Converted 5D footage flickers in FCP

[Michael Gissing]

The other issue is that the 5D does line skipping in crunching 4.5k pixel res in the chip to 1920 x 1080 and H264. This line skipping can cause issues on fine lines and any movement including slow pans.

It is a major limitation of DSLRs. Some judicious use of gaussian blur sometimes helps. Philip Bloom, well known exponent of DSLRs ,reported that a new 70-200 lens caused him more problems than his old lens so it is related to raw resolution. There have been some fixes like an optical block that goes behind the lens and does some fine diffusion but the penalty is that is softens the image. Importantly, you can’t see it on the LCD screen.

[Matt Lyon]

The original poster also didn’t mention how he is monitoring his footage.

Morten, I would add that you can’t really judge motion artifacts in the FCP viewer, or even the full screen “Digital Cinema Desktop Preview” mode. (If that is how you are monitoring your footage).

To my eyes, the only way to really judge flicker/judder/stutter/whatever is on a properly set up broadcast monitor via a breakout box.

Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto

[Morten Marthinsen]

I am viewing it either in the FCP viewer or “Digital Cinema Desktop Preview” mode… But i have been working as an editor for many years now and have never seen this issue before.. If i see it in the FCP viewer i will see it on a broadcast monitor.

Thanks for your reply

[S Regian]

Just a wild guess here: any chance your viewer is set to an odd percentage (fit to window)… instead of 100%, 50%, 25%.?

[Matt Lyon]

Fair enough, but you said it yourself that you are using a new camera. There’s a lot of variables at play. FCP and quicktime don’t necessarily play footage back exactly the same. I would want to watch the original, uncoverted footage on a broadcast monitor, and then the “fixed” FCP footage on the same screen, in order to make sure the entire pipeline is sound.

Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto

[Morten Marthinsen]

No…

Thanks