[Peter Berdovsky]

Crap 🙂
I just reviewed the entire sequence on a fast computer… And it looks fine and smooth enough on my LCD monitor viewed at 100% size. I thought I saw it skip on this display as well, but not this time…

BUT – viewing it on a different compression / platform brought the judders back.
Check out this vimeo upload:
https://vimeo.com/49865328
password: judder

It totally stutters on playback for me in a similar way it did during the install test.

So I am just kind of confused… really confused 🙁

[Peter Berdovsky]

Will try to record a tiny sample / post it over here tomorrow. I stretched it by 2 already… it’s not helping at all. It’s a 4,500 pixels wide video (as a master) for a mapped video installation where text crawls along the wall tiles. I think the fact that the text path is so long adds to the stutter (personal feelings, totally not grounded in reality). And, as the article said, the physics of it all. But it’s really dizzying to the eye, almost like it goes back in time one frame then jumps forward. I tried motion blur / etc.

But yeah, will bite into it tomorrow full on and send you a small playable sample.

[Peter Berdovsky]

Found this post, about AE video JUDDER
Avoiding Judder in Motion Graphics

Will try some of the suggestions here.
Sadly enough, the author seems to think that some of it is just plainly inevitable 🙁

https://kb2.adobe.com/community/publishing/908/cpsid_90843.html

[Peter Berdovsky]

I am having the same issues with text animated along a path.
Somehow I think it might be AE struggling with an ultra long text path (it’s about a paragraph… a long one). I compress it real nice, and my fps reads solid 30+ on playback, but the text stutters. Nothing else in that composition does, just the text.

I’ll have to take a look to see if there are any rebel keyframes in there… but I somehow suspect a flaw in the animation algorithm.

[Peter Berdovsky]

Well, I am glad that at least I am not alone in noticing this guys… I was starting to feel a wee bit crazy there… Yeah – I think FCP should definitely improve its still animating/preview process – currently I am forced to use After Effects or Motion to do very simple animations that would have been easier to do in FCP (if the quality didn’t suffer)…

[Peter Berdovsky]

What does it look like within your FCP sequence? Do you notice a difference between what the rendered clip looks like in the canvas vs. what it looks like when viewed in QT player?

[Peter Berdovsky]

With all due respect, I believe I answered your question in my previous reply. Quote:

“The still was taken from the motion jpeg b sequence.
Here’s a link to the original png file that pixellated:
https://zebbler.com/intcomp/fcp/hot_hand_logo.png
The only things that I did with it was shrink it in size and move it to the top right of the canvas”

Does that somehow not answer the question fully? I mentioned the precise type of codec used in the sequence in question, included the original file that would get pixellated and described what I did with the png file exactly within fcp?…

[Peter Berdovsky]

As I mentioned before – the pixellation happened with any codec I tried. I am aware that a sequence can’t be all of them at once 🙂
The ones the reliably pixellated things for me were motion jpeg, photo jpeg, and apple pro res hq which I tried because they are supposed to be the best at preserving sharp crisp edges.
The still was taken from the motion jpeg b sequence.
Here’s a link to the original png file that pixellated:
https://zebbler.com/intcomp/fcp/hot_hand_logo.png

The only things that I did with it was shrink it in size in fcp and move it over to the right top of the screen.

I just replicated the problem in exactly the way I describe above, so I know I am not totally crazy.

Z.

[Peter Berdovsky]

Yeah, absolutely, looking at the screen at 100%
I hate DV anyway, I mostly use motion jpegB, photo jpeg, apple intermediate, apple pro res 422.

Take a look at my comparison images here:
(unrendered, segment of the video at 100%): https://zebbler.com/intcomp/fcp/x.png
(rendered, segment of the video at 100% – looked the same! even if I switch my sequence settings (compression) to either one of these – motion jpegb, photo jpeg, apple pro res 422HQ – and re-rendered it in those compression formats): https://zebbler.com/intcomp/fcp/y.png

Notice how the outline around the red shape gets pixelly.
As I mentioned previously – it doesn’t look as bad when exported in quicktime player. But that’s my whole problem really – I want FCP to give me true representation / preview … and can’t seem to get that.

Best,

Z.

[Peter Berdovsky]

Well, if you follow the thread – my posts were made about different projects and at rather different times. The problem is all the same, regardless, and mostly deals with how FCP allows you to preview the video you are working on. I noticed that, regardless of my sequence settings (it could be HD, sd, whatever resolution or compression), when I have an image (lets say, like in my last problem post – something with really sharp red lines to it) in my sequence – unrendered – it looks just as it should – very sharp. As soon as I render it – the sharpness disappears – and the outlines get pixelly (see my images from a few posts up for an example).

People responding to the thread were correct, in that FCP seems to do a worse job previewing the video than, lets say, QTPro. After I export the video and preview it in QTPro – it doesn’t look nearly as pixelled (and it depends more on the compression settings at that stage). But previewing it in FCP seems painfully unreliable that way – the pixellating edges would drive me mad – because I seek a reliable digital (most of my work is for the web) preview of how something will look before I export it.
It’s especially a big problem because various video compressions / fcp actually seems to have a hard time with sharp lines of certain colors (i.e. red) – and without a proper way to preview it – I have to export multiple bit in different compressions and preview them in QTPro, instead of just seeing within the FCP timeline what looks best.

The pixellation would happen with any resolution/compression format I have tried in my sequence prefs.

Shrug.

Zebbler (Peter B.)