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How to Compress/Speed Up a Time Lapse file

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How to Compress/Speed Up a Time Lapse file

Postby MrGrunthunter » Sun Apr 09, 2017 10:48 pm

Last weekend I tried recording a Dusk to Dawn time lapse over a local reservoir. It was a nice clear cool and dry night so I didn't have to contend with a lot of condensation early in the morning. The big downside was that there was almost a full moon so I couldn't capture all of the star details but it was an experiment anyway. I recorded for 12 hours from 7:30pm until 7:30am with my GoPro HERO 4 Black. The camera Time Lapse settings were:
SHUTTER: 30Sec
INTERVAL: Continuous
MEGAPIXELS: 12mp Wide
Spot Meter: OFF
Protune: ON
White Balance: 3000K
COLOR: GoPro Color
ISO Max: 800
Sharpness: Medium
The final product out of the GoPro were two files totaling 23:59.22 (I cut 3 frames from the end where I stuck my face in front of the camera to see if it was still recording lol)
I am using VEGAS PRO 14 to process the video and want to compress it down (speed it up) to around maybe 3-4 min. I tried grabbing the end of the video clip and dragging it to the left but it appears to at some point to be clipping off frames from the end. I read where users say they have compressed clips 200% , 300%, 400% etc but I don't see where there is a menu option to put in the percentage you want to compress or extend a video clip so I just grab the end and drag it.
I guess my question is: Is there a limit as to how much you can speed up/compress a video clip like this?
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Re: How to Compress/Speed Up a Time Lapse file

Postby Steve Grisetti » Mon Apr 10, 2017 5:50 am

I've never pushed it to see how fast you can make a video go, but worst case you can push it to the limit, output the video as an MP4, then speed up that MP4 even more. How much do you want to speed the playback speed?

Anyway, I always find the best way to precisely speed up playback is to (as I show you in the book) right-click on the event on the timeline and select Properties. Then, under the Video Event tab, type in the Playback Rate.
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Re: How to Compress/Speed Up a Time Lapse file

Postby sidd finch » Mon Apr 10, 2017 8:31 am

I am guessing that these were time lapse files made up of individual images (jpeg's).

Copy the images to one folder on your hard drive. I have found that the FREE GoPro studio software does a great job of combining all the images into an AVI video file that can be imported into you your video editor.

Sidd
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Re: How to Compress/Speed Up a Time Lapse file

Postby MrGrunthunter » Mon Apr 10, 2017 9:49 am

I just went back and found that in your book. Interestingly I tried speeding it up 10x but it appears to limit you to 4x no matter what I type in. The other thing I noticed is that it the overall length of the video didn't change on my timeline, which kind of puzzles me. 24 minutes is way to long for someone to watch a time lapse so that's why I want to get it down to approx 3 min.

Maybe someone who has more experience with recording Time Lapse videos with a GoPro can comment on my settings. I'm in the guessing mode with that right now.
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Re: How to Compress/Speed Up a Time Lapse file

Postby Chuck Engels » Mon Apr 10, 2017 10:07 am

You said that you got 2 files out of the go pro totaling about 24 hours. What type of files were those, MP4 or AVI or something else? Maybe I'm missing something but these do not seem to be the correct settings for an actual time lapse.
SHUTTER: 30Sec
INTERVAL: Continuous
Maybe Sidd can help with this as I usually have an interval in seconds so the camera takes a shot every 60 seconds. With your settings the camera will continuously take a photo one after the other, a photo will be taken and the shutter will stay open for 30 seconds, then another photo with the shutter open for 30 seconds.

See these links for help with time lapse and Night Lapse.

http://projectgo.pro/gopro-time-lapse/
https://gopro.com/support/articles/how- ... ight-lapse

you want the interval to be as large as possible and still be able to view whatever it is you are trying to view. Too fast and you will miss a lot, too slow and you will get exactly what you got, not much of a time lapse but more like real time. You shot for 24 hours and you have 24 hours of footage, that is not time lapse :)
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Re: How to Compress/Speed Up a Time Lapse file

Postby sidd finch » Mon Apr 10, 2017 10:56 am

I am confused. Did you record video or did you record time lapse still images (jpeg). Video will not record for 24 hours without creating multiple files. GoPro records FAT32 which will create a 4GB file max. Based on your settings I am not sure how you only got 2 files.

If you recorded time lapse (meaning you recorded jpeg images) continuously and you have 2 folders with jpeg images in both folder, you need to stitch the images together to create a time-lapse video from all the still images.

When I have the jpeg images I combine all the images into one folder. I then drag that folder into the GoPro Studio app to stitch the pictures together and create an AVI video file.

Be aware that if you recorded still images (jpeg) they will be in the 4x3 aspect ratio and you will need to adjust them to 16x9 by cropping etc.

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Re: How to Compress/Speed Up a Time Lapse file

Postby MrGrunthunter » Mon Apr 10, 2017 12:07 pm

Chuck Engels wrote:You said that you got 2 files out of the go pro totaling about 24 hours. What type of files were those, MP4 or AVI or something else? Maybe I'm missing something but these do not seem to be the correct settings for an actual time lapse.
SHUTTER: 30Sec
INTERVAL: Continuous
Maybe Sidd can help with this as I usually have an interval in seconds so the camera takes a shot every 60 seconds. With your settings the camera will continuously take a photo one after the other, a photo will be taken and the shutter will stay open for 30 seconds, then another photo with the shutter open for 30 seconds.

See these links for help with time lapse and Night Lapse.

http://projectgo.pro/gopro-time-lapse/
https://gopro.com/support/articles/how- ... ight-lapse

you want the interval to be as large as possible and still be able to view whatever it is you are trying to view. Too fast and you will miss a lot, too slow and you will get exactly what you got, not much of a time lapse but more like real time. You shot for 24 hours and you have 24 hours of footage, that is not time lapse :)

I used the Video Time Lapse mode built in to the GoPro HERO 4 Black camera and it produces an MP4 file. It breaks it into multiple files when they get to a certain size. The first file is 3,908,110 kb in size and 13:36 long. The second file is 3,366,764 kb in size and 10:25 long. There is a different time lapse mode built in to the camera where it takes photos that you can bring into VEGAS PRO and create a time lapse. I was trying the Video Time Lapse mode.
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Re: How to Compress/Speed Up a Time Lapse file

Postby MrGrunthunter » Mon Apr 10, 2017 12:10 pm

sidd finch wrote:I am confused. Did you record video or did you record time lapse still images (jpeg). Video will not record for 24 hours without creating multiple files. GoPro records FAT32 which will create a 4GB file max. Based on your settings I am not sure how you only got 2 files.

If you recorded time lapse (meaning you recorded jpeg images) continuously and you have 2 folders with jpeg images in both folder, you need to stitch the images together to create a time-lapse video from all the still images.

When I have the jpeg images I combine all the images into one folder. I then drag that folder into the GoPro Studio app to stitch the pictures together and create an AVI video file.

Be aware that if you recorded still images (jpeg) they will be in the 4x3 aspect ratio and you will need to adjust them to 16x9 by cropping etc.

Sidd

I do the same for time lapse photos I've taken in the past also but this time I was using the built in Video Time Lapse mode.
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Re: How to Compress/Speed Up a Time Lapse file

Postby Chuck Engels » Mon Apr 10, 2017 12:23 pm

I still think the shutter and interval are set wrong but I was wrong about the length of the video, thought it was 23 hours but what you have actually is 23 minutes, my mistake. If you have 2 MP4 files I would think you should be able to Time Stretch those in Premiere Elements down to a few minutes without a problem. I am not familiar with Vegas so don't know what to tell you there.

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Re: How to Compress/Speed Up a Time Lapse file

Postby sidd finch » Mon Apr 10, 2017 3:03 pm

Sony Vegas limits slowing down by 4 x as slow and 4 x as fast.

That means that you would need to speed up by 4x then output a new video. Import the new video and speed up 4x. My guess is that you loose video quality.

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Re: How to Compress/Speed Up a Time Lapse file

Postby MrGrunthunter » Mon Apr 10, 2017 3:10 pm

sidd finch wrote:Sony Vegas limits slowing down by 4 x as slow and 4 x as fast.

That means that you would need to speed up by 4x then output a new video. Import the new video and speed up 4x. My guess is that you loose video quality.

Sidd

I was kind of wondering the same thing Sidd. I'm getting ready to try that now. I think though that there must be a better camera setting that will produce better, and shorter, results.
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Re: How to Compress/Speed Up a Time Lapse file

Postby sidd finch » Mon Apr 10, 2017 3:37 pm

you might want to give GoPro Studio a try as it might be able to do more that 4x. Premiere does too but you said you were using Vegas.

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