Nvidia

NVIDIA AI transforms regular videos into smooth slow motion action

Most cameras record at an ordinary 30fps, though 60fps and even 120fps have become increasingly popular. Despite the availability of slow motion recording on some smartphones and digital cameras, though, most users record videos at the default “regular speed” rate. This is a problem for times when there’s fast-moving action, but NVIDIA may have developed the solution.
Slow motion video, where the action is presented smoothly and slowly, is recorded at high frame rates, such as 240fps. The higher the frame rate, the lower the resolution, though, at least when it comes to consumer cameras. This makes using slow motion recording options unappealing, though slow motion itself has many upsides.
During moments of fast or complex action, slow motion enables viewers to dial down the pace and take in all the events, which may not be possible at 30fps or 60fps. Video editing software can be used to manually reduce the rate of playback, but that results in increasingly choppy footage the slower it is played.

NVIDIA researchers have addressed that issue — the choppiness, that is — using artificial intelligence. Using a system based on deep learning, the team successfully transformed 30fps video into very smooth, high-quality slow motion videos where all of the action is seamlessly visible. You can see multiple examples of this in the video above.

NVIDIA researchers are presenting the system at the Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition conference in Utah; they’ve also published a research paper that’s publicly available here. Such technology may make it possible in the future to create high-quality and high-resolution slow motion videos from ordinary footage.

Brittany Roston