I am gettimng "tearing" on verticals in a clip treated with Smooth Cam when I create QT movie (H264). Where SmoothCam hasn't been used i don't have the problem. The tearing is only evident on the exported QT file, not in the FCP canvas so unsure where exactly the problem lies. Any help gratefully received. Thanks, Peter
In FCP, set the canvas scale to 100% and look at the scene you have applied smoothcam to. Do you see the same thing as the exported QuickTime?
Click on a source clip in the FCP Browser, and once selected type Command + 9 to see the item properties for the clip. Either report those properties, or take a screen shot of the properties and post that here.
Next. click anywhere on your sequence timeline, and then type Command + 0 {zero} to see the Sequence Settings. Either report those settings here or take a screen shot and post that screen shot here.
MtD
In FCP, set the canvas scale to 100% and look at the scene you have applied smoothcam to. Do you see the same thing as the exported QuickTime?
Click on a source clip in the FCP Browser, and once selected type Command + 9 to see the item properties for the clip. Either report those properties, or take a screen shot of the properties and post that here.
Next. click anywhere on your sequence timeline, and then type Command + 0 {zero} to see the Sequence Settings. Either report those settings here or take a screen shot and post that screen shot here.
MtD
also, motion will do a much better job. Just select the clip in your timeline and control click and "send to motion." You then apply the stabilize behavior to the clip and mark tracking points. If you need help with this, post back.
I found that SmoothCam does not work in FCP 7. What does work beautifully to stabilize a scene is a feature called "Lock and Load". It cost $150 but in my opinion is well worth it:
why spend $100 when motion which comes with fcp7 does a great job?
Of course, I tried Motion first but in order to get the proper stabilzation it was blowing up the scenes more than I wanted.
OK thanks so much for your responses, I'm coming back to this project in a couple of days when I will let you know how I get on. Peter
You're welcome. All I can say is that my back was against the wall on the project and Lock & Load saved my ***. IMO, it was worth the $.
If you have the CS suite with After Effects, you'll find it does a better job of image stabilization than Motion.
Also, the stabilization parameters in Motion can be tweeked.
Good fun.
x
Philip is right. Lock & Load smashes smooth-cam AND Motion. Unless the footage is rediculous wobbly it does a great job.
Hi MtD here are the two images you asked for, and yes when I zoomed in to 100% on the canvas I saw the tearing there too, so clearly it is an issue with SmoothCam, not the QT file creation. Any ideas ?
Thanks, Peter
Peter,
I went thru all this last summer. There is a bug in FCP7 re: SmoothCam which Apple will not address since they've moved on FCPX. I had 19 scenes in a 20 minute video with camera hitches. Lock and Load fixed all of them flawlessly. IMO, it was well-worth the money. You can download the trial version and test it free of charge. You'll get a watermark but it goes away when you pay.
Phil
Thanks Philip, but its just not worth it for this one project - I'll struggle on with FCP / Motion ...
The thing I have noticed about Smoothcam is that it has dificulties with interlaced footage. Apply a Deinterlace filter on your clip that has Smoothcam applied and re-render and see if that helps.
Effects > Video > Deinterlace
MtD
I dont see what de-interlacing would achieve as footage was shot 25fps progressive ... ?
Acording to the item properties you have posted the clip has field dominance set to upper field, which indicates an interlaced file, and your sequence setting show an interlaced timeline with a matching upper field dominance.
MtD
Message was edited by: Meg The Dog to fix typo
SmoothCam
