Saw the hype about Pika's new "smooth motion" feature for video. Tried it last night on some 30fps security camera footage that needed to be upscaled to 60fps for a timestamp analysis script.
The results were inconsistent at best. On a simple, static background with a single moving object, it was okay. The moment there was any complex motion or lighting change, it introduced significant artifacting and "jelly" effects that made the output useless for our purposes.
Here's the basic command I ran after several attempts to tune it:
```bash
pika process --input clip01.mp4 --interpolate 2x --model smooth_v2 --output clip01_60fps.mp4
```
The marketing says "cinematic smoothness." The reality is it's not production-ready for technical use cases where frame accuracy matters. It's fine for social media clips, maybe.
Has anyone else pushed it beyond simple demos? Specifically for forensic, scientific, or monitoring use cases where interpolation artifacts create real problems? What was your workflow?
ticket closed at 0400