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Smoothcam weird flickering
Hi everybody! New here. I am having some trouble with smoothcam. Basically I am getting bad results from even moderatly shaky footage. The results have this strange wavy-ness to them like some kind of conversion screw-up. But I use prores LT 30fps and the timeline is set to the same so whats up?
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5 Replies
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It’s my opinion, backed up by many months of reading the various FCP forums, that Smoothcam is almost, but not quite, useless.
My experiments have all resulted in useless footage.You can take your clip into Motion and you can get some more control, sort of, but I think it’s terribly oversold.
But, have some patience, I also hope you get some useful and positive assistance.
bogiesan
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[david bogie] “Smoothcam is almost, but not quite, useless.
My experiments have all resulted in useless footage. “If there is movement such as a zoom or dolly, that can result in the waviness, because pixels from multiple frames are blended together in Smoothcam to create it’s normally smooth images. However, excessive movement in or out is not easily handled in that scenario. There are other apps/filters that don’t do use the frame blending algorithm that work better in these scenarios.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
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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[david bogie] “My experiments have all resulted in useless footage.”
Not mine. It really does depend on the footage.
What it doesn’t do well with is pans that have a blurry foreground and sharp BG, or anything that crosses the screen (like a tree or something that’s in the foreground that has a different angle of convergence). Sometimes over bright areas (sun) or lens flares can screw it up as they are pretty much steady while everything else is moving. If there’s text, it can screw it up because the text is steady while the rest of the shot is shaky. But when it works, it works extremely well.
Jeremy
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[david bogie] “It’s my opinion, backed up by many months of reading the various FCP forums, that Smoothcam is almost, but not quite, useless.”
Not here. We use it a ton in news stories and I’m using it in our feature documentary right now.
It doesn’t work in every circumstance, but it does work extremely well.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” now in Post.
Creative Cow Forum Host:
Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion, Apple Color, AJA Kona, Business & Marketing, Maxx Digital. -
[hamp lund] “Basically I am getting bad results from even moderatly shaky footage. The results have this strange wavy-ness to them like some kind of conversion screw-up. But I use prores LT 30fps and the timeline is set to the same so whats up?”
Make sure your timeline is setup for high precision rendering.
What is the source of the original footage? DV for example is not a clean format to begin with.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” now in Post.
Creative Cow Forum Host:
Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion, Apple Color, AJA Kona, Business & Marketing, Maxx Digital.
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