Freeze Framing

lordphil wrote on 6/6/2002, 7:31 AM
Hi there,

How whould i go about "freezing" a frame say for 3 seconds or somthing, then carrying on the video? I'm making an edit for an extreme sports, and i whould like to freeze some one doing a move. Ive got the demo of vegas and i love it (much nicer than premier), and i whould like to be able to do this effect.

So far ive tried splitting the frame out then ctrl + dragging it but the length seems to be limited!

Thanks for your help in advance

Phil

Comments

Former user wrote on 6/6/2002, 8:03 AM
Look for information on the Velocity Envelope. This allows to adjust the speed of the video from 300% forward to -100%. (and freeze).

Dave T2
Tanjy wrote on 6/6/2002, 11:20 AM
Here's how you do it, but I wish the VV developers would come up with a simpler way. I'm sure tech support is always getting asked how to do freeze frames.

1. In the Video Preview screen choose Best Quality. Then right click and check off Display at Project Size.

2. Click on the "Save Timeline Snapshot to File" icon (upper righthand corner of Preview screen). This will create a JPG of your frame. Then drag this JPG to your timeline over your video. Adjust the length by trimming/expanding the edges.
Scotious wrote on 6/6/2002, 12:50 PM
I have used Tanjy's method, which has its uses, but have found the resulting jpeg to have less resolution than the project when printed back to tape. You may be able to bump up the resolution in an image editor but remember jpeg's a lossy compression scheme, so you'll never be back up to true DV rez. Changing the velocity is simpler and retains the resolution.
Frenchy wrote on 6/6/2002, 1:02 PM
Try saving the image as a .png instead - less lossy than .jpg
Frenchy
Tanjy wrote on 6/6/2002, 2:17 PM
The method I mentioned is what the VV tech support guy told me over the phone.
Chienworks wrote on 6/6/2002, 2:29 PM
Scotious, make sure you either set the preview window to "display at project size" or stretch the window out to the full project size. The frame capture function will grab the still at whatever resolution the preview window is showing. Depending on how large you have it on your screen, it's probably 1/2 or 1/4 size. If you get the frame at full size it should look nearly indistinguishable from the original source material.
shackrock wrote on 6/6/2002, 3:07 PM
do it by changing velocity envelopes to 0%..i think that would be the ideal way.

however, when i've done it in the past - after my mixdown, the freeze frame goes nuts on the screen....for example - i'd freeze on a persons face, and it would fly all around the screen....just video takes off..kind of cool actually...lol
lordphil wrote on 6/7/2002, 4:11 AM
Cheers figured it out now :) Not that hard i was just being dumb. Is there a way to type the envelope value and not use that draggy thing?
jetdv wrote on 6/7/2002, 10:05 AM
Right-click the blue square, choose "Set velocity to..." (or something like that) and you get an edit box beside the square. Type in the value you want and press enter.
Chienworks wrote on 6/7/2002, 1:51 PM
I'll just point out that the one big drawback of the velocity envelope is that it only affects the video track. If you have audio along with the video then it won't be in sync any more from the point where the video envelope first changes from 100%. If you need to preserve sync after the freeze you should split the track at the point where the freeze starts, drag the right side of the split over to make room, ungroup the audio & video tracks to the left of the split, extend the left video track to fill in the space, group the audio & video together again, then apply the velocity envelope.

Slightly more convoluted, but it's easier than trying to resync without splitting.