Is it possible to convert 23.96fps to SMOOTH 25fps

[jparnold]

Thanks Trevor and Ron,

In answer to questions.
The particular Vimeo video clip I downloaded is here http://vimeo.com/15034110

I have noticed that it is also at YouTube and I will 'capture' the video from there and see it it is also flash at 23.96 or (hopefully) something at either 25 or 30fps.

When I convert it (to 25 fps) using DV, DVD etc the quality is excellent. The only problem is that every second the playback 'jumps' slightly.

I am thinking that it will be impossible to get around the 'jump' in motion as it seems to me that to insert another frame every second would result in one frame being duplicated and therefore the motion would 'freeze' for 1/25 of a second every second - am I thinking correctly?

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi John

Yes you are thinking correctly, the rendered video will take on an extra frame at one second intervals.

Can you double check the quality of the original, I cannot download from Vimeo (not allowed—maybe its reached the download limit?)

Also the original will have been re-coded at some point, it may also have extra unwanted frames.

There is a possible work-round to get rid of the offending frame .by using a sequence file, very long winded though

Add the video file to the timeline
Share Create Video File-Custom
Choose-Ulead Image Sequence
Press options buttom to set the properties
Create a new folder to hold the images and UIS file

When finished you will have an image for each frame, they will be a lot

Add all to timeline, no transitions
Set duration of all to one frame. (change color-image duration)
Render to new 25 fps video file.

As I say a little involved, and if the original has extra frames then you will save then as well.

[jparnold]

Thanks Trevor

Your method makes sense - split original into frames and then reassemble at 25fps, brilliant even if time consuming.
As mentioned in an earlier post I only intend to use a few seconds of the video in my home holiday movie so it shouldn't take long.

Is there any way to select 16:9 aspect ratio as I found it to be greyed out (in OPTION - see below) and when I 'rendered' all the images (I used JPG for space) were at 4:3 and appeared squashed (horizontally).
The method I used was -
Placed video clip in timeline
Selected Share > Create Video File > Custom
Save as type Ulead Image Sequence (*.uis, *.uisx) all of which matches what you stated
Options Perform Smart Render, Perform non square rendering (changing these made no difference)
Frame size 720 x 576, Display Aspect ratio was greyed out

When I added one of the images (frames) to a new timeline I needed to either -

add it to the Video Track and then select OPTIONS and then FIT TO PROJECT SIZE
OR
add it to the Overlay Track and the then select OPTIONS and then ALIGNMENT OPTIONS and then ORIGINAL SIZE

to make it display correctly at 16:9. I wouldn't want to have to do that for every frame (image) added to the timeline.


I guess I could always batch process all the images with Paint Shop Pro to 'stretch' them from 720X576 to 1024 X 576 which wouldn't be too much of a hassle.


Lastly there doesn't seem to be an easy/quick method to limit each image length to just 00:00:00.1 (1/25 second) as the Preferences only allow you to set the default duration to 1 second and although CHANGE PHOTO DURATION (right click on image in the time line) allows the duration to bet set to 00.1 it would be time consuming to set each one manually (although in reality it only takes 4 clicks (right click, change photo duration, click on down arrow, click OK) but for 25 frames (1 second) that is 100 mouse clicks). Any ideas?


Hope you are safe from all the problems we see on tv (although Leeds hasn't been mentioned). What a terrible shame. My wife and I have visited the UK a few times (last time last October in a hire car and staying at great B%B's) and love it.

Regards

John

[skier-hughes]

I was in Wolverhampton 2 nights ago when we had all the trouble. It was scary, but the mobs were not "rioting" purely "looting", so as long you didn't try to film them or stop them pinching their mobile phones and tv's shoppers would be walking the streets at the same time as the gangs.
There have been dramatic instances of violence, but luckily just a few.

[Ron P.]

I downloaded both the one from Vimeo and YouTube. For me the freebie Real Player Downloader, downloaded them in MPEG-4. This is not that surprising since FLV will use the MPEG-4 codec. Here's the interesting part, the video from Vimeo has the 24p (23.96) frame rate, while YouTube's was 24fps.

The true frame rate I think should be 23.976, which is used when video is going to be transferred to film, and is for NTSC film. They do speed it up to 25fps for PAL/SECAM, which can be easily done if you get one of those converters that cost as much as your car, and/or house..

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi John

From the UIS options button
General tab set the Frame Size-User Defined to 1024 x 576

This is the widescreen square pixel size for Pal.
All the images will be created using this size, they will fit to your widescreen 16:9 project.

Each frame should be slightly different, if the original video file has duplicate frames then duplicate images will be created, check the 22nd, 23, 24, 25 images/frames.

Set all image durations to 1 frame
How
Ctrl + A will select all images.
Or--Select the first image, Shift + click last image.
Edit—Change Photo/Colour duration
Set 1 frame. All image durations changed

Render to DV-Avi 720 x 576 x 16:9 x 25fps


And yes we have had some small problems in Leeds, the weather has been a little poor today.
Don’t think the b****** like the rain.

[jparnold]

Thanks Ron for your experimentation. Yes the fps difference is strange.

Thanks too very much Trevor especially for describing how to set the aspect ratio to 16:9 (although I was happy enough to batch change each image to 1024 x 520 with PSP which is easy enough - the batch mode in PSP is truely great) and more so how to set for a duration of 1 frame which will saves HEAPS of time.

I did a 'test run' using using your method using about 4 seconds of 'frames' and it all worked great. And to make things even better it didn't take very long at all so a big thank you. There does though appear to be a problem still. When I compare each image (frame)created (for a section where the video slowly zooms in) each succeeding frame seems to 'move' about the same from the previous frame (image) EXCEPT each 24th frame (image) which seems to 'move' slightly more.
I tried with the frame rate set at 25 and also 23.96 when creating the frames (images) but this didn't make any difference and I guess that is because the frame rate is for the output not the input.

Nothing on the news this morning here in Sydney re the unrest in your country so I suspect things are under control one way or another.

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi John

I have managed to download the video from Vimeo
I believe that the downloaded file is the same as the original uploaded file, that is Vimeo has not converted/recoded it.

Now when I view the video I can see some problems with playback, I think the original video file contains extra frames, You can see as a blip when viewing the video at normal speed.

Viewing the video frame by frame and I can identify the identical frames. Unfortunately they are not all in similar positions so difficult to identify, but I am sure they exist.
I also noticed the frames that seem to move slightly more, that seems to indicate a missing frame.

All in all the video is not brilliant quality, maybe done on purpose, although saying that it does look impressive.

You could delete all extra/similar images that would smooth things out a little, though .it seems a lot of work finding them

[Ron P.]

Trevor,
What resolution and format did you download from Vimeo? I downloaded both the SD and HD format, finding both to use the 23.96. As I posted above this frame rate is what film is recorded to. Since the original was recorded using an Imax 3D system, of course the frame rate will not be of any video standard frame rates. I then found the same clip on YouTube, and downloaded it, finding the download frame rate to be 30fps. So YouTube had to recode it to the more common video frame rate. Playing both on my PC, I could not tell the difference with the frame rate. I have not yet had frame-by-frame look at them.

Basically from my recent research on the film frame rate, there is no simple, inexpensive means to get a good clear translation to PAL. There will be some judder, unless you want to pick up a telecine machine. You can pick one up Used on Ebay

Also as a sidenote, going to the website setup for this filmmaking endeavor, it seems that they chose Vimeo for the host for their trailer, not YouTube.

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi Ron

The first time I tried Vimeo the download link was disabled.
Finally I did manage to download the frame rate is 23.976fps.x 1280 x 720

I think Vimeo tends to use the original uploaded files to play the video whereas You Tube seems to convert to Flash, yes they do preserve the quality by using the same frame size and HD bit rates.
But I don’t think you get the original video from YouTube, especially using Real Downloader which converts the video after download.

How did you manage to download both SD and HD?

As I mentioned earlier I do not think the original is super quality, it does seem to have duplicate frames.

[Ron P.]

With Vimeo you have the HD on the lower-right of player's control bar. If it is on by default, clicking on it disables the HD playback, and apparently any subsequent download. I agree it would have use duplicate frames for any encoding from film to video, unless they wanted to spend a lot of money to just re-code for a trailer to be viewed over the internet. I guess if we choose to download and then use in our own productions, we are posed with the problem of getting it to fit our specifications. Not their issue, and I'm sure they really don't want to make it easy to do.

Heavens no it's not going to be anywhere near as good a quality, as what's going to be released a couple of years from now in Imax type theaters. Talk about extreme hi-def!! I went to the production company's website and grabbed a photo they have posted on the Imax camera mounted on the front of the helicopter, used to shoot this trailer. Not a very compact camera..

Click on image to enlarge

[jparnold]

Hi Trevor and Ron
Well I certainly seem to have started something with my original post and all I can say is that we all seem to be learning something from it.

When I grab (didn't know that there was a download link on the web site) the video (using Replay Media Capture which strangely doesn't want to grab the video from the YouTube website) and save it WITHOUT converting it (ie a FLV video file at 23.976fps) and then replay the saved video FLV file on my PC it appears to play COMPLETELY smoothly so I am not sure that I agree with what was said that the original video is not smooth.

I might just have to put up with the slight 'jump' in motion every 1 second. After all I will only be using a few seconds of two scenes in my home movie. I will be in Israel for a week in September and visiting Masada (doesn't it look awesome from the air!) and also Jerusalem as well as other places such as the Dead Sea.

Thanks but for obvious reasons I won't even consider a telecine machine.

Love the picture of the helicopter 'sans' huge movie camera.

LASTLY did you both watch the video (7 minutes) all the way to the end? Did you pick up on the 'blooper'. About 5 minutes into the video the scene is of a town on the seashore from the air. The waves are rolling OUT ie the waves are going the wrong way! Obviously they REVERSED the video for some type of effect. It will be very noticeable on the big screen so I assume they will not include that scene. I too reverse some video clips in my home movies to get a particular effect (such as direction of pan or zoom) but I am always on the lookout for moving people in the scene which would look strange walking backwards!

John

[Ron P.]

Wow.. lucky you!! Jerusalem is one place that would be high on my list to be able to visit. I think that it would take a few years to really be able to see and absorb everything.

Earlier I downloaded it using Real Player Download tool, for both Vimeo and YouTube. I didn't try downloading the "Mov" file at the time, which I am now in the process of doing. I'll see what it's like. Just from the previous downloads, I think the footage was awesome, for 2-reasons. 1- It was just plain beautiful, and 2-most importantly, this crew is the first to be able to photograph that area from the sky. It has been, and still is considered a no-fly zone. They had to jump through a tremendous number of security hoops.

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi

When I downloaded the video from Vimeo I used the download link.
It is to the lower right of the screen.

Simply left click on “Download this Video” had no affect, By right clicking and selecting “Save Target As” opened the save as window allowing me to download, the file is called 59140787.mov

Now I assume this to be the original file as uploaded by JerusalemGiantScreen
If you have ended up with a different type of file then I can only assume your download has been re-coded in some way, certainly using Real Download would re-code.
I don’t know about Replay Media Capture.

John

No I didn’t notice the waves flowing backwards, well spotted. I suppose the commentary “travel back in time” lends itself to zooming out,

Playing this section and I can see blips/pauses in the video……..
Look at frame 00:05:00:19 or there-abouts notice that the adjacent frame (00:05:00:18) is a duplicate.
Then move one second to 00:05:01:17 / 18
Then on another second to 00:05:02: 17 / 18

Do you see the duplicates in your version.?

[jparnold]

I find it strange that I don't get the option to “Save Target As” when I right click on the download icon on the Vimeo site for this video. If I left click on it Quicktime opens and then the video appears to be downloaded directly to Quicktime. Anyway I did download it a few days ago using Replay Media Catcher which does a separate download of the video file as the download takes less than 2 minutes not the 7 minutes the video displays on the screen.

I then tried to check if there were the duplicate frames as you mentioned. Firstly after selecting all the images I had loaded into a library I attempted to select Add To Timeline and then VS appears to crash possibly as there were too many for it to handle (well over 7000 images). I then calculated what image (number) would be around the point where you detected duplicate frames (5 min 1 sec X 23.975 + 17) and added from a few images before that (ie from image no 7200) to about 10 seconds later. I then selected each image in order watching to see if there was any duplicate frames and indeed I did see what appears to be duplicate images (frames) between image numbers 7225 and 7226 and then again about one second later. This part is looking directly down on Jerusalem.

It would seem that VS X4 is NOT taking a 'snapshot' from the original video every 1/23.976 of a second for it it did then there should be no 'jumps' (as I detected) and also no duplicate frames. It (VS X4) probably just does it's best (as the saying goes). It's a pity we can't do it as the original video does display very smoothly when 'playing' it.
I wonder if any other video software can do it 100%