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I used a Sony PXW-x70 to record some interviews for a project. Film was shot at 25 fps (first mistake) at 3840 x 2160. Other settings:
The footage looks almost slow motion, almost like every other frame is missing. So it is choppy and not smooth. Interpreting the footage to another framerate will just slow down or speed up the file, but not affect that weird choppiness. I would hate to refilm multiple interviews. Is there anything I can do to address this?
Thank you!
O.k, as i thought it was a low shutter speed that caused the issue.
Since it´s "baked" into the footage you can either use it "as is" and live with it or re-shoot everything. I really wish i had a better solution.
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If you view the footage through an external player (say VLC) does the footage look fine? I ask so as to help determine if any problems you are having are *actually* inside Premiere Pro and NOT due to a recording issue.
Why was 25fps a rookie mistake? 25fps should look fine.
What sequence settings are you using in Premiere Pro - Sequence settings should be set to 25fps.
Is it possible that playback choppyness is due to slow drives and/or an unrendered timeline? Try preview rendering some of your footage in your sequence ... does playback improve?
Can't think of anything else at the moment.
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Thanks for the reply. It does look choppy in VLC, and in Handbrake and any other program I've sampled it in. Definitely has nothing to do with slow drives or similar. So this totally blows my mind because I don't see anything in the settings that would cause this.
This all leads me to think it is a recording issue, but without understanding how it happened, I don't know if there's any way to compensate for it -- run it through some algorithm, or apply some Premiere magic.
I do understand that this is solely a Premiere forum, so if this turns out to not be an appropriate place, I'd be grateful for any suggestions. I have about eight interviews that this happened with, and some of them will be hard to refilm.
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If there is any chance of uploading a few seconds of footage, it may help in identifying what is wrong.
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Definitely. Hwere is the link: https://youtu.be/r9M7lD2KMKQ
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The 25fps video clip you uploaded has every frame repeated and appears to have been shot at 12 frames per second.
It also has the extra motion blur you would associate with that frame rate.
But I'm guessing the clip you uploaded came out of Premiere Pro?
As it is 1920x1080 rather than 3840x2160 you shot at?
Still can't rule out an error introduced by Premiere Pro ... but it does look like something went wrong while shooting.
My first thought would have been that some sort of Sony S&Q motion effect is going on here.
12fps is possible in S&Q mode. But you mentioned S&Q was off.
(and the Sony manual says you can't record audio while in S&Q mode - which your scene has - though I could not find an online x70 manual that covered the 4K version of the camera, only the HD version)
So I'm stumped.
There is a way to recover the lost frames (sort of) but it has a number of significant downsides.
It will be more blurry. It will have optical flow distortion on some movement (particularly hands). It will take a lot of rendering and additional effort.
But here goes.
Import the footage.
right click it in your project window and select > Modify > Interpret Footage.
Set "Assume this Frame Rate' to 50.00fps
Drop the shot into a 25fps (master) sequence.
Right click the clip and select 'Nest'.
Now in the master sequence, right click the nest and select 'speed/duration'. Set to 50% speed and in the Time Interpolation menu select 'Optical flow'.
You must 'Preview' render the sequence to see what it will look like. Without preview rendering you won't see the Optical Flow effect.
I tested your uploaded shot. It looks sort of OK. But movement is now blurrier and there are optical flow distortions on hand movements.
Only other thoughts on the camera record:
Quite a 'low light' scene (in the one you sent). Could something be going on with a 'low light' setting in-camera
What 'shutter speed' is selected on the camera. If very slow that could be causing the motion blur - but does not explain the frame rate/missing frames.
I have a client that I think regularly uses the 4K version of this camera - will check to see if this has ever happened to them.
Good luck. Please post if you find anything out.
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Steve, am I missing something? What we are seeing is the Youtube video, probably converted by Youtube.
default, I think what is needed is an actual clip, uploaded to dropbox or similar, so we can download and examine the actual characteristics. Or if you have no short clips, at least the actual PR exported file.
Stan
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Thanks so much for all of this! I'll definitely give your suggestion a shot. Since most of the interviews are fairly static, maybe it will still be usable. We'll see. I'll let you know how it goes.
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I agree Youtube is not the place to judge framerate (it gets re-encoded.)
Post screenshot of clip in MediaInfo in TREEVIEW.
Also a screenshot of sequence settings.
BTW there is nothing wrong with using 25 fps unless you want slomo then its best to set it to 50 (if possible).
Also post your computer specs and HDD setup. Your machine might not be able to process the clips properly.
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I understand the YouTube issue, however, I just thought it would give you a sense of what the issue looks like. Pretty sure it's not the computer as my system is pretty robust with a good video card. In addition, I had a friend check it on her machine where she does tons of video editing.
I know it also isn't a low-light issue as most of the interviews were done in full daylight and the issue is the same on those. I also think it was a shooting issue rather than anything introduced by Premiere. I just don't know what the hell happened as S & Q was off, clearly I was able record audio, etc.
I'll download MediaInfo and share what it shows. Thanks so much.
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Here is the video info from MediaInfo Treeview
General
Complete name : D:xxx\Clip0007.MXF
Format : MXF
Format version : 1.3
Format profile : OP-1a
Format settings : Closed / Complete
File size : 3.26 GiB
Duration : 8 min 0 s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 58.3 Mb/s
Encoded date : 2021-05-22 22:14:06.000
Writing application : Sony Mem 2.00
Video
ID : 2
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L5.1
Format settings : CABAC / 2 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, Reference frames : 2 frames
Format settings, GOP : M=3, N=6
Format settings, wrapping mode : Frame
Codec ID : 0D01030102106001-0401020201314001
Duration : 8 min 0 s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 53.7 Mb/s
Maximum bit rate : 60.0 Mb/s
Width : 3 840 pixels
Height : 2 160 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 25.000 FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.259
Stream size : 3.00 GiB (92%)
Color range : Limited
Color primaries : BT.709
Transfer characteristics : BT.709
transfer_characteristics_Original : xvYCC
Matrix coefficients : BT.709
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Here is the video info from MediaInfo Treeview
By @defaulti2o2s87coxnq
To check the shutter speed, download and use Sony Catalyst Browse
It´s free and you will see this:
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Well, I tink this is it. No way to make this footage usable that I can see.
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O.k, as i thought it was a low shutter speed that caused the issue.
Since it´s "baked" into the footage you can either use it "as is" and live with it or re-shoot everything. I really wish i had a better solution.
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I used a Sony PXW-x70 to record some interviews...
The footage looks almost slow motion, almost like every other frame is missing. So it is choppy and not smooth.
By @defaulti2o2s87coxnq
Without having the source footage it´s hard to know, but the motion blur suggests that you used a lower shutter speed than normal. Check that in camera.
If it looks choppy in all players you test using Interpret Footage wont do any magic or help at all. The footage is "as is" and i have never seen motion blur removed by using Interpret Footage.