Help with smoothing out digital camera video

bravado75 wrote on 2/27/2005, 6:53 AM

The quality of my digital camera video is just ok enough to get by for fun little videos.

However, it is a little choppy and I want to smooth it out. I really don't know how or if it can be done to improve the look. I think I just want to smooth the frames into each other slightly. Or is there something else? Or will any tinkering just make it worse?

Thanks for any tips.

Comments

DGrob wrote on 2/27/2005, 6:59 AM

Can you define choppy and smooth? I can get several impressions, interlace flicker, shaking, etc. Each kind of problem leads to a different solution/suggestion.

Darryl

bravado75 wrote on 2/27/2005, 7:13 AM

Thanks for the quick response.

I would say it's hard to define. Meaning something is 'off' but I'm not exactly sure what, so I understand I may not get what I'm looking for.

But I believe the camera doesn't capture enough frames per second. I think what I'm seeing is a super slight pause on each picture. I notice it much more when I'm shooting fast moving objects.

I know it's not interlace flicker.

John_Cline wrote on 2/27/2005, 7:34 AM

When you say "digital camera video" are you talking about video shot with a digital still camera as opposed to an actual digital video camcorder? If so, then your observation about not taking enough frames per second is correct. Normal NTSC video runs at 29.97 frames per second and 25 fps in PAL countries. A digital still camera takes low resolution (usually no more than 320x240), low frame rate (maybe 10 - 15 fps) and will never look as good, or have the smooth motion of a "real" camcorder. You have some choices about smoothing the motion; use Supersampling in Vegas (although that's designed to smooth out animation) or get a piece of software called "Twixtor" which generates "in between" frames and can do a reasonable job depending on the source video.

If you really want to shoot higher resolution video with smooth motion, buy a real MiniDV camcorder, they can be had for as little as $300.

John

bravado75 wrote on 2/27/2005, 10:13 AM

Thanks.

yes, digital camera (not camcorder). It does DV 720x480. It claims "DVD quality" however, as I went frame by frame, there is only about 17 frames per second. So this is clearly the problem. (I guess they mean 'dvd quality' picture, but quietly ignore the frame rate issue.)

And I have a miniDV, but when traveling I just use my digital camera normally. The trade off of size vs quality is worth it to me for just making little videos.

Laurence wrote on 2/28/2005, 9:07 AM

Check out "Motion Perfect". It is a framerate conversion program that uses some kind of morphing technology to produce the inbetween frames that are missing. I have no experience with this, but they do have a downloadable demo.

http://www.dynapel.com