was wrong. You CAN see the clip i save with the twixtor demo. You just have to bring it into Premiere as uncompressed, then save it out to Cineform Codec, then bring it back into premiere. This doesn't take much time. The sound from the original clip (before converting to 24P) syncs up so far, probably because Aspect/Premiere imports the 24p clip as 29.97 (that's all aspect knows how to work with, apparently). There may be sound-sync issues with longer clips. Anyway, this same clip is imported as 24p in after effects.

All this should make more sense and be easier when Aspect upgrades to Premiere Pro, and PP supports 24P. Alternatively, i suspect on could use the 24p Twixtor render in Vegas or even FCP as it's saved as uncompressed AVI.

btw, Twixtor in AE doesn't like HuffyUV and Cineform HD doesn't export from AE yet, though I thought i heard David N. saying they were working on getting this to work.

ciao

David Newman · December 4th, 2003, 11:20 AM

Josef, Yes native CineForm HD exports from After Effect will be part of the free Premiere Pro upgrade.

24P support for Aspect HD is not happenning just yet. To do a 24P export from Premiere switch to VFW mode and create a 24P preset (this works in 6.5 also.) CFHD will load fine in the VFW mode -- although no multi-channel RT playback. So your 24P work flow will be:
1) Edit in RT with Aspect HD at 30P.
2) Do a Twixtor export to 24P (uncompressed for now.)
3) Import into Premiere using 24P VFW mode for your final tweeks.
4) Export to the destination format.

Josef Crow · December 4th, 2003, 01:56 PM

David

I'm sorry, but i can't find 24P VFW mode in Premiere 6.5. And what does VFW stand for?

Any thoughts at Cineform at accelerating AE? Sounds like you guys do have your plate full there.

thanks again

joe

David Newman · December 4th, 2003, 03:36 PM

VFW = Video for Windows -- this is the old Microsoft playback engine.

When Premiere 6.5 first opens to the "Load Project Settings" window, press the "Custom..." button on the right of the window. Change the "Editing Mode" from "CineForm RT" to "Video for Windows" and change the "Timebase" to 24. Click on "Next" to set the video to 1280x720 square pixels. Then click "OK" as you are done. Now you can work on 24p clips.

Josef Crow · December 4th, 2003, 04:02 PM

thanks David

I actually figured it out. I brought the 24p clip into premiere as uncompressed. working at 24p in premiere bogs premiere down tremendously. Then again, uncompressed audio+video ends up being about 85MB/sec. Amazingly enough, Windows Media play 9 will play this clip, albeit some dropped audio (video plays perfectly). Even more amazingly, that same clip saved in WMV is 0.5MB/sec and looks damn good (without the audio drops, obviously). I bought Twixtor so the demo X is gone. Either as uncompressed or as WMV, looks very very good.

Anyway, if people are worried about projecting the HD10u at 24p (for film or whatever), there's definitely a solution. It takes a fast PC and gobs of memory to make it work. Works out to be about 5GB/min. And, although I do have enough memory for a 90 minute film on this PC, there's not much room to spare.

But that's really not the point. Somebody else usually picks up the distribution costs, including converting to film (in this case, including the added step of converting to 24p). The point for me was to see if it could be done. And it can.

Paul Mogg · December 4th, 2003, 05:35 PM

That's great news, and very interesting Josef. I have been thinking of using Twixtor on the Mac for a while, as I heard it does very good slo-mo and have used their de-interlacer (Fieldskit) for a while now.
Do you see any artifacts at all (motion or otherwise) that were introduced as a result of the 30p->24p conversion? ..and could you comment on how hard it was to use please?

Thank you.

Josef Crow · December 4th, 2003, 10:29 PM

Paul

I messed around with Twixtor's setting and got really frustrated until I realized I'd never run the correct controls. I was saving using HuffyUV and EVERYTHING i saved from After Effects was jittery. Saving as uncompressed fixed this, but i did waste a lot of time before realizing this. So I'm back to tweaking the program - endless renders, etc. And Twixtor's documentation could be a lot better...

That said, I used the same settings Twixtor provides for their frame rate altering example (a short clip of a cat, changed from 30i to 24p) and worked very well. I did notice one area of the video frame was shaking up and down for a couple seconds. My friend (the talent) didn't notice it even on viewing it a couple times. Like I said, I'm back trying to tweak twixtor.

And, yeah, AE works for mac, too. You can download the Twixtor demo and have the same functions - just a big X on the screen tells you it's a demo.

The only settings i've changed so far is changing Motion Vectors from None to Best. (This i got from the cat 30i to 24p example.)And, of course, you have to change the Output frame rate to 24.00. In premiere 6.5 I use 24p as the composition setting throughout. Otherwise, in Twixtor, the speed is set at 100%, frame = 0.00, motion blur = 0.50, motion sensitivity = 70.00 and i've checked "cache last motion". There's no "alt motion source", and Frame interp = blend (i'm trying Motion Weighted Blend as i write). I did not check the crossing object for conflicting motion. (btw, these are all the default settings for Twixtor)

I don't have any idea how Motion Blur pr Motion Sensitivity work, or how to use motion tracking correctly with Twixtor Pro.

btw, I ended up buying the regular Twixtor, not Twixtor Pro. Seems to do the job and costs a couple hundred less. You can always upgrade to Pro without paying a penalty.

December 4th, 2003, 04:12 AM	#1
Josef Crow Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: new york, ny Posts: 66	Twixtor have just ordered the full version of Twixtor 3.0.4. Working with After Effects (importing as Cineform HD codec and exporting as uncompressed), Twixtor goes from 29.97 to 24p. Yes, it works. I did notice a couple areas of blur in the rendered clip (on just one clip). I haven't shot that much with my HD10u yet, so i'll post more if there're any new problems. And haven't been able to sync the sound up yet. I'd like to just import the rendered clip back into Premiere and work on the sound, but the Twixtor demo's rendered product just shows up with an X in Premiere. In Windows Media 9.0, the rendered 24p clip looks... beautiful. By the way, Aspect works like a charm. The Adobe video suite is.... sweet. Now it's time to make a movie.

December 4th, 2003, 05:35 PM	#8
Paul Mogg Major Player Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: San Francisco CA Posts: 386	That's great news, and very interesting Josef. I have been thinking of using Twixtor on the Mac for a while, as I heard it does very good slo-mo and have used their de-interlacer (Fieldskit) for a while now. Do you see any artifacts at all (motion or otherwise) that were introduced as a result of the 30p->24p conversion? ..and could you comment on how hard it was to use please? Thank you. __________________ Paul

December 4th, 2003, 04:33 AM	#2
Josef Crow Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: new york, ny Posts: 66	Oh, I should add, takes forever to render in Twixtor. Something like an hour+ per minute. Then again, if it's what finally makes it possible to show your film as... well, film, i'd say it's worth the wait.

December 4th, 2003, 06:07 AM	#3
Josef Crow Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: new york, ny Posts: 66	okay, if anyone cares, i was wrong. You CAN see the clip i save with the twixtor demo. You just have to bring it into Premiere as uncompressed, then save it out to Cineform Codec, then bring it back into premiere. This doesn't take much time. The sound from the original clip (before converting to 24P) syncs up so far, probably because Aspect/Premiere imports the 24p clip as 29.97 (that's all aspect knows how to work with, apparently). There may be sound-sync issues with longer clips. Anyway, this same clip is imported as 24p in after effects. All this should make more sense and be easier when Aspect upgrades to Premiere Pro, and PP supports 24P. Alternatively, i suspect on could use the 24p Twixtor render in Vegas or even FCP as it's saved as uncompressed AVI. btw, Twixtor in AE doesn't like HuffyUV and Cineform HD doesn't export from AE yet, though I thought i heard David N. saying they were working on getting this to work. ciao

December 4th, 2003, 11:20 AM	#4
David Newman CTO, CineForm Inc. Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California Posts: 8,095	Josef, Yes native CineForm HD exports from After Effect will be part of the free Premiere Pro upgrade. 24P support for Aspect HD is not happenning just yet. To do a 24P export from Premiere switch to VFW mode and create a 24P preset (this works in 6.5 also.) CFHD will load fine in the VFW mode -- although no multi-channel RT playback. So your 24P work flow will be: 1) Edit in RT with Aspect HD at 30P. 2) Do a Twixtor export to 24P (uncompressed for now.) 3) Import into Premiere using 24P VFW mode for your final tweeks. 4) Export to the destination format.

December 4th, 2003, 01:56 PM	#5
Josef Crow Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: new york, ny Posts: 66	David I'm sorry, but i can't find 24P VFW mode in Premiere 6.5. And what does VFW stand for? Any thoughts at Cineform at accelerating AE? Sounds like you guys do have your plate full there. thanks again joe

December 4th, 2003, 03:36 PM	#6
David Newman CTO, CineForm Inc. Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California Posts: 8,095	VFW = Video for Windows -- this is the old Microsoft playback engine. When Premiere 6.5 first opens to the "Load Project Settings" window, press the "Custom..." button on the right of the window. Change the "Editing Mode" from "CineForm RT" to "Video for Windows" and change the "Timebase" to 24. Click on "Next" to set the video to 1280x720 square pixels. Then click "OK" as you are done. Now you can work on 24p clips.

December 4th, 2003, 04:02 PM	#7
Josef Crow Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: new york, ny Posts: 66	thanks David I actually figured it out. I brought the 24p clip into premiere as uncompressed. working at 24p in premiere bogs premiere down tremendously. Then again, uncompressed audio+video ends up being about 85MB/sec. Amazingly enough, Windows Media play 9 will play this clip, albeit some dropped audio (video plays perfectly). Even more amazingly, that same clip saved in WMV is 0.5MB/sec and looks damn good (without the audio drops, obviously). I bought Twixtor so the demo X is gone. Either as uncompressed or as WMV, looks very very good. Anyway, if people are worried about projecting the HD10u at 24p (for film or whatever), there's definitely a solution. It takes a fast PC and gobs of memory to make it work. Works out to be about 5GB/min. And, although I do have enough memory for a 90 minute film on this PC, there's not much room to spare. But that's really not the point. Somebody else usually picks up the distribution costs, including converting to film (in this case, including the added step of converting to 24p). The point for me was to see if it could be done. And it can.

December 4th, 2003, 10:29 PM	#9
Josef Crow Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: new york, ny Posts: 66	Paul I messed around with Twixtor's setting and got really frustrated until I realized I'd never run the correct controls. I was saving using HuffyUV and EVERYTHING i saved from After Effects was jittery. Saving as uncompressed fixed this, but i did waste a lot of time before realizing this. So I'm back to tweaking the program - endless renders, etc. And Twixtor's documentation could be a lot better... That said, I used the same settings Twixtor provides for their frame rate altering example (a short clip of a cat, changed from 30i to 24p) and worked very well. I did notice one area of the video frame was shaking up and down for a couple seconds. My friend (the talent) didn't notice it even on viewing it a couple times. Like I said, I'm back trying to tweak twixtor. And, yeah, AE works for mac, too. You can download the Twixtor demo and have the same functions - just a big X on the screen tells you it's a demo. The only settings i've changed so far is changing Motion Vectors from None to Best. (This i got from the cat 30i to 24p example.)And, of course, you have to change the Output frame rate to 24.00. In premiere 6.5 I use 24p as the composition setting throughout. Otherwise, in Twixtor, the speed is set at 100%, frame = 0.00, motion blur = 0.50, motion sensitivity = 70.00 and i've checked "cache last motion". There's no "alt motion source", and Frame interp = blend (i'm trying Motion Weighted Blend as i write). I did not check the crossing object for conflicting motion. (btw, these are all the default settings for Twixtor) I don't have any idea how Motion Blur pr Motion Sensitivity work, or how to use motion tracking correctly with Twixtor Pro. btw, I ended up buying the regular Twixtor, not Twixtor Pro. Seems to do the job and costs a couple hundred less. You can always upgrade to Pro without paying a penalty.