[Philip Sandiford]

The short: slipping the original “jitter free” file into a new Quicktime container and dropping the result directly onto a FCP timeline did not introduce more jitter.

I am replying because there was no follow-up for the last suggestion. I was having the same issue and had previously tried re-compressing using MPEG Streamclip and Compressor. The original did not show high levels of jitter but any attempt to import into FCP 7 or recompress showed unacceptable motion artifacts during any camera moves.

This was the first thread I found but the fix seemed too easy and did not have followup so I moved to other suggestions including downgrading Quicktime components, using an older back-up install of my OS and playing the final on another system. All showed jitter.

Recompressing (slipping the file into a Quicktime container) using Quicktime7 setting “Quicktime” and “Default settings” (which looks to be a passthrough in this case) created a new jitter free file. HOWEVER, if I allowed FCP to import the new (or original) file the jitter was re-introduced. Directly dragging the file onto a timeline set to the original ProRES 422 setting DID NOT introduce jitter.

I exported the result of my “drag and drop onto the timeline” quicktime file to a high bit rate h.264 and no new jitter was noticable.