Thanks for the link Bob. Looks like it ran out end of January. I've e-mailed anyway...you never know. :-)

Certainly more complicated to use than Twixtor or Speedo, frameserving to AviSynth/MVTools2/VirtualDub produces very nice results and is free.



...Jerry

Got the e-mail, but on installation tells me the serial is out of date. E-mailed support, maybe they'll fix that for me. What makes AviSynth/MVTools2/VirtualDub more complicated Jerry?

"What makes AviSynth/MVTools2/VirtualDub more complicated Jerry? "Well, Twixtor and Speedo are merely plugin FX, that are applied to your video event - and then you fiddle with some SloMo parameters.

With the AviSynth/MVTools2/VirtualDub method, you must install 4 separate software products: Debugmode Framserver, AviSynth, MVTools2 and VirutalDub. Then you must create an Avisynth script, (usually in notepad), frameserve out of Sony Vegas to AviSynth/VirtualDub, save the result as an .avi and then drop the file back to Sony Vegas. Not a huge deal, if you do it infrequently, but certainly more complicated.

I created some very, very crude tutorials to do this for Rory Cooper back in this thread: I give up. AviSync, DebugMode, johnmeyer stuff

...Jerry

I don't understand what the problem is with the Vegas velocity envelope ?

Do you mean you can't see a difference or you don't understand why Vegas couldn't achieve the same quality?

G

If we are talking about the example above,I don't see much, if any difference in quality . ( on a 23" screen )
Vegas doesn't slow it down as much ( is 15% the limit ? ), so I can appreciate that it might make a difference to those doing pro work ..

If we are talking about the example above,I don't see much, if any difference in quality .The difference between motion estimation (Twixtor, MVTools2, Motionperfect, etc.) and the frame blending used in Vegas is night and day. Vegas gives predictable results, but the video is often soft (if you use resample) or jerky (if you disable resample). Motion estimation can cause some artifacts, but when you start with 60p footage, like Jerry's TM700 produces, you don't get these artifacts very often.

If you want to see a very short, much more obvious example of the differences, play this old, very short video. The source was 29.97 interlaced DV video. Because you have several types of motion (camera panning, object motion, rotation, etc.) you can see where each type of slow motion technology breaks down. The artifacts of the motion estimation technology are quite evident on the mortarboard tassel.

That is a very good example of Vegas doing badly .. The original footage didn't look all that great ..

What method is being used in Vegas when you " Ctrl + mouse click " on the right edge of the clip and stretch it out ?

That is what I used for these two ..

String, The CTRL-drag method will go from .25x to 4x. Using a velocity envelope you can go from 3x down through 0x (freeze frame) down to -1x (full speed reverse).

> "Are there any decent slo-mo plug-ins for Vegas that don't cost an arm and a leg?"

You can try BCC Optical Flow which is part of Boris Continuum Complete 7 for Vegas Pro. Unfortunately, it's not available separately as a Continuum Unit but the rest of BCC7 is an outstanding set of plug-ins that I use all the time. If you find that you really like BCC Optical Flow you might want to contact BorisFX and let them know that you're interested in it becoming a Continuum Unit so that you can purchase it separately.

~jr

"What method is being used in Vegas when you " Ctrl + mouse click " on the right edge of the clip and stretch it out ?"

Vegas simply duplicates / interpolates frames or fields. It makes no effort to estimate where the pixels would have been between frames unlike all the other tools being discussed.

One thing that's very important. If you intend to slomo footage in post you need to increase you shutter speed to match. For example if you want to slow down 4x then you shutter speed should also be 4x. If you're shooting 60i that means 1/240. If you don't do this the motion blur will render the result quite blurry. You may also run into issues with skew if using a CMOS camera.

Bob.

Thanks .. All good stuff to know..

Johnny Roy,

Any idea if they plan on adding the 3 way color corrector to BCC for Vegas? That is one that I would be interested in but it's not part of the Vegas version. Optical flow sounds nice as well.

> "Any idea if they plan on adding the 3 way color corrector to BCC for Vegas?"

I really can't say (NDA)

I would make a post on the BorisFX forums over at the Creative COW to ask and see what they say. (or send them an email, but the post may draw other Vegas users who support you).

~jr

First of all, thanks Jerry for your tutorials on how to install Virtual Dub and AVsynth and clarifying the work flow - worked great when I finally walked through the whole process.

A couple things I learned that might be helpful to others. First, I had to make sure my project properties precisely match my video source (which was from the Pana TM 700 - 1980x 1080 60p). Also, I found the clarity was improved if I disabled resampling of the original video clip AND when I rendered out the Frameserver AVI file into a different format. Finally, changing the interlace mode to NONE also cleaned up a few artifacts.

A few months ago I download all of the files and a different slo-mo script which may actually work better than the one you offered. Others may want to try it:

#AVISynth Slow Motion Script



loadplugin("C:\Program Files (x86)\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\mvtools2\mvtools2.dll") 



source=AVISource("D:\2012 Movies\Slomoframeservertest.avi").KillAudio().assumetff()



final=ApplyInterlacedFilter(source,"SlowMo").assumefps(59.94,false)



return final





function ApplyInterlacedFilter(clip v1, string filter)

{

v2 = separatefields(v1)

selecteven(v2)

even = Eval(filter)

selectodd(v2)

odd = Eval(filter)

interleave(even,odd)

return weave()

}



function SlowMo(clip thisclip)

{

super = MSuper(thisclip,pel=2)

backward_vectors = MAnalyse(super,blksize=8, overlap=2, isb = true, search=3)

forward_vectors = MAnalyse(super,blksize=8, overlap=2, isb = false, search=3)

# 60000 produces 50% slow motion, 120000 produces 25% slow motion, etc.

MFlowFps(thisclip,super,backward_vectors, forward_vectors, num=60000, den=1001, ml=100)

Thanks again, Jerry. You are a great help to the community here.

Mike

Mike,

I'm blushing. I'm just following the great lead of Nick Hope & johnmeyer - they're the experts.

I've gone thru mucho trial-and-error in getting this to work. The only value I bring to this is to look at this from the perspective of a first time user/installer and document the pitfalls.

Now that I've said that, it's curious that the script you posted above is doing a better job of SloMo for your 60p TM700 as it appears to written for interlaced footage.

...Jerry

I definitely would not use that script for 60p footage. It makes no sense to separate into fields when you are dealing with progressive footage, and it might very well introduce some unwanted artifacts. Just call the slo-mo function without the ApplyInterlaced... function.

Also, FWIW, here are some alternate motion vector settings to try. Encode 10-15 seconds of video with each and see how they compare. I think you will find that you can improve on the results by trying these different settings:

#backward_vec = MAnalyse(super,blksize=16, overlap=4, isb = true,  search=3 )

#forward_vec =  MAnalyse(super,blksize=16, overlap=4, isb = false, search=3 )



# The following worked REALLY well for 5% slo-mo (soccer kick)

#backward_vec = MAnalyse(super,blksize=8, overlap=0, isb = true,  search=3 )

#forward_vec =  MAnalyse(super,blksize=8, overlap=0, isb = false, search=3 )



backward_vec = MAnalyse(super,blksize=8, overlap=2, isb = true,  search=3 )

forward_vec =  MAnalyse(super,blksize=8, overlap=2, isb = false, search=3 )

Marc S:

"Johnny Roy,

Any idea if they plan on adding the 3 way color corrector to BCC for Vegas? That is one that I would be interested in but it's not part of the Vegas version. Optical flow sounds nice as well."

From the Creative Cow Boris forum:

"Hi Steve,

Hmmm ... sorry to have to tell you this but the 3 Way Color Grade filter will not be included in the initial BCC 8 release for Sony Vegas Pro. We would love nothing more than to include this filter but there are host issues that (currently) prevent us from doing so.

That said, all is not lost.

You can download and install Boris RED 5 for Sony Vegas Pro. The BCC 3 Way Color Grade filter is included in RED 5 so you can access that filter in your Sony Vegas Pro timelines right now if you install Boris RED.

Cheers,

Peter."

Jøran

Yea, I almost forgot all that stuff is in RED 5 along with tons of other plug-ins like the FET ones. So RED 5 is a good alternative if you want the 3 way color corrector.

~jr

Yes, it doesn't make sense that the 60p footage would look better with the portion of the script that was written for interlaced footage. It could be that I corrected the project settings on that last render I did and that cleaned up the artifact. However, even with those lines in the script, it didn't seem to cause any problems at 1/4 speed. I'll try the code blocks you suggest and see how they compare.

Thanks again, all.

Mike

Does Red have to open in it's own interface? If so I'm not interested. I like BCC because it acts like other Sony effects and gives instant feedback to the montior. I wish Sony would fix their plugin architecture. This has been going on for years and I thought it was solved in recent releases with open FX. I jut got this response from Boris Tech:

"Marc- As much as we'd love to add this filter into Vegas, we're limited by their UI panel. In the future, if they expand their API, then we'll be able to add it, but for the moment it remains unable to accept the 3-way Color Grading filter."

On another note MB Looks kind of solves the CC limitations of Vegas but their external monitor support through Black Magic Intensity does not give proper levels (black level jump while inside of the interface). They have confirmed this but do not know when it will be fixed.