Flicker-shimmer solved

I think I've solved the vexing flicker-shimmer problem that I occasionally noted when creating a picture slide show with FCP. The cross dissolve transitions would sometimes expose a "jittery" picture thought to be a problem with interlacing, etc. What I've done is the following: Arrange all pictures in their final length and sequence without transitions. Select the entire grouping. Then go to Effects, Video Filters, Image Stabilization. Render the grouping. Then add the transitions and render again. You will notice the rendering takes longer, but the end result is a much more stable and ficker free slide show. I seemed to work for me.

Posted on Nov 13, 2006 9:45 PM

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5 replies

Nov 14, 2006 9:27 AM in response to Gary Wernick

I am dealing with the exact same problem as I use a lot of stills (hundreds, scattered throughout a two hour long project) pulled from video footage and edit them back into the midst of video footage. In the past (with Final Cut Pro) I solved my flicker problems with the De-Interlace Filter set at Lower (Even) and slapped on a Basic Border in black reduced maximally to correct the outermost line discrepancy which the De-Interlace Filter causes. Now I'm upgraded to Studio and the problem seems altered as you describe--the DeInterlace Filter stabilizes the shot (when viewed on DVD disk viewed on a TV--it makes the image look like a staircase on my computer screen), but the cross dissolve transitions are VERY rough looking on the tv (though not every time, oddly), though clear on the computer screen.
I will try your workaround, thanks for bringing it up.
So, my question: what setting choices worked for you on the Image Stabilizer filter, and did you

Nov 14, 2006 1:09 PM in response to Somanaut

So I spent the day working on this, believe it or not, making a bit of a science project out of it. I was able to resolve the same problem by just stripping the slides down, removing my filters and transitions. Then I tried the gentleman's solution here, using the stabilizer, which resolved the bad transition issues but still left me with some shaky slides. I stripped them down again, still with the stabilizer on all, and this time added de-interlace filters for the ones from faster moving footage, rendered, added the transitions, rendered again. This looked quite good on the tv. Finally, I tried another round, this time stripping it all back, removing even the Stabilizer filter, and added just the De-Interlace filter where needed, (plus the basic border filter stripped back to just one frame line to clean the edges). Render. Then add the transitions. Rerender. This looked just fine as well, and spared me the sluggish render time when putting transitions over "stabilized" slides.
So it appears that the solution to the shaky transitions was more about the order in which the filters are applied, rather than the Stabilizer filter per se. So long as the filter is applied and rendered before the transitions are applied and rerendered, it turns out ok--the stabilizer isn't the key, but the order. Thanks for your solution, it put me on the path to mine!

Nov 14, 2006 4:15 PM in response to Somanaut

I agree that the order of rendering could be the answer. I did use the de-interlace filter before the stabilizer filter. I noted that the addition of transition after the slides have been rendered and then rendering the transition gives a more stabile appearance and doesn't lead to the shimmer-shake problem. Anyway this could save hours of re-burning DVDs that I've done over the last few months.

Nov 14, 2006 6:02 PM in response to Gary Wernick

I think that the most pertinent ordering issue is not so much about rendering, but about applying filters before applying transitions. It seems that if you apply a filter after applying the transitions, that the filter only applies to the part outside of the transition, so that the transition itself shakes, but if you clear the transition, then apply the filter, then reapply the transistion, it's good to go...
It would be a whole lot easier to check if I could run what's on my computer monitor straight to my tv screen--It's been incredibly time consuming to have to compress my experiments, put em on a dvd, stick it in the tv's dvd player, take notes, go back to square one and repeat...

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Flicker-shimmer solved

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