As mentioned previously, Frames Plus has extraordinarily long, almost unreal render times. It’s been like this on every computer configuration I’ve tested it on, so I don’t think there’s really any way to speed it up. One trick I learned was to reduce the Detail Pattern Size. This helps the render time a little, and actually seems to benefit the footage by softening it just enough to avoid some strange interlacing artifacts that are produced at higher settings.
These long render times are rewarded by some really incredible 60i to 24p de-interlacing. I wish there was something better that didn’t take so long to render, but there isn’t. Even though the picture stays ultra-sharp, Frames Plus somehow produces very few jaggies, and outputs a smooth and pleasant motion signature. Therefore, if you want your footage to have the highest quality and most realistic film motion possible, you’ll just have to “bite the Bullet” (pun intended) and deal with the outrageous render times.
That said, I don’t feel that Frames Plus is significantly better than some of the other products on the market for 60i to 30p conversion. It seems to produce an output that is a little jerkier, and not much sharper than other de-interlacer plugins I’ve used, even though the other plugins take 1/10th as much time to render.
One further note on the Performance of this package: the Deartifacter plugin increases render times very significantly. In the manual, Red Giant says that you should always use it, but I see little to no difference on footage that is going through one generation of miniDV to miniDV rendering. However, if you’re going to be transferring from miniDV to DigiBeta (or any other format with a higher colorspace), or if you’re doing multiple miniDV-to-miniDV recompressions, you definitely want to use this plugin despite the increase in render time, because the difference in the chroma smoothness will be quite noticeable.
A regular fade-out reduces brights and darks in a linear manner, resulting in a washed out picture; Optical fade reduces the blacks faster than the whites, creating a richer, more film-like fade.
Value
In the past, in order to get these plugins, you had to buy the entire Magic Bullet Suite, which ran about $1000. Of course, for that price you also got the great Look Suite (now known as Magic Bullet Looks), but it was still a pretty hefty investment. However, now you can buy Frames as a standalone package for $199, which is an incredible value for everything you get here. Not only are you getting the best 60i to 24p conversion tool available, but you’re also getting four other plugins! That boils down to $40 per plugin, which is quite a bargain considering their high quality and usefulness.
Also, this is the only version of Frames Plus that works in After Effects CS3. Older versions, known simply as Magic Bullet, won’t load properly. So if you want to use Magic Bullet’s great 60i to 24p deinterlacer in CS3, you’ll need to upgrade to this version.
Letterboxer automatically crops your footage to a variety of industry-standard aspect ratios.
Final Comments
The new Frames plugin is quite useful for less critical deinterlacing tasks, and the Opticals, Letterboxer, Deartifacter, and Broadcast Spec plugins will help your footage look more like film and will increase the quality of your image. However, the flagship Frames Plus is what really provides the most compelling reason to buy this package. If you want your footage to look like film, Frames Plus is the highest quality 60i to 24p conversion tool on the market, bar none.
Ease
of Use
8.0
Depth
of Options
9.0
Performance
8.0
Value
10.0
Overall
Score
8.8
Ryan Graham is the director of Livelihood, a critically acclaimed ultra-low budget zombie comedy. He also runs 37.5 Productions, a post production company specializing in giving a Hollywood sheen to independent films. In his spare time he is the lead guitarist for The Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad.
