Velocity Remapping/ReTiming by Motion Estimation (“Optical Flow”) in Boris RED
Questions (as for any such app / method):
- Can it do it?
- How easily?
- How robustly / flakily?
- Quality of Result?
- Productivity e.g. processing time in relation to real-time?
Answers:
- Yes it can in principle do it, via the BCC Optical Flow filter
- (as opposed to the BCC Velocity Remap filter, which just blends frames).
- However when I tried it I encountered some practical difficulties:
- Boris RED 4 succeeds in exporting broadly the expected result (e.g. to AVI-VFW-Cineform) but that result has a slight blemish in the form of flickering, as if (possibly) original frames are slightly brighter than derived frames.
- Boris RED 5 fails to export the result in a usable form.
- I tried various containers and codecs.
- I have reported these and other issues, to Boris FX (via their Support Form).
- For my situation, until these issues are addressed, the question of “Productivity” is academic.
My Experiences (tonight):
- In Boris RED 4.3.3:
- Incidentally, in this version, running on [MacBook Pro (2009) > Boot Camp > Windows 7], the GPU is within spec and so maximum OpenGL harware acceleration can be enabled.
- The process is reasonably easy, but you have to configure the project and render (“export”) settings e.g. to match the footage, which itself must be QuickTime or AVI or MPG etc. It will not accept “MXF for NLEs” as from Sony Clip Browser, and certainly not Sony XFCAM-EX folder structures (BPAV) or essence files (.MP4), at least not when they have “.mp4” extensions.
- Seems robust.
- Quality is an issue – the original frames seem slightly brighter than the derived ones, resulting in a slight “blinking” effect.
- In Boris RED 5.0.6
- Issue: the User Guide complains that the browser (FireFox 3.6.25) is not supported
- Nevertheless it appears to open successfully in it.
- Configuring the project is simpler, using templates, e.g.”HDTV 25″.
- Procedure:
- Set Project Settings to [1920x 1080 HDTV 25]
- Project Settings makes no distinction between progressive and interlaced.
- Delete the lower Track (leaving just the upper one).
- In the remaining Track, replace [V1] by [Movie File]
- Issue: RED 5.0.6 is unable to read the same source media file that 4.3.3 was able to read.
- Namely ProRes in a QuickTime wrapper.
- Work-Around: In external applicaton, transcode it to Cineform (Neo) in an AVI wrapper.
- Issue: RED 5.0.6 is unable to read the same source media file that 4.3.3 was able to read.
- RED 5.0.6 was indeed able to read that.
- In “grey area” below Tracks, do: [right-click > New Filter > Time > Optical Flow].
- This creates a new Track containing just (an instance of) the Optical Flow filter
- Twirl the [Optical Flow] (instance) to reveal its [Source Layer]
- Drag the “movie file” track over the [Source Layer] of the Optical Flow (instance)
- Select the [Optical Flow] track
- In [Controls] pane, the controls for [Optical Flow] appear. Set them as follows:
- Velocity: 25.00 (%)
- Input Fields: Upper
- This just means how to interpret the source file – giving the flexibility to “bend the rules” here.
- Input Frame Rate
- This is undocumented.
- Optical Flow Mix
- Normally one wants this to be 100%
- All optical flow, no blending.
- When 100%, [Blending] etc. settings are meaningless.
- Normally one wants this to be 100%
- Export (Render):
- Initially tried exporting as AVI-Cineform
- Resulting image, when played, merely consisted of “vertical running streaks”
- Same thing even when RED project was just a Movie File (no effects)
- Resulting image, when played, merely consisted of “vertical running streaks”
- Next tried exporting as QT
- The [Compression] settings button failed to work.
- Same thing even when RED project was just a Movie File (no effects)
- The [Compression] settings button failed to work.
- Next tried exporting as AVI-MJPEG, Quality 90%
- The result was not playable by Windows Media Player, while other apps just showed black.
- Next tried AVI-Intel-IYUV
- Got an image but it was grey and contained obvious lines (maybe it doesn’t do HD?)
- Next tried AVI-Uncompressed
- Inconvenient – it took 2GB instead of 750 MB for the Cineform compressed version.
- Did not play as expected – looked like fields got converted to frames (the first error) and in the wrong order (the second error)
- But did not get same effect when RED project was just a Movie File (no effects), instead that result played as expected. Suggests it is an issue particular to Optical Flow.
- Next tried AVI-Uncompressed but with Progressive result
- Additionally, increased the output framerate (by 4 to 100fps) and reset the velocity to 100%.
- Result (4GB) was unplayable either by Windows Media Player or by Sony Vegas.
- Next tried same thing but only double-framerate (by 2 to 50fps)
- Same result: 4GB unplayable.
- Next tried same but unaltered framerate:
- Same result: 4GB unplayable.
- Next tried (as earlier worked OK) ulantered framerate and interlacing (UFF):
- Same result: 4GB unplayable.
- Abandon.
- {Restarted Boris and created fresh project, then the last experiment worked OK}
- {Re-experiment with this fresh project. Report as a separate Blog entry (for Day 2…) }
- Initially tried exporting as AVI-Cineform
- Set Project Settings to [1920x 1080 HDTV 25]
- Issue: the User Guide complains that the browser (FireFox 3.6.25) is not supported