@bdshort:
Take a look at Avisynth combined with the MVTools 2 plugin. With the right settings it gives results comparable to and sometimes better than After Effects.

There's an explainer on AVISynth on my blog here: http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakda.../2011/3157.html (thanks to Ian Regan, who explained it all to me).

Funny... I messed around with AVISynth, MVTools2, and VirtualDub for several hours last night and this morning trying to interpolate the frames for the heat shield separation sequence... The motion frames (at least the first few) are far too much apart so it couldn't figure out the proper motion no matter what I tried, but perhaps more professional tools and expertise can pull that off.

Some areas in the landing sequence can be made pretty smooth, but the problem there is lack of contrast. The motion vectors get confused and there are some artifacts and funny ground movements.

Anyway, they are great tools, but lots of time is needed tinkering with the settings and scripts to get acceptable results.

I should mention on my video anyway I held the last frame for 4 seconds or so, so the plume effects might have persisted longer than is apparent from the video.

That last frame, 1318 (which is still the last full frame released), is still 186 frames (48 seconds) away from the end of the ultimate video (last frame is 1504), so we should see quite a bit more if anything continues to swirl around.

Over 100 more frames were released today but there are ultimately 1,504 and the current total is still only 418.

I had a stab at doing an MSSS like re-projection and rotation. Net result of all 600ish frames online so far -

http://youtu.be/v45vFbTg6KM

I'm playing them at 6fps ( so 150% of realtime )

Very nice especially with the soundtrack.

Very nice. Barring some kind of frame in-betweening I don't know if it'll get a lot better than this. I wasn't expecting the actual touchdown to be so dark (the exposure time had to be constant all the way through). Aesthetically I think I might leave the lens distortion in because the curvy edges are distracting -- we're all used to looking at GoPro video lots more distorted than this Maybe having two versions makes sense.

Hmmmm... wonder why they haven't all been released to the public site (just 418 as of now).

Are they even all down yet? Remember that there was a four-day pause for the v10 software load.

I meant all of the aforementioned 600ish.

You, sir, beat me to it. Awesome job! I love the MARDI landing videos! No matter who makes it!

Here's my take at 10 FPS. I can't imagine what it's going to be like with all 1200 frames...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnspXCF16tA

And I need to learn how to batch download. "Right click, Save image as, click back button, repeat". Argh!

Edit - added/switched video in post. Now we're at 669 frames. Keep it coming! And to the bottom poster - Ahhaha - right? This beats any Hollywood movie. I can't wait to see the dust settle!

MY GAD!

I get enough of these descent movies.


I don't need hollywood anymore! I got NASA/JPL!

Wow, these MARDI video's just keep getting better and better. Great work to everyone who has put one up.

Has anyone noticed in the full frame MARDI images, during the last second's untill touch down, all the small pebbley rocks that are seen flying everywhere in the FOV? They are enshrouded in the dust that was kicked up, but you can make them out. Wow!

I saw that and loved it. And to think - the first 600 or so frames that we have so far are of the first half. Right when the blaster and dust kick up is where we have sparse frames. There is a whole extra minute starting right there. So, if I'm not mistaken, the video should be over two minutes long...

I can't wait to see that part.