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Activity Forums VEGAS Pro Vegas Pro 11 slow motion with BCC optical flow problem

  • Vegas Pro 11 slow motion with BCC optical flow problem

    Posted by Martin Stanesby on October 18, 2013 at 9:53 pm

    Hello again,
    So, I’m trying to achieve some smooth slow motion of a break dancer. I’ve used Sony Vegas velocity as best I can with smart resample and forced resample to see what’s best (disable just creates more jitter).
    My frame rate recording was 50i with Canon 6D.

    I’m now using Boris COntinuum Complete 7 optical flow to help to make it smoother, but it just makes it worse??
    I have tried addindg optical flow to the already slowed down footage, and also with the footage at 100%. TO be honest, the SOny Veags velocity is far better.
    The thing is both of them are creating a lot of blurry looking extra frames which look rubbish. I’m expecting optical flow to do better than this, is there something I’m missing here?
    I admit the dancing is fairly fast so is it a case that the programs just can’t keep up?

    Thanks for any of your advice

    Martin

    Martin Stanesby replied 10 years, 4 months ago 3 Members · 8 Replies
  • 8 Replies
  • Bob Peterson

    October 19, 2013 at 12:43 am

    Are you sure your frame rate is 50i? I would expect a Canon DSLR to shoot progressive rather than interlaced video. If it really is 50i trying to capture very fast motion, it is very understandable that the video is blurry and jittery.

    50p should do better, but the next question is what shutter speed you are shooting at. You will need a fast shutter speed to prevent blur for something like break dancing. If the shutter speed is fast enough, then the question is whether or not 50 frames per second is fast enough to look like smooth motion. It is probably more about the capability of the DSLR and its lens than it is about the video software.

  • Martin Stanesby

    October 19, 2013 at 9:08 am

    Hi Bob,
    Sorry, that wasn’t necessarily correct what I said. The 6D has an option to shoot in IPB or ALL-I, IPB being the better compression method for video editing and higher quality. IPB is what is use, both for 25 and 50fps. So there is no issue regarding the footage file when it comes to editing. So my question still remains why I can’t seem to get BCC optical flow to look any good.
    I tried rendering a short clip, it almost looked as though the footage was bending/warping, I suppose this was BCC adding the frames which didn’t quite sit right.
    Any clues?

  • Martin Stanesby

    October 19, 2013 at 10:57 am

    Also, the shutter speed is 100, this is the best speed for 50 fps, 25fps using a shutter speed of 50.

  • Bob Peterson

    October 19, 2013 at 6:06 pm

    Why do you say that a shutter speed of 1/100 is best for 50fps, and 1/50 is the best for 25fps? Is that what the Canon manual says? Those speeds are far too slow to capture fast motion. I’m not even terribly comfortable using speeds that slow for an object that is not moving much at all because, when I’m hand holding the camera, I’m not always able to hold it steady enough for ultra sharp shots. Although you surely are not hand holding the camera for video, the point remains. The shutter speed is too slow to freeze high speed motion. That will cause the image to look blurred.

  • Martin Stanesby

    October 21, 2013 at 9:25 pm

    No it’s not what the Canon manual says Bob.
    You can push slightly either way, but I have found using a faster shutter speed will give a more jittery motion, if you like this Gladiator gritty effect during the fight scenes then fine, but it’s not for every shot. Any slower than what I stated, yes too blurry.
    So these guidelines seem to work as a happy medium. Unless you can show me some footage shot at really high shutter speed ??

    And just for info…no I’m not shooting handheld, but don’t rule this technique out.

  • Martin Stanesby

    October 22, 2013 at 11:05 am

    Bob, here you will find an interesting article explaining the shutter speeds, depending on what look you are after. The interesting point being about wanting to achieve slow motion.

    https://photography.tutsplus.com/articles/quick-tip-how-does-shutter-speed-affect-video–photo-12092

    Martin

  • Riggan Rose

    December 28, 2015 at 4:37 am

    So, did you ever resolve this issue, OP? I came here from Google hoping your BCC optical flow issue was sorted. Instead, what I found is people arguing about how you might’ve arrived at this point and other ego-driven jargon, with no attack plan on actually FIXING THE ISSUE which seems to be a constant theme on this board. If you got BCC optical flow to reduce the blur I’d appreciate it if you’d follow up and list a couple things you tried and whether one was successful, etc.

    Thanks.

  • Martin Stanesby

    December 28, 2015 at 9:33 am

    Hi Riggan,
    Yeah I get what you mean. I didn’t really get any help with BCC itself.
    It’s been a while since, and I didn’t end up using BCC optical flow as I never got on with it to find a realistic slo-mo solution. Instead in opted for Twixtor. This works well at really super slow. However, with all plugins they aren’t faultless and I found Twixtor will ‘morph’ bits of footage if it’s too complicated in that frame….meaning too much going on. So the more simple the shot the better Twixtor is able to place the extra frames to work well.
    If you search Twixtor in Youtube there’s a link to a free download :).
    However, if you are wanting to master BCC optical flow then I suggest John Rofrano for advice as he’s the master of BCC on Sony Vegas who posts on here and has tutorials too.

    Hope that helps.
    Martin

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