Is getting a smooth slow motion due to the camcorder or the editing system?

I'm looking to buy a 3ccd camera and was wondering if you can get a smooth slow motion if used on imovie?Is getting a smooth slow motion due to the camcorder or the editing system?Iridflare and J I H are both right on.



NTSC standard frame rate is 30 fps (technically 29.97, but wikipedia does a better job explaining that item). If you increase that capture frame rate - like 120 fps or higher and playback at 30fps, then the playback will be in slow motion.



For example, supporting J I H, some Sony camcorders have a feature, "SmoothSlowRecord". They burst a higher frame (120-240fps) rate for 3 seconds and playback time is 12 seconds.



In support of Iridflare, when you consider that most consumer camcorders that use flash memory, DVD or hard disc drive for storage compress the video a LOT. And when you understand that video compression = discarded video data = reduced video quality, your goal, especially if you are planning slow motion video is to use the least amount of compression possible because you need the MOST amount of video data. In the consumer camcorder space, that typically means DV and HDV video formats, and that means miniDV tape.



The next piece has to do with the camcorder's shutter speed. Generally, when everything is in "auto" mode, the camcorder's shutter will be at 1/60 second or 1/125 second. With fast action, a lot can happen in that time. Increasing the camcorder's shutter speed to 1/500 secodn or 1/1000 second will help freeze the action...



There is no one thing that you can do that provides smooth and clear slow motion - but a combination of things. And yes, it is more important that the camera capture the high frame rate than iMovie's slow motion effect application - but both can work together to give you a good result.



And the imaging chip - whether single CCD or CMOS or 3CCD or 3CMOS has little to do with the slow motion capabilities of the camcorder. The chip merely interprets the light allowed in by the lens. But it is always preffered to have the largest imaging chip(s) and lenses possible to get as much light as possible. When the shutter speed is increased, you will need as much light as possible in to get a clear shot during the high frame rate capture.



If you stay to the 30 fps that most camcorders are limited to, increasing the shutter speed alone to about 1/500 second and using iMovie's slow effect can work - do that too much and you will have a "strobe" effect that is visually uncomfortable when viewed for long periods of time (though I have noticed that 1/1000 second to be much worse with that issue). And if you slow down much further than about 14 fps, the playback will look jerkey.



If you REALLY want to do high quality slow motion video, then you won't be using a consumer or prosumer grade camcorder or a bundled video editor - but a standalone camera that connects directly to the computer and specialized high speed capture/recording software designed to do thousands of frames per second. The video files captured to a hard drive are HUGE.Is getting a smooth slow motion due to the camcorder or the editing system?It's both! Highly compressed video recorded to DVD, HD or SD doesn't take kindly to being altered, so that's never a good choice. Slow motion is achieved by inserting extra frames - some editors are better than others at doing this (but I don't know how good iMovie is!). The number of imaging chips shouldn't have any effect.Is getting a smooth slow motion due to the camcorder or the editing system?I think that slow motion is achieved by recording at a fast speed %26amp; playing it back at a speed slower than the speed you record it, that is the way it is done %26amp; it's the camera that does it,not the software though you can alter the speed in most software packages.