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Smooth Cam problem
Hello
I have had some problems with using the smooth cam effect in FCP. When the effect is applied, on my computer screen everything looks just fine but when burned on a DVD and played on TV, a problem occurs: this shaky, extremely jerky movement appears that is to a certain extent even more annoying that having the original shaky footage playing. It looks as if some sort of mild earthquake had hit the screen.
Would anyone happen to have any solutions to problem?
Your help will be greatly appreciated!
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7 Replies
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I had a similar problem shooting via a Sony PMW-350 in the XDCAM EX codec. My assumption was the problem was related to the heavy compression in the 4:2:0 35mbs XDCAM EX Codec, since I’ve used the effect without issue using my Sony F900 at 50mbs.
What camera are you using?
Bill Paris
Producer/Director of Photography
Crew Hawaii Television
http://www.crewhawaii.com -
I have a JVC Everio GZ-HD320.
Do you think there is anything I can do about the shakiness or should I just get rid of the smooth cam and stick with the original shaky footage?
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You might try to run the effect again with different in-out points and see if you get the same results. I found picking sections of footage with the least amount of movement can help. If the footage has large movement the effect seems to have trouble ….. it works best with small movements like vibration from a car or helicopter. I have had the same results your getting when the shot moves around a lot.
Bill Paris
Producer/Director of Photography
Crew Hawaii Television
http://www.crewhawaii.com -
Thanks Bill for your ideas,
the curious thing here is that the sections I’m trying to stabilize are already extremely subtle meaning that I will probably use them as they were before the smooth cam effect anyway, but a stabilized look would be just a bit neater. Fine tuning…. I just couldn’t believe that FCP couldn’t handle them, especially since it looks just fine on the computer screen…
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I wonder if the problem could be due to the compression of your camera files? Before my problem with the XDCAM EX files I had only used Smoothcam on HDCAM and BETACAM footage and never had problems. Another issue I noticed was a significant amount of tearing around fine details. While they would go un-noticed on a small web video, when transferred to a NTSC monitor they looked really bad.
I wish I had a better answer for you, but the only solution I know of is to use a more robust camera format. It might be an interesting to perform a test that compares different cameras/codecs to flush out the problem?Good luck! Let me know if you discover another answer to the problem.
Bill Paris
Producer/Director of Photography
Crew Hawaii Television
http://www.crewhawaii.com -
You might try to bake the smoothcam in by making a QT movie of the treated shots, which you then edit back into the timeline over the original.
You didn’t mention your sequence settings, edit codec or how you are doing the export to make a DVD.
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Thanks Bill and Michael for you replies. I’ve been on a vacation and haven’t been able to get back to you sooner so sorry for that!
I’m kind of a beginner when it editing and this is my first final cut project so it’s possible that I’ve messed up something with codecs.
When I uploaded the footage, for some reason FCP did not recognize my camera so needed to use iMovie to import and then moved the clips over to FCP. Maybe this has caused something to go wrong? Don’t know…
I will check what my sequence settings are later (I’m not using my computer now) but what I remember for certain is that my fps is 25, which has confused me a little bit since to my understanding JVC Everio GZ-HD320 shoots 60i or 60p, cannot remember which one.
What I’ve done is that I’ve just dragged the clips to the timeline and when FCP suggests that settings be changed I just agree and let FCP do the work, so that’s why not sure what the codec is.
When I burn the project onto a DVD, my workflow is following: exporting a self contained movie with current settings, then compressing it to 90 mins of SD DVD and then burn.
Please if you have any ideas what could be done let me know.
Michael: Wouldn’t creating a QT movie and then editing it back reduce the quality of my clips or is the difference unnoticeable?
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