How To Up-Convert 30fps to 60fps
I’m a 24fps junkie. Every time I see a video in 30fps, I immediately think “home video” and proceed to scoff at it. But lately, I’m noticing more and more videos in 60fps. And they look really good.
Really good.
Especially on people talking, live events, and sweeping landscape shots.
So I decided to try it out. I pulled out the handy Canon 5D Mark II and went to change the frame rate…except that there were only two settings: 24 and 30. Now what? How am I supposed to get that silky smooth look?
My first thought was that maybe up-converting the frame rate would work. So I did the first thing anyone would do: I googled it. And yet after a standard amount of searching, I didn’t find a single article where people wanted to up-convert 30fps to 60fps, which I thought was kind of crazy. I can’t possibly be the only person who wanted to get 60fps from a DSLR!
Well, suffice to say, I figured it out, and the result is amazing.
I’m using Premiere Pro CC but the same can be done in FCP X (I put those instructions below).
Premiere Pro CC
The first step is to record properly. I recorded in 29.97 at 1/80 shutter. That gives me about a 135 degree shutter angle which minimizes motion blur which in turn helps out the process later. This article by RED helped a lot.
Once you import the clip into Premiere, create a new sequence and set its dimensions to the size of your video. Under the frame rate, however, change it to 59.94 (which is exactly double 29.97, your real frame rate).
Now drag the clip into the sequence. Premiere will likely complain at you saying that the clip doesn’t match the sequence settings, but that’s fine. Keep the sequence settings the way they are because here’s where the magic happens.
If you were to frame through the timeline right now, you would notice that every frame is held for two frames. That obviously isn’t desirable. We want 60 distinct frames, not 30 x 2. Right-click on the clip in the sequence, go to Time Interpolation, and choose Optical Flow.
Optical Flow, for those of you who don’t know, is a fancy computer process for video that takes a start frame and an end frame, and then generates any middle frames based on those bounding frames. It’s pretty incredible, and works extremely well on video with little motion blur and high contrast. In the case of this sequence, frame 1 is a distinct frame, frame 2 is a repeat frame, and frame 3 is a distinct frame. So what we’ve just told Premiere to do is generate a new frame between frame 1 and frame 3 to make a new frame 2.
Now render (which will take a while) and tada! You now have silky smooth 60fps video ready for YouTubers to lust over.
Obviously this doesn’t work 100% of the time, but it should work for shots with lots of contrast and color which is generally where 60fps shines anyway.
Final Cut Pro X — v10.3+
Since version 10.3, Final Cut Pro X has made this process even simpler. After importing the clip into an event, create a new project and set the frame rate to 59.94. Open the project and drag the clip in.
Select the clip in the timeline and then go over to the Video Inspector window at the top right. Scroll down to “Rate Conform” where it’ll like be set to Floor. Change that to Optical Flow and Final Cut will begin analyzing the clip! Once it finishes, you’ll have that buttery smooth 60fps video.
Final Cut Pro X — For versions prior to 10.3
In versions prior to 10.3, you have to trick Final Cut Pro X. After importing the clip into an event, create a new project and set the frame rate to 59.94, and make sure to uncheck “Set based on first video clip.” Open the project and drag the clip in.
Here’s where it’s weird. Select the clip in the timeline and hit Command + R to show the Retime Editor and change the timing of the clip to something other than 100%. Now go over to the Retime drop down on the middle right of FCP, go to Video Quality, and choose Optical Flow. Now reset the Retime bar by clicking the little triangle above the clip in the project and choose Normal (100%). And there you are! Silky smooth 60fps video in FCP X!
Result
The original:
After up-converting:
Nothing will replace the cinematic feeling of 24fps, but I’m beginning to find a place for the butter smoothness of 60fps.
Extra tip! If you want 4k video on YouTube but only have a 1080p camera, just export into 4k anyway and upload it. The 2k and 4k versions on YouTube will look better than the standard 1080p version just because the bit rate is higher. Look it up, you can actually Google the comparisons for this one.
