X5 4K, 2.7K video is choppy (double frame)

[Feet Up]

Hi Bruno,

Two things to consider.

An object in your sample video above is horizontally crossing your frame in about 3 seconds. That is a very fast pan for progressive at 30 FPS and will always create judder. This link may be helpful: Panning Best Practices.

The second thing I am noticing is that it appears that your timeline in your editing video is set to 60 FPS. If you drop your 30 FPS clip into a 60 FPS timeline the software will manufacture extra frames (or speed up the footage).

I hope this is helpful.

 

[Bruno28]

Hi Bruno,

Two things to consider.

An object in your sample video above is horizontally crossing your frame in about 3 seconds. That is a very fast pan for progressive at 30 FPS and will always create judder. This link may be helpful: Panning Best Practices.

The second thing I am noticing is that it appears that your timeline in your editing video is set to 60 FPS. If you drop your 30 FPS clip into a 60 FPS timeline the software will manufacture extra frames (or speed up the footage).

I hope this is helpful.

Thanks for the tip. I'll read all about that panning from red. Great.
Also I've tried the 30fps timeline and if I slowed down 50% the double frames were still there present.

 

[Feet Up]

Hi Bruno,

Looking at your sample video I am seeing what would be expected from your pan speed(s). You slow your pan as you proceed in 3 fairly distinct steps. The jutter is very coarse up to 5 seconds, still coarse (but less so) from 5 seconds to 9 seconds and quite smooth for the very short ending from 9 seconds on. That final panning speed is likely where you are going to want to be to avoid jutter at this combination.

As a second note, If you drop a 30 fps clip into a 30 fps timeline as mentioned above and then slow it to 50 % this will also manufacture extra frames.

 

[Bruno28]

Hi Bruno,

Looking at your sample video I am seeing what would be expected from your pan speed(s). You slow your pan as you proceed in 3 fairly distinct steps. The jutter is very coarse up to 5 seconds, still coarse (but less so) from 5 seconds to 9 seconds and quite smooth for the very short ending from 9 seconds on. That final panning speed is likely where you are going to want to be to avoid jutter at this combination.

As a second note, If you drop a 30 fps clip into a 30 fps timeline as mentioned above and then slow it to 50 % this will also manufacture extra frames.

Yes i think you are correct. The RED Panning best practice has explained my issues and how to get better videos. I guess even in the RED this happens. Just need to pan slower when using 30fps and can increase pan speed when doing 60fps

 

[Donnie Frank]

SO after playing with my Inspire 1 Pro, I realised that the video is very choppy when panning.

I did some test with:
- 4K 30fps shutter 1/60,
- 2.7k 30fps shutter 1/60 and
- 1080p at 60fps shutter 1/120

And its clear that the 1080p is so smooth but the 4k and 2.7 are so choppy. Before you say, one is being shot at 30fps and another at 60fps......

I did go frame by frame and realise that when in 4k/2.7k there are double of the same frame!!!! So there are 60 frames on 1 second of footage - 2 frames that are identical.
While on the 1080p it does not have this double frame. and plays 60 different frames on every second.

If you did manually remove the double frame from the 4k/2.7k, then its smooth.

Is this is a software issue or known issue? Any way to fix even if its in post to delete every second frame?

I would entertain the strong possibility that it is your playback environment.

When I first started shooting 4K aerial on professional film sets, DP's would try to replay the footage on their 6-year-old Macs and it was choppy as hell. Naturally, they blamed the footage. This is why I always have performance laptop with me:

* 8-core i7
* 8GB very fast RAM
* NVidia GeForce GPU
* Samsung 850 Evo SSD
* with all USB 3.0 ports

I also recommend the K-Lite player (software). VLC, Quicktime or Windows media players are fat pigs and will play 4K choppy on almost any machine.

With this combination, 4K video plays smooth as glass. Boot time is 14.5 seconds (so nobody has to wait around for the computer to boot). And if the DP or DIT have a USB 3.0 thumb drive, I can usually get the day's footage to them in a few minutes. If they have a USB 2.0 device, then it takes literally 10x longer, but it's then their fault, not mine.

Today's modern drone operator is not just an expert pilot and camera operator, but you also have to be a digital media expert. At least a half dozen times having comprehensive digital media knowledge has saved my bacon. Production companies will ALWAYS blame you if the media doesn't play smoothly or transfer correctly. Understanding File Allocation Tables, Operating System compatibility, data rates and on and on will disallow production to blame YOU for THEIR issues. Most DIT's understand all this stuff. But I have found 2nd Unit doesn't always have a DIT. I've found most DP's know little to nothing about digital media and WILL blame you if the footage plays choppy in the 5+ year old Mac. Their field of expertise is lighting, composition, etc. Not digital media. But I digress...

Try playing the footage on a better computer. Dollars to doughnuts this will fix your problem. Remember, playing 4K video is literally like playing FOUR 1080p videos simultaneously. Good luck!!

 

[Donnie Frank]

For those who asked about the choppy video. Ive done one from a previous pan. Not as choppy as I'm not moving as fast as. But still noticeable and not a good feeling to the eye.
I also included the exact same clip with FCPX doing its Optical Flow to fix the issue, its quite an improvement. SO the video below is first half the raw footage and the second half is improved with Optical flow from FCPX.

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Most production companies will want you to shoot 24 FPS, which is even more choppier. It seems you're adhering to the 180° shutter rule, so there's not much more you can do. Unfortunately, this "choppiness" seems to be an artifact of digital photography. I have seen this choppiness in finished major motion pictures shot on Red or Arri cameras. Once I started noticing this choppiness in $300M films, I stopped worrying about my personal footage. I've done TONS of research on this to no avail. My personal observations have been that this is less prevalent in low light situations. So it seems like tricking the sensor with ND filters would achieve the same smoother "low-light" results. But this doesn't work. It's maddening.

If you come up with an answer, please share. You'll be chasing this one down for a long time.

One thing that seems to minimize this artifact is less sharpening. Shoot D-log and turn Sharpening, Contrast and Brightness to -3. See if that doesn't help. I got mixed results. It really depends on your environment - mostly lighting intensity and direction (my observations).

 

[Feet Up]

Hi Donnie,

For sure avoiding judder requires a lot of attention. This is an issue with Progressive video and film. Frame rate, shutter angle (shutter speed), focal length, subject distance, etc. are all factors. At 24 FPS however, the 7 second rule will still judder in many instances and slowing to 10 or 12 seconds may still not entirely remove judder. Very fast pans will always judder at lower frame rates so that can require a lot of planning. Bruno's example which shows different pan speeds shows how just slowing pan speed will limit this issue.

 

[Donnie Frank]

Hi Donnie,

For sure avoiding judder requires a lot of attention. This is an issue with Progressive video and film. Frame rate, shutter angle (shutter speed), focal length, subject distance, etc. are all factors. At 24 FPS however, the 7 second rule will still judder in many instances and slowing to 10 or 12 seconds may still not entirely remove judder. Very fast pans will always judder at lower frame rates so that can require a lot of planning. Bruno's example which shows different pan speeds shows how just slowing pan speed will limit this issue.

Agree on all fronts. I even experimented with my own "360° shutter rule," by matching shutter speed to frame rate in an effort to create a ridiculous amount of motion blur. Even this didn't work.

This thread has given me cause to revisit this subject. I see more experimenting in my future.

Thanx for sharing your knowledge.

Next subject, "halo-ing"... Why, in certain situations, there's a ground halo around the barely-visible shadow of my bird...hehe....

 

[Bruno28]

I would entertain the strong possibility that it is your playback environment.

When I first started shooting 4K aerial on professional film sets, DP's would try to replay the footage on their 6-year-old Macs and it was choppy as hell. Naturally, they blamed the footage. This is why I always have performance laptop with me:

* 8-core i7
* 8GB very fast RAM
* NVidia GeForce GPU
* Samsung 850 Evo SSD
* with all USB 3.0 ports

I also recommend the K-Lite player (software). VLC, Quicktime or Windows media players are fat pigs and will play 4K choppy on almost any machine.

With this combination, 4K video plays smooth as glass. Boot time is 14.5 seconds (so nobody has to wait around for the computer to boot). And if the DP or DIT have a USB 3.0 thumb drive, I can usually get the day's footage to them in a few minutes. If they have a USB 2.0 device, then it takes literally 10x longer, but it's then their fault, not mine.

Today's modern drone operator is not just an expert pilot and camera operator, but you also have to be a digital media expert. At least a half dozen times having comprehensive digital media knowledge has saved my bacon. Production companies will ALWAYS blame you if the media doesn't play smoothly or transfer correctly. Understanding File Allocation Tables, Operating System compatibility, data rates and on and on will disallow production to blame YOU for THEIR issues. Most DIT's understand all this stuff. But I have found 2nd Unit doesn't always have a DIT. I've found most DP's know little to nothing about digital media and WILL blame you if the footage plays choppy in the 5+ year old Mac. Their field of expertise is lighting, composition, etc. Not digital media. But I digress...

Try playing the footage on a better computer. Dollars to doughnuts this will fix your problem. Remember, playing 4K video is literally like playing FOUR 1080p videos simultaneously. Good luck!!

I've said a few times it's not the computer. My computer is similar specs to yours but has 16gb of ram and stock Apple SSD. And boot time is 12-13seconds.
I've tried VLC, QuickTime, MPlayer and all three has the same issue. Even tried on my galaxy s7 and it has the same issue.

 

[Donnie Frank]

I've said a few times it's not the computer. My computer is similar specs to yours but has 16gb of ram and stock Apple SSD. And boot time is 12-13seconds.
I've tried VLC, QuickTime, MPlayer and all three has the same issue. Even tried on my galaxy s7 and it has the same issue.

And I said once, "I also recommend the K-Lite player (software). VLC, Quicktime or Windows media players are fat pigs and will play 4K choppy on almost any machine."

So I guess we're BOTH guilty of not reading all the text thoroughly. In my defense, I didn't read all the replies. Try K-Lite. It's free on the web.

 

[Bruno28]

And I said once, "I also recommend the K-Lite player (software). VLC, Quicktime or Windows media players are fat pigs and will play 4K choppy on almost any machine."

So I guess we're BOTH guilty of not reading all the text thoroughly. In my defense, I didn't read all the replies. Try K-Lite. It's free on the web.

Will have a look at K Lite player. Never seen that one.
Yeah sorry. Didn't mean to come up as rude ( read my post again and it seemed). It's just that I was asked many times and I had replied about the computer specs. I didn't believe a Mac that is so recent would be slow for 4k. I'll try that player and let you know. Thanks.

 

[Donnie Frank]

Will have a look at K Lite player. Never seen that one.
Yeah sorry. Didn't mean to come up as rude ( read my post again and it seemed). It's just that I was asked many times and I had replied about the computer specs. I didn't believe a Mac that is so recent would be slow for 4k. I'll try that player and let you know. Thanks.

Worth noting; you can install K-Lite with all the default options. If you download it from CNET or some other third-party server, make sure to do the "advanced" install. This will merely reveal all the extra BS parasiteware that CNET may tack onto the original install file, and will give you the option to uncheck those unwanted options. For example, it may want to make Google Chrome your default browser or install McAfee and/or some other annoyance like that. Good luck!

 

[Bruno28]

Is there K-Lite Player for mac?

 

[Donnie Frank]

Is there K-Lite Player for mac?

Untested by me:

K-Lite Codec for Mac: free OS X Quicktime codec pack (Sierra) supported

 

[Bruno28]

Untested by me:

K-Lite Codec for Mac: free OS X Quicktime codec pack (Sierra) supported

I found that before, but need to instal Perian, which I have before but didn't like it.

 

[Donnie Frank]

I found that before, but need to instal Perian, which I have before but didn't like it.

Sorry I can't offer more help. My only Apple device is the Air 1 I use for my Inspire 1. It's a duty-specific device, so I don't play videos on it.

 

[Feet Up]

Next subject, "halo-ing"... Why, in certain situations, there's a ground halo around the barely-visible shadow of my bird...hehe....

Hi Donnie,

Here is some info on halos that may be helpful: Halo Free Judder Removal | Pixelworks

 

[Donnie Frank]

Hi Donnie,

Here is some info on halos that may be helpful: Halo Free Judder Removal | Pixelworks

I definitely enjoyed the explanation of Judder and Halos. It would be nice if there were a way to minimize or eliminate this effects in raw footage, as opposed to removing or minimizing them in post. ...the Holy Grail.....

 

[PJB88]

I am having the same problem as Bruno. I have tried almost everything on this forum and youtube.

My video is choppy no matter what setting. 24fps, 25fps, 50 fps, in 4k, and 1080 with various shutter speeds. I followed the 180 rule but still no luck. I have been trying out all the suggestions on this forum but no luck. I do not know what I am doing wrong, however when I play my video back on my Smart TV (microSD to USB adapter) it plays perfect. I purchased all my equipment in the USA (NTSC) and live in South Africa (PAL) so I do not know if thats the issue. Ive played around with all those setting as well and still no luck. I have replayed the footage on my Mac, Samsung Tab 2, Ipad Mini 2 and Note 4 but still getting choppy playback all devices except my Smart TV.

 

[Feet Up]

I am having the same problem as Bruno. I have tried almost everything on this forum and youtube.

My video is choppy no matter what setting. 24fps, 25fps, 50 fps, in 4k, and 1080 with various shutter speeds. I followed the 180 rule but still no luck. I have been trying out all the suggestions on this forum but no luck. I do not know what I am doing wrong, however when I play my video back on my Smart TV (microSD to USB adapter) it plays perfect. I purchased all my equipment in the USA (NTSC) and live in South Africa (PAL) so I do not know if thats the issue. Ive played around with all those setting as well and still no luck. I have replayed the footage on my Mac, Samsung Tab 2, Ipad Mini 2 and Note 4 but still getting choppy playback all devices except my Smart TV.

Hi PJ,

Your Smart TV may have motion interpolation turned on (many do by default). Here is a link: What is the 'Soap Opera Effect'?

Could you post up (or link to) a video of your problem footage?