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Shaky Pans
I don’t usually post here … so if I am missing settings information I should be posting please tell me where to find it.
I am trying to figure out why I had such a hard time rendering a video I recently did. It was all based on still images, I just used the motion controls to pan and zoom around. Some of my pans looked really really jerky. I had the sequence settings to field dominance none and no compression.
Any idea what I was doing wrong. I am just running FCP scratch on a secondary hard drive on my Mac Pro 2X 2.28 with 8 Gig memory.
And I was also dropping some frames in playback.
I found the setting to “Always render best quality” Under “User Preferences” Render Control I set “Master Templates and Motion Projects” to “best”.
I finally got a render that I was happy with – but it was really hit and miss and I am not sure what setting actually helped me achieve it.
Last week was an absolute nightmare (the video was being prepared for a huge gala last Saturday night) and my client was going understandably crazy as I delayed delivery of final master.
Thanks,
JM -
13 Replies
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Try setting your sequence settings compressor to ProRes, DVCPro 50, or DV NTSC
Robert J. Grauert, Jr.
http://www.robgrauert.com -
JM,
As one of the leaders of this forum who reads everything, let me first welcome you. Welcome!!!
Okay, now that we’ve dispensed with the formalities, let me tell you that your frustration level is evident, and of course, we know you want to get to the root cause of the issues confounding you, but you can’t just start pushing buttons willy-nilly in the hope that one of them will work, and then come here hoping that we can help you figure out what you did or where you went wrong. This is a very precise business, and as such it requires that you start from the beginning with a clear idea of what your objective is, because only then can you know how to setup a project properly with the best chance of achieving your goals. Does that make sense?
So, why don’t you first state your objectives. Is this for TV, Web, DVD, projection in front of a live audience? Once we are clear about that, then we can discuss how to start the project properly to establish a dependable and reliable workflow that you can count on. You see, it’s very clear that somehow you decided that setting the field dominance to none, with no compression was the right way to start, when in reality, it’s almost certain that neither setting is correct. Thus, you began with a wrong set of assumptions that caused you to seek all kinds of remedies. That methodology simply doesn’t work, because in FCP once you start down the wrong path, you’re probably going to be hosed.
So, do you want help doing things the right way, or are you satisfied to learn by trial and error?
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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Thanks for replying David. Of course I want help doing things the right way. I was just trying to acheive the best quality. I do try to avoid doing anything “willy nilly” so I was basing my choices on previous posts I had read on the net but I guess I misunderstood them (or they were wrong.)
This was for a presentation … we ran it off of my macbook on huge projection screens. Again, it was just still images and psd files of titles and text that I used as stills. I was originally doing this in NTSC DV but was having scan lines issues when exporting so that is why I thought that field dominance none and no compression might be the best way to go.
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Thank you. I am going to try this on a copy of my project.
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Actually I see as an option DV/DVC-PR0 NTSC — but I see nothing for ProRes by itself (or DV NTSC by itself)
I do see DVC Pro50 though -
[jm knowles] “I do try to avoid doing anything “willy nilly” so I was basing my choices on previous posts I had read on the net but I guess I misunderstood them (or they were wrong.)”
Forgive me for saying “willy nilly,” it was a bad choice of words, especially as my desire is to help not to offend.
[jm knowles] “This was for a presentation … we ran it off of my macbook on huge projection screens. “
When you say we ran it off my Macbook, did you playback via Quicktime Player, or FCP? That makes a big difference. Also, keep in mind that some projection screens are big computer screens, others are like big TVs — so, you can have issues if you’re using the wrong player for the wrong type of monitor.
[jm knowles] ” I was originally doing this in NTSC DV but was having scan lines issues when exporting so that is why I thought that field dominance none and no compression might be the best way to go.”
I can appreciate how you used your logic on this one, very many have done that before you, but in this instance, what appears to be logical is a trap that cause many to stumble. DV has many issues, which I write about often and will be happy to point you to later, but in this case the scan line issue you were having would have cropped up with any codec, because it’s related to what I wrote in my paragraph above about players and projectors and monitors and interlaced vs progressive video.
Finally, the “no compression” or “none” codec as it’s referred to, is an very old “legacy” codec that is known for three things primarily: 1) huge file sizes; 2) numerous color related inconsistencies; 3) it hasn’t been updated in over a decade. The biggest problem it would have created for you would be dropped frames, because there’s no way your single hard drive could playback video rendered with that codec, because it requires too much throughput for a single drive.
So, now that you know some of the issues that were causing you problems, I can help you to find solutions that will help you to create a proper and reliable workflow.
The player your used on your MacBook and the projector info are very important, so before I can help you we need to pin those down. Okay?
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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[jm knowles] “Actually I see as an option DV/DVC-PR0 NTSC — but I see nothing for ProRes by itself (or DV NTSC by itself)
I do see DVC Pro50 though “I’ll help you with those soon enough… Rob’s mention of those codecs is important, but that is secondary to the things I’m telling you now about getting started logically and precisely.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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Thanks for your reply. Ok, I totally understand about how the codec “None” was causing me problems. But to get to first things first.
I was playing using quicktime pro 7. As far as the projector I am not sure exactly what was being used as it was “done for me”. I can tell you that it was attached via a VGA cable (I had to buy an adapter) and it seemed to slow my video performance down a little when it was running.
Thanks again. -
[jm knowles] “I was playing using quicktime pro 7.”
Okay, right off, that’s a problem because QT Player doesn’t really playback at speed (proper frame rate) most of the time. So, it’s not a great choice for proudly displaying your hard work to a large audience. Despite the compression, a DVD is usually a better choice, or you might have used FCP and chosen its Digital Cinema Desktop option.
[jm knowles] “As far as the projector I am not sure exactly what was being used as it was “done for me”. I can tell you that it was attached via a VGA cable”
Okay, that does mean that progressive display was right for you, because anytime your final objective is to view full-frame video on a computer screen, it does need to be displayed non-interlaced.
Okay, next subject… Was the projector 4×3 or widescreen? What version of FCP are you using? These answers will help me to pinpoint the proper codec and project settings for you.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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Above in my last post, when I said a DVD might be a better choice, I meant a DVD played back on a set top DVD player, not via the computer.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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