Best Practice to slow frames in Vegas?

[Roy Niswanger]

Hey gang,

Relatively new here, but I'm gearing up to start doing some wedding videography. Shooting with a 5D2 and other gear (too much and besides, it's a reminder of how much I've spent on that crap). I take my .mov files in HD and run them through Cineform NeoScene to correct Luma only now...since the latest FW now shoots native 29.97fps.

Now what I want to accomplish is slight slow motion, kind of like this video: YouTube - Wedding Demo I'm not new to Vegas but I'm certainly not proficient and great at it. I'm using Vegas Pro 9.c 64bit on Win 7.

I know how to slow down frames in a clip by holding shift (or is it ctrl?) and dragging the clip to the left, but I've read that's frame blending and it's not a best practice as it produces jittery or non-smooth footage.

Since I want to edit at least about 95% of my entire project in a X% slow motion, then what's the best was going about this?

Thanks,
Roy

[Edward Troxel]

It would be CTRL and drag it to the RIGHT to slow it down. This changes the "Playback Rate" and can go from .25x to 4x.

The other option is using a Velocity Envelope. This can go from -100% through 0% (freeze frame) up to 300%.

You can right-click the clip and change the properties to indicate how the blending would operate. Just change the "resample" method.

[Roy Niswanger]

Thanks which of the two is best?

What about taking 29.97fps footage and dropping into a 24p timeframe?

-Roy

[Mike Kujbida]

The best advice I can give is to experiment with short clips and see what you like best.

[Roy Niswanger]

thanks, changing playback rate works but the velocity envelope truncates the clip...makes it slow but doesn't shot the entire clip.

[Mike Kujbida]

Roy, you need to stretch the clip out so that you can see the entire new length.
Place your cursor at the end of the clip, left-click and drag it to the right until you see a small dip (looks like a V) appear at the top of timeline.
That's the new length of the slowed-down clip.
BTW, dragging it past the dip will cause it to repeat itself.

[Dale Guthormsen]

Good evening,

A couple thoughts<


If you shot 60i you can set the properties to progressive and set deinterlace to interpolate. You can the adjust the play rate and get some pretty nice stuff as it is like 60P at that point.

You can also use velocity envelope, as mentioned

I always lift the clip up one video track and then change the play rate or velocity envelope as then you automaticly get it lengthened.

If you use excalibur when you set the velocity on the time line it automaticly lengthens it in the time line, no need to stretch it out!!!

If you got lots of bucks there is twiztor that can do some amazing time changes!!


Dale Guthormsen

[Roy Niswanger]

uggg...wish there was a quick reply enabled...maybe I should check my control panel here...I new the this block

Mike and Dale thank you for the help.

Mike, thanks for explaining the V dip etc. I will try that.

Dale, so when you say lift the video track up, just duplicate that track above itself and then on that new track do the velocity env?

I wish the 5DMk2 could shoot 60i but it doesn't. All of this research is so I can implement the "best practice" to slow the rate of a clip or overall project for weddings and I want it to look as smooth as possible given my resources.

I don't understand excalibur in relation to velocity envelopes.

Speaking of velocity envelopes...here's the properties box of a clip from my 5d2 in Vegas Pro. 9.c:

http://www.motleypixel.com/public/po...s_velocity.jpg

What all should I adjust, just the playback rate? What about the reduce interlace flickr, should I check that?

Yes, I know about twixtor, but didn't know it supported Vegas Pro 9.

Thanks,
Roy

[Edward Troxel]

Roy, Excalibur is a scripting tool that can both adjust the playback rate and/or Velocity Envelope. I've programmed Excalibur so that if it changes the Velocity Envelope, it will automatically adjust the length of the event to match the new velocity.

Reduce Interlace Flicker adds a slight blur to the image to help eliminate issues related to interlacing (i.e. the "stair-step" effect you sometimes see)

On the screen you show, adjusting the playback rate is the same is CTRL-Resizing the clip. You should try it with Force Resample and Disable Resample to see which you like best. You might also look at the "Media" tab on that dialog.

[Roy Niswanger]

Ah yes I do see the drag or properties velocity envelope are the same thing. I suppose I could find that excalibur script and try it out.

I tried at 1140X720p 29.97fps with the force resample and disable resample and they seem to look the same...maybe disable resample is better?

Thanks,
Roy