Sped up FCP video with line art filter is flickering badly?

[Adam Taylor]

have you tried deinterlacing the footage after applying the speed effect?

adam

Editor/Mixer
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

[Susie Lee]

Hi Adam,
I have tried de-interlacing before and after speed, as well as before and after applying the filter, and both just make the line quality really choppy looking and it doesn’t reduce the flicker…any other possible suggestions?

[Adam Taylor]

I assume you have played about with the tolerance & smoothness settings.
Its difficult to suggest a cure without seeing the problem…perhaps putting a low level gaussian blur on the clip might help.

Is there anyway you can email the clip? – i wouldn’t mind having a go at sorting this for you if i can.

One other thought – have you got your QT Player settings set to show High Quality? There are various settings in the QT preferences that might help you.

Whats your final output format going to be? What will you be showing the clip on? (tv or computer screen or something else)

Is the clip in Pal or NTSC ?( i assume Pal if your in Italy.)

adam

Editor/Mixer
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

[Adam Taylor]

one final thought – have you tried applying the speed effect to the clip. Then render the clip, then export the clip as an uncompressed quicktime. Import the new clip back into FCP and then apply the line art filter.

Doing it this way, you are not asking FCP to apply effects on top of speed changes. You are giving it a simple video clip running at normal speed which could make it a whole lot less computationally challenging.

adam

Editor/Mixer
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

[Susie Lee]

Hi Adam
I think Italy has PAL format–I am going to burn the footage onto a DVD and it will play on a TV screen (not HD). The QT player is in default mode (is that high quality?). I have tried smoothing and a minimal Gaussian blur, but then I get blurry flickering..

I will try to upload a segment of the footage somewhere, but it’s about 100MB so far, so hang on…I’ll get to it tonight!
Thanks so much!

[Susie Lee]

Hi Adam,
This is the link to a zip file of the QT.

https://bela.dxarts.washington.edu/~coupe/3.zip

I will try your suggestion of exporting it and then applying the line filter afterwards and let you know how it goes…
thanks,
Susie

[Susie Lee]

Hi Adam,
ah, tried it. Totally made sense, but it’s still flickering. Sped it up, exported it (uncompressed) re-imported it, and added the line art filter. Everything good up to the filter. Any other ideas?
Thanks!
Susie

[Adam Taylor]

hmmmm….whilst i download the file one other thought has struck me….have you tried applying the line art filter before doing the speed effect? maybe grasping at straws but you never know….

adam

Editor/Mixer
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

[Adam Taylor]

i see your problem. Unfortunately i can’t see a way to repair this shot without the source material.

I think the problem might be something to do with how the speed effect has been rendered and how it has handled the interlaced fields.

Did you do it using the Modify/Speed method and then enter 500% ? or did you use the time remap function on the motion tab of the browser?

I think you will get a better smoother speed effect using the 2nd option mentioned above. Also – try deinterlacing the original shot before doing the speed change.

if you want to upload the unaffected source shot, i will try to do more ifi can…

adam

Editor/Mixer
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

[Susie Lee]

yes, indeed! In fact, if nothing else, this particular issue has given me ample opportunity to determine how many permutations of line art, flicker filter, speed (and now exporting and re-importing) there are. I sense there should be a logical (yet clearly, mystical order) that will unlock this door…