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Change Speed quality issue
I’m working on my first project that requires heavy use of the ‘Change Speed’ function in FCP, exclusively for the SPEEDING UP of clips. I assumed there would be no quality issues as FCP does not need to create any frames, but I do not seem to be getting consistently good results.
My footage is 25P ProRes at 1080P. I am not using variable speed changes or smoothing, just a straight linear speed increase.
Some of the footage looks totally fine sped up, other footage looks “jumpy” as though it is playing back at a lower frame rate than 25P. The interesting thing is that the jumpiness appears to be isolated to things where the movement of the frame is more drastic. Things in the distance of a frame will not look jumpy, while something in the foreground of the same frame will look jumpy.
I’m wondering if this perceived effect could have something to do with strobing or if FCP’s speed increasing is just not pro-quality? When perfect quality speeding up is needed, must you use Cinema Tools or After Effects?
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5 Replies
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FCP isn’t as good as Motion with speed changing. Sometime however, it is just a matter of playing with frame blending on or off, depending on the speed % .If that doesn’t help try optical flow in Motion. If you have AE and know how to drive it, you will also get a better result.
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damnit, that wasn’t the answer i was hoping for! just so i understand this correctly, i thought optical flow only helped when pixels needed to be interpolated for the creation of frames?
regardless, does anyone have any tips for dealing with FCP’s apparently sub-par speed change tool? what i would ideally like to do is make a sort of “offline” edit in FCP using it’s speed change tool to get my timing right and the edits down, but then go back and properly slow down the clips the correct amount in Compressor or another program and sub them back in to the locked cut.
i do not know Motion well enough for that to be a viable solution. i do know how to use Compressor change the duration of clips, but i’m not sure what the fastest way of doing that might be if i want to conform clips to my existing “offline” edit.
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[Adam Weinberg] “regardless, does anyone have any tips for dealing with FCP’s apparently sub-par speed change tool?”
Did you try playing with frame blending?
I have also played with using Nattress deinterlace filters to give me better field blending options which can help smooth slo mos a bit if you shot interlaced. Selecting shutter speeds to match slo mo %s can also help.
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i have tried playing with frame blending .. the problem clips just looked worse without frame blending on. and the footage is all progressive, fields aren’t the issue ..
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thanks for the tip — yeah, i figured out that helped things, unfortunately most of the footage i’m working with requires more subtle changes in speed ..
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