Topaz Video AI can find duplicate frames and remove them but I need to go in the opposite direction to correct video shot at 30 FPS and recorded at 25 or 24, or 25 recorded at 24. This video has skipped frames causing the motion to jerk forward. How to repair: insert a blank frame at each skip, then interpolate between the two adjacent frames to create an intermediate frame replacing the blank frame. Inserting the blank frame requires either that software recognize the skip or that the user manually locate it. Skips occur at regular intervals the same number of frames apart (except occasionally when converting between drop-frame and non drop-frame video), so once one skip location has been determined, software can locate the others. Perhaps other software can carry out the task, I don’t know.
The checkpoints black frames inserting interpolated segments there can’t be done into Topaz and i don’t know how you could realize this automated. I think try interpolate to high frame rate in several steps, then go back to desired fps. For example if your video is 25fps use 2x Apollo first going to 50fps. Then try Aion to 100fps maybe use slow motion here factor of 0.5. Then use Chronos going to 200 fps…then revert slo-mo using factor 2.0, try around with the models, it is just a idea.
What you suggest is going to smooth out the jumps but the motion will still be uneven. I actually tried simply changing the frame rate of a clip shot at 30 FPS and stored at 25, and that is what happened.
If I can see the jumps with my human eyes, software should be able to see it too. Automated insertion of blank frames would require reviewing the amount of difference between frames, which would generally be twice as large when there is a skipped frame, as it is between other adjacent frames. Doing this test over a length of video would identify the rhythm and discard large changes between frames resulting from scene changes and camera shake. Stabilization before this step would reduce camera shake as a factor. This step could be followed by human review. Or a human could input the location of one jump, and the number of frames between jumps, and then have software insert the blank frames in one go.
A simple approach: I could create a macro to have my video editing app advance by the required number of frames and insert a blank frame. It could go out of sync occasionally but I could re-sync it. Exercising that macro repeatedly would create the file for Topaz AI to replace the blank frames with interpolated ones. Topaz AI might add this as a feature.
On a Mac, i use Automator to delete every nth frame on a davinci resolve timeline to obtain the original 18fps Super8 cine film frames that had been digitised wrongly , i run it as a Service. I know that it is not what you want to do but it could be adapted to your simple approach above.
