Please can anyone help me.
How do I slow down a shot to almost stationary without using a high speed
camera. When I do a time stretch the footage jerks and I can't seem to get
it smooth. We are using a middle of the range DV camera for shooting, and
cannot get hold of a high-speed DV cam. I am using Combustion, but with no
luck, I have also tryed After Effects, but still with no luck!
Heellllppppp!!!
You could try RealSmart Twixtor from www.revisionfx.com. It is a plug-in to After Effects and Combustion that will do this sort of thing. Twixtor costs $350.
A similar but more sophisticated solution is called ReTimer from www.realviz.com. ReTimer costs about $3000.
Both of these programs do pixel flow analysis and interpolate new frames from the inferred motion of pixels.
What you are trying to do is sort of difficult to start with. And you may not be able to get acceptable results with either product due to DV's compression.
But you can try the demos.
I don't know that there are any true high speed DV cameras on the market. But there are other format high speed video and film cameras. You are looking at a completely different price range from a middle-range DV camera though.
Also I assume when you did your tests you turned on frame blending in After Effects and/or Combustion.