bentonmackie
Level 1 (4 points)
Mac OS X

Q: Final Cut Pro X distorted footage during slow motion

I am having problems with my latest project and need help.

The specs of my system are as follows;

Screen Shot 2016-09-04 at 7.57.40 am.png

Screen Shot 2016-09-04 at 8.00.50 am.png

The footage I am working with is;

Screen Shot 2016-09-04 at 8.00.01 am.png

My project properties are set to the same and when I try to slow the footage down to 25% and I apply optical flow to it I get a lot of distortion. I the image I am sending shows some but as the footage moves the distortion gets worse.

Screen Shot 2016-09-04 at 8.01.30 am.png

Am I doing something wrong???? Please help!

Ben

Final Cut Pro X, Mac OS X (10.6.8), null

Posted on Sep 3, 2016 3:12 PM

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bentonmackie

Q: Final Cut Pro X distorted footage during slow motion

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  • Helpful answers

  • by Luis Sequeira1,

    Luis Sequeira1 Luis Sequeira1 Sep 4, 2016 10:45 AM in response to bentonmackie
    Level 6 (11,819 points)
    Sep 4, 2016 10:45 AM in response to bentonmackie

    You are asking the software to generate three out of four frames.

    To get great slomo you should shoot at highrr frame rate than your project. For example shooting at 60fps and editing a 30fps project allows cor 50% slomo to use all the captured frames or for 25% you'd need only to have the software generate one out two frames.

  • by bentonmackie,

    bentonmackie bentonmackie Sep 7, 2016 1:21 AM in response to bentonmackie
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 7, 2016 1:21 AM in response to bentonmackie

    Thanks Luis. Is there any way I can improve the image now with the frame rate I have.

    Ben

  • by Luis Sequeira1,

    Luis Sequeira1 Luis Sequeira1 Sep 7, 2016 2:08 AM in response to bentonmackie
    Level 6 (11,819 points)
    Sep 7, 2016 2:08 AM in response to bentonmackie

    You can try the other options under Rate Conform. Maybe Frame Blending looks better for this shoot, I don't know.

  • by Russ H,

    Russ H Russ H Sep 7, 2016 8:23 AM in response to bentonmackie
    Level 7 (21,770 points)
    Quicktime
    Sep 7, 2016 8:23 AM in response to bentonmackie

    You might try transcoding one of the clips from the Browser to Pro Res (Optimized), edit it to the timeline and apply the retiming to test whether any improvement.

     

    Russ

  • by bentonmackie,

    bentonmackie bentonmackie Sep 7, 2016 6:32 PM in response to Russ H
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 7, 2016 6:32 PM in response to Russ H

    Thanks both Luis and Russ for replying. I have tried all these options without success. It looks like I am stuck unless anyone else has any ideas we have not thought of.

    Ben

  • by Tomahawk Cine,

    Tomahawk Cine Tomahawk Cine Sep 7, 2016 7:09 PM in response to bentonmackie
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Sep 7, 2016 7:09 PM in response to bentonmackie

    Unfortunately your frame rate is too slow to reduce speed to 25% even with blending.  Even 60fps would not look great with a quick moving soccer ball.  Your best bet with this type of footage is to keep it full speed.  I might consider re shooting keeping in mind to slow the ball movement or use different angles,  the camera will catch lateral motion better than horizontal.  Then you may be able to slow your shots better but probably still not 25%

  • by Karsten Schlüter,

    Karsten Schlüter Karsten Schlüter Sep 7, 2016 10:47 PM in response to bentonmackie
    Level 7 (32,668 points)
    Video
    Sep 7, 2016 10:47 PM in response to bentonmackie

    bentonmackie wrote:

    ... Am I doing something wrong???? …

    I'm afraid you expect too much from 'artificial slowmo'.

     

    Just have a look at the ball in your example:

    'both' balls don't look same, due to rotation, so how should Optical Flow 'know' to transform form A to B? More a kind of morphing (btw: you can abuse OF for morphing, but that is another story…)

     

    plus, the 'distance'/Angular Speed is way too high btw. both frames ...

     

    for a less 'wobbly' result, your only option is to set quality to frame-blending... gives a more 'ghostly' look, but perhaps looks better.

     

    nothing replaces high fps on recording ...

     

    here my example, 100fps recording + 10% speed + OF = still wobble at the feet ...