• Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy

  lines on graph are blinking

  Posted by Thomas James on January 12, 2010 at 4:30 pm

  I have created a line graph in Apple Motion. The graph has black horizontal lines to accentuate the statistics. The graph looks fine in Motion, but the final product has the horizontal lines blinking, with a strobe like effect. I have explained below how I finalized the video.

  I saved the file as a .motn file. Imported into Final Cut Pro. Exported the finalized video with compressor using an mpeg-2 export. And then mastered a dvd in DVD Studio Pro.

  The settings for the Motion file are 1920×1080, with 8 bit depths, square pixel aspect ration, and ‘none’ for field order.

  The sequence settings in Final Cut are: 720×480 NTSC DV (3:2), NTSC – CCIR 601 / DV (720×480) with Anamorphic (16×9) checked. It has Lower Field Dominance. And the quick time settings are on DV/DVCPRO NTSC.

  Again, the horizontal lines on the graph have a strobe effect after the DVD is authored, which is quite obnoxious to look at. What do I need to do to rework the graph so the finalized product does not have these horizontal lines blinking?

  thanks in advance for your expertise and time!

  Bernd Fütterer replied 16 years, 3 months ago 4 Members · 3 Replies
• 3 Replies

• 

  Stephen Smith

  January 12, 2010 at 6:27 pm

  In Final Cut Pro, ad the Flicker filter to the clip with the thin lines. Hope this helps and best of luck.

  Utah Video Productions

  Check out my Motion Training DVD

  Check out my Motion Tutorials
• 

  Michael Gissing

  January 12, 2010 at 9:30 pm

  When making a graphic for a standard def sequence, then it is best to make the graphic interlaced. Your DV sequence is interlaced so try exporting the graphic again from motion matching the sequence settings of FCP.

  I am not sure why you made the graphic in HD as you are then using FCP to scale it down to SD interlaced. Also you are better to finish in an uncompressed or ProRes final SD sequence as DV is a poor codec for graphics and adds another layer of lossy compression before making the mpeg for DVD
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  Bernd Fütterer

  January 21, 2010 at 9:34 am

  The blinking is a result of interlaced video. When a horizontal line is too thin (baybe only one pixel) it will only be displayed in every second (half) Frame. I think you also can’t stop it, working in progessive-mode cause the TV is working interlaced and the effect will be the same.

  You can stop it with:

  1. making the line bigger or/and
  2. aplying a decent blur on your image or/and
  3. turning the graphic vor 0.5 degrees, that the graphicline won’t
  be in just one line of the TV

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