How to make/use slow motion video?

1. Slow motion is a post production process where you use software to control the frame rate. You may or may not have to convert your .mov file depending on the software.

2. You upload the video to a host site, like google, and then embed the link to the video to post on another site.

To view frame by frame in Quicktime, use the arrow keys.

Thanks Austin.

YHF, can you tell me about your new camera? What brand, etc? Maybe price if that's not too much to ask.

I've seen some that look like they write directly to a CD and others that might have a hard drive in them?

The Windows Movie Maker is a great video editing tool that comes with Windows. I have used it for years.
Regardless of wether your camera writes to tape/Hd or dvd it can be edited. WMM breaks the video into small sections and allows some editing of unnecessary footage.
I am sure it will allow slow motion but have never used that feature..

Writing to dvd is more convenient to copy but not the greatest capacity .

It's just a cheap little Aiptek HD camera. A little over $100 I think. We got it just to have around for fun stuff or when we need a video camera quickly.

It records to SD cards. I've tried it for some hitting practice to see how it works. HD quality is good, and though it says it records at 30fps, I'm not sure that's true. Even slow practice swings show quite a bit of blurring of the bat.

When I view frame-by-frame, I can make it out pretty well but it's still a little blurry. and the bat and hands are barely viewable. It certainly wouldn't do for someone who needs high quality recording of motion.

We have an older camera that records to the mini-dv tapes but I'm not sure if I can play that back to my computer to store it digitally. I might be able to and just not know how.

quote:

Originally posted by YHF:
Thanks Austin.

No prob.

DV records digitally so it can be transferred to your computer in digital format. If your camera has a firewire output, that is the digital interface. Some older cams had USB outputs which would also transfer digitally.

The blurring is not from the frame rate, but rather the quality/size of the CCD chip in the camera. A larger(more expensive) chip writes more information, faster to the chip and creates less blurring. The larger the chip, the more it writes to each frame like a digital still photograph. The smaller chip, has to begin writing the frame at one point in the action and then end writing the frame at a different point in the action, creating blur.

Your camera should have a connection for down loading. Mine connects by firewire. There should be a port on the camera that allows you to hook up.

I'm guessing the CCD chip is not something that can be upgraded? So it is what it is.

I can get the video to my computer in two different ways...1) via the SD card which is pretty easy obviously. (2) There's also a 'USB out'.

It has a 'component out' port and though it claims to play 720p, there's no HDMI connection possible. So playback on the TV is probably somewhere between 480 and 720.

If it didn't blur so much this thing would be ideal.

I'll have to check my old camcorder to see what ports it has to download video to my computer.

Thanks.

Let me ask a follow up question...

Since the video blurs quite a bit recording at 'HD level', would it still blur as much if I recorded the video at a lower resolution?

The camera records at 3 different resolutions...

"HD" 1280x720
"Std" 720x480
"Web" 352x240

You can't upgrade your CCD chip

The easiest/fastest transfer for you is to plug your SD card into your computer

The lower the resolution the less blur...because there is less being written to the CCD chip. I would try recording swings at all 3 settings. In theory, you wouldn't need the minutae of HD but would benefit more from the clearer, although more grainy, picture of STD or Web.

Let us know how it works out.

I figured that was the case for the CCD.

Thanks for the info. I will try recording at each resolution level and provide a full review here on HSBBW.

In fact, if I can figure out how to post videos to the site I'll post clips from each resolution so everyone can see the difference.

YHF,
Probably because posters here are baseball folks, and not necessarily video experts, opinions will vary. I'm not an expert at either field, but I'll take a crack at your question.

I assume that you have a AIPTEK A-HD camera. This camera outputs data in the .MOV format, using the H264 (MPEG-4) codec. As Austin has said, Quicktime should be able to play these files for you, and step by single frames. I don't have a MPEG-4 camera to try it, but I believe that you need to click on the arrows just to the right of the playtime indicator. The Play/Pause button and these arrow buttons are all on the same line. Clicking on these buttons will advance or backup one frame at a time.

The camera does take video at 30 frames per second. You will see blurring if the subject is moving, and this is true of all cameras. [If you were to don asbestos-based clothing and venture into the hitting forum, you'll see that bat blur is one commonly used feature to determine when the hitter is startng his swing in earnest.] The cause of the blurring is not directly related to resolution or size of the CCD. Instead it is related to the exposure time of each frame. The A-HD is a remarkably inexpensive camera, and a fair amount of the cost reduction was achieved by going to a non-zooming lens with plastic elements. So the light gathering power of the lens is on the low side, and consequently the camera needs to use relatively long exposure times. But even a $250K commercial TV camera will blur the motion of the bat or the ball.

You can reduce the blur by taking video in the best possible light. This will reduce the exposure time (the camera does this auto-magically) and the bat or ball will move a shorter distance during each frame's exposure. So try to take your video outside on a sunny day.

Recording at lower resolution will lower the memory required to store the video, and may reduce the needed processing power of your computer, but it won't fix the blurring.

It is likely that using either the USB cable or reading the SD card directly will give about the same transfer speeds, but that depends on your computer hardware. Just try it both ways.

Regarding Firewire versus USB, it used to be true that video cameras used Firewire, and it is still possible to find some new models that do that. However, nearly all new designs use USB. In part, that's because USB ports are available on all Windows-based or Apple computers, and Firewire generally is not available on Windows computers.

Thanks for the info. I appreciate it.