Working with 120fps video?

[southwestform]

I have footage shot at 1080P 120fps from a GoPro. My understanding is that the reason to shoot this many frames is to slow the footage down to make it smoother.

1. Is the best way to do this with the speed/duration option?

2. If I decide to not slow the footage down, is there anything in PP that I should do to make the footage play back nicely?

Thanks.

[Steven L. Gotz]

1. No. Absolutely not. See below.

2. Not that I know of. If you play it at 30fps you are only using 1/4 of all of the frames, but that should be OK for most footage.

If you want to play it in slow motion, interpret the footage as 24fps and then create your sequence from the interpreted footage. If you are going to want to play it as both slow motion and regular, then make a copy of the clip in the bin before interpreting it.

[shooternz]

2. Not that I know of. If you play it at 30fps you are only using 1/4 of all of the frames, but that should be OK for most footage.

You sure about that Steven.  It should be playing all the frames. ie 30 fps playback  per second from  120fps real time = slo mo

4x slower.

This conversation seems like de ja vu  BTW .

[Steven L. Gotz]

It is kind of deja vu, yes. But it has been a while.

I am sure. If you drop a 120 fps clip into a 30 fps timeline, it plays one fourth of the frames. To make it slow motion, you need to tell Premiere Pro to interpret it as 30 fps so that it plays every frame.

[shooternz]

When I drop 200+ fps onto my 25 fps timeline I get slo mo without any other action.

[Steven L. Gotz]

When I drop 200+ fps onto my 25 fps timeline I get slo mo without any other action.

Hmmm.

I have done this many times with 60fps and not had that happen. Only tried it once with some GoPro footage at 120 fps. I don't own a GoPro. Yet. Have yet to find a need, but I think the time is coming.

I have never had 200+ fps footage.

Could it be that Premiere Pro doesn't interpret your footage correctly to begin with?

Interesting. It would be fun to play with some of your footage if you would not mind sharing some.

[shooternz]

Could it be that Premiere Pro doesn't interpret your footage correctly to begin with?

Well I have no evidence of that, doubt it  and hope not!

One of my cameras will shoot up to 800 fps but I am generally shooting 25, 50, 100 and occasionally 200.  Those speeds  fit the type of work I use it for.

I mix the shots in the 25 fps sequence and some are normal speed and some are slo mo on playback and export.

Will take a look for a short clip that can be uploaded efficiently. ( I don't have those wonderful upload speeds like you have!)

Slo mo footage by its nature tends to be a longer file and hence larger!  An avchd file will be as "short" as I can supply.

[Steven L. Gotz]

Anything you can manage would be appreciated.

My download is OK, but the upload is not all that fantastic at around 1/10th of the download speed..

[shooternz]

Nice specs compared to our sucky NZ speeds.

pm sent - linked to a file.

[southwestform]

For clarification:

1. I usually setup my sequence settings by dragging the clip into the Timeline and let it set the sequence settings that way. If I do that, it will establish the sequence at 120fps. Can I just go in after it has already established the other settings and just change the fps from 120fps to 30fps? Or is there another way I should be doing this?

2. How can I take my 120fps footage and play some of it in slow motion and the rest at 30fps? By making a copy of the clip, how do I get it into the timeline where one of the clips is 120fps and one is 30fps?

Thanks!

[Steven L. Gotz]

Can I just go in after it has already established the other settings and just change the fps from 120fps to 30fps?

If you have the latest version or so of Premiere Pro. Yes. If not, you will have to create a new sequence from the interpreted clip - see below.

2. How can I take my 120fps footage and play some of it in slow motion and the rest at 30fps? By making a copy of the clip, how do I get it into the timeline where one of the clips is 120fps and one is 30fps?

Make a duplicate of the clip in the project panel. Interpret the copy to 30 fps. Drag it into the timeline. It will play in slow motion and you will notice it is longer than the original.

[BartonGarrett256]

‌In general GoPro footage is a challenge to work with native in Pr unless you have a very fast system.  I'm upgrading to an 8 core I7, SSD, 64gb RAM, Raid 0, dual video card system, in part because renders on long 1440 x 1080 GoPro clips with multiple effects (warp stabilizer on top of the list) were taking forever. Basic stuff is just slow, but stacking effects is brutal. If all you need to do is assemble and trim you may be okay.

I haven't played with 120 FPS footage, but expect it can't be any easier.  If you don't have a fast system you might want to consider transcoding into Cineform or DNxHD before you process.  Poke around the forums using search and you can find a few threads with good suggestions from experts.  Also follow the links to the Tweakers page, which is a little stale on current reccomedations, but the underlying information is excellent.

Pr now has a nice GP lens correction effect, carefully hidden under Presets.  It's not perfect, but it can make the footage much less fish eyeish.

[Byron Cortez]

Hi Southwestform, here you have the best way to do your footage play back nicely and at real motion:

In Project panel right click in video, choose Modify / Interpret Footage...

In "Assume this frame rate:" box, put 120 fps like the screenshot, and that's all.

Regards!