Kind of the way it is I think.
Unless the speed up is in multiples of the original frame rate then frames are getting merged. Also ANY motion of the camera becomes worse. Faster shutter speeds during the shoot would also help.

But also bear in mind that there's a limitation on how fast we can clearly see a fast moving object, higher fps helps but around 60fps you hit the limit of human perception.

Bob.

When speeding up a clip one can always disable resampling. That should help retain sharpness. On the other hand, having highly sped up images crystal clear can detract from the feeling of motion. Leaving resampling on may in some cases look more realistic as faster motion does tend to look blurred.

When you change speed, Vegas "resamples." What this means is that it creates new frames (when you slow down), and it may do that even when speeding up in order to avoid jerkiness when the frames that have been eliminated are skipped. These new frames are created by simply blending adjacent frames. Imagine a cross-fade between two adjacent frames, and that's what you get for the intermediate frames. Given that the new frames are created in this fairly crude manner, they are quite a bit softer than the original frames because they contain pixels from both frames, overlaid on top of each other.

The solution is to either disable resampling, in which case you simply get frames repeated when you slow down, which creates completely sharp images, but gives you video that is pretty jerky; or you can invest in a program like Motionperfect that actually uses motion estimation to create the intermediate frames. This is the way to go for good results. Unfortunately, Motionperfect's implementation is crude and they have not updated the product in years. There are more expensive alternatives but you are talking big money.

I constantly work with poorly shot video, huge jerkiness, excessive zooming. Every jerk ---if you slow it down---will show out of focus rames. I have to advance one frame at a time to find one in focus, take a snapshot, put it back in the sequence, then slow pan it to make it look like motion. Every few frames and it makes the clip viewable, but the pros will still throw up when they see it. If it wasn't for the still photo snapshot, resampling, slow motion, Mike Crash filters, and a galazy of "Condiment Filters", I would have some awfull looking clips. Out of a one hour clip there might be 2 or 3 minutes of viewable video. Can't tell you how many zooms I cut out. This latest one was zoomed in and out about every 10 seconds. The entire clip was pan-zoom pan zoom pan zoom pan zoom pan zoom pan zoom pan pan zoom zoom zoom pan. I have to add a lot of stills to let peoples eyeballs re-settle into their sockets.
JJK

One thing I'm really starting to learn is despite all the magic we can do in post nothing beats shooting it and recording it right in the first place. When I started out (again) in this business I think I was pretty arrogant, loved to show off just what I could do to fix things shot and recorded badly.
Now the buzz of doing that is long gone, now it's just 'groan, here we go again' although at least now there is the tinkle of the cash register to keep me interested.

If any of the camera manufacturers were to build a consummer camera that had a three lens turrent instead of a zoom and weighed at least 20Kg I think the average quality of video would improve dramatically. Oh and lets bump the cost of tape up 10 times.

/end of rant/

Bob.

Bob, best rant - ever! Love it .. love it!!

Specially your, "One thing I'm really starting to learn is despite all the magic we can do in post nothing beats shooting it and recording it right in the first place. "


. .and yer know what, all ALL this "bad" camera work is often/mostly the result of a paucity of ideas and NOT realising just exactly WHAT to video and just how much "stuff" is already available.

* Unless it is to create a very special "effect" - revealing "another" frame; bringing in another character; placing a building as part of a larger vista ( lodsa option here!) Zoom is for Framing - ONLY!

* MOSTLY . . A Movie Camera is a camera that doesn't move BUT takes/captures MOVEMENT.

* Movement is your friend - treat it with respect and it will give you everything - EVERYTHING!

* THINK about what is in front of the lens and imagine what COULD happen next within the finished edit.

* SHOOT for the edit.

* Depending on what type of video being created, SHOOT for the edit. I do many many 5 > 10 second shots. Longer shots need to be for a reason. As a result I need to keep my brain active and keep WORKING - working up ideas and making adjustment by re-framing, walking the plot, watching reactions and "spying" any potential other shots.

* Visit an art gallery, art websites & libraries and sketch YES draw ideas and shapes and use colours and understand colour theory and PLAY with visuals BEFORE getting to the camera. Look at the lighting by the old masters - Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Vermeer's "Young Woman with a Water Pitcher". AND, for really massive FX work, try out some of Cezanne's work with a dash of Picasso, a side salad of Van Gogh and a sprinkling of Dali! DALI!!

Try this rolling stills:
http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/dutchmasters/

* Understand "The Rule of 1/3s" - and know just WHEN to break it!!

I'd make it compulsory for any "budding"/consumer videogrpaher to work NEXT to an editor having to do a "Bob-Edit" .. oh yes . . .

Hey, I'm still learning too! Hope this never ends either . . .

Regards,

Grazie