Software for 120 fps for Varicam

[Leo Ticheli]

No.

Good shooting!

Leo

[Tony]

Actually there there are indeed retiming software applications which emulate 120 fps. The camera head itself is not capable of shooting 120 discrete frames.

On the Panasonic Technical Instructions Varicam 27F DVD there is a demonstration of one application called “Raze” (I think I got the spelling on the name right) which did the 120 frame emulation.

There are other applications available just do a search on google.

Tony Salgado

[Sean Fine]

Thanks Tony,
I have googled the program you mentioned and other search terms and come up with nothing. Any other info would be greatly appreciated.

Sean

[Matthew Romanis]

There is Twixtor for FCP, though I’m not really a fan of how it works the interpolation, and of course it is render heavy.

[Tony]

I think the software might be from a Japanese firm as the Panasonic DVD I have is both in Japanese and English.

Maybe Jeff Merritt might be able to enlighten us more.

Tony Salgado

[Jeff Merritt]

Hi,

As was previous stated, there is no software to make the VariCam capable of acquiring at 120 Fps. The fastest frame rates are 59.94 or 60.00 in the “H” version depending on the set ups.

This is a strong request from many customers so perhaps in some future version in the next couple of years we might see this, but for now it is simply not possible with the current technology in the VariCam.

Having said that, I’m quite sure that there are people who will be able to simulate this effect in post. Of course one way would be to speed up the 60:00 Fps by double, record it to another machine, and then slow it down to 24 Fps. This would render some type of “super Slo-mo” but with some obvious artifacts.

Regards,

Jeff Merritt
Product Line Business Manager
High Definition Products
Panasonic Broadcast
323-436-3676

[Nic Adlerton]

You can simulate faster frame rates in post and the results vary depending upon the footage shot and the software you use.

Take a look at Twixtor, which will run in After Effects, Final Cut and Shake. Also take a look at The Foundry’s Furnace package for Shake (and others) which has some excellent retiming algorithms.

We shot a spot on film at 25 and 50fps, did the post in HD and managed to slow the footage down an incredible amount. It took a lot of tweaking to avoid artifacts – and it’s not perfect – but cost less than hiring a high speed camera. I could link you to a clip if you want.

[Sean Fine]

Thanks I would love to see a clip.

Sean

[Nic Adlerton]

Sean

Take a look here:

https://www.simplicityfilms.com/video/PES5Spot.mov

It’s in Quicktime 7 (H264) format. If you can’t see it I should be able to do a WMV. Forgive the poor resizing and the dark gamma – I didn’t encode it myself!

[Uli Plank]

After Effects 7 has it’s own optical flow filter for retiming. It’s about as good (and as slow!) as Twixtor.

Another option is ReTimer from Realviz, France.

Hope this helps,

Uli