Video juddering or strobe when panning

SSounds like it might be interlacing. What are the specs of the media? If you edit in a progressive project that will alleviate that problem, if that's the cause. It might also be frame skipping in the shot which is very common on pans.

Honestly, the best solution is not to pan. Panning (and zooming) often produce artifacts – revealing the downside of highly compressed formats like most AVCHD and some MPEG2 formats used in consumer video. If you must pan, then do it very slowly and infrequently.

Most cameras record in a highly compressed format to save space. Then FCP (or any other editing software) needs to recompress the source files to DVD standard (relatively low bit rate MPEG2).

Russ

BBoth DVD and television displays are designed for interlaced media. Computer screens are not. Is your media interlaced? What are the specifications of the media?

garej wrote:

…sharp but juddering picture especially on panning.

…

interlaced footage, processed, then burned to DVD often has a FIELD DOMINANCE issue (the two fields are swapped). … which results in jidder on horizontal movements (content or camera)

I'm not aware for any plugin or whatsoever for FCPX, but some hundred years ago, when we all used DVtape, JES Deinterlacer was the undisputed interlace-juggler:

http://jeschot.home.xs4all.nl/home.html

… MpegStreamclip + JESDI were on any harddrive... 😀

No idea, if it works with actual OS, no idea if it fixes YOUR problem (use the Change Field Dominance feature), but worth a try

addendum:

the DEINTERLACE-effect in FCPX allows in its settings to choose 'upper' or 'lower' field order.

test boths, which gives best results for your material....

garej wrote:

Ive watched Commercial movies on DVD and there does seem to be a judder on panning.

Assume you meant to troll "not seem". Just to throw this into the mix: the makers of commercial DVD's have a number of advantages, including but not limited to: better source material - shot and lighted by experienced crews with high end (very expensive) hardware that records to less compressed codecs (including Pro Res).

garej wrote:

g. I don't own a Blu ray player, but was wondering if this would help. Can you fit a HD format to blu ray rather than MPEG 2, Or does Final Cut Pro always out put as Pro Res.

Thanks.

Perhaps. One way to test that might be to select a section of the movie's timeline that includes the problematic pan. Export that section with Blu Ray settings and in Settings choose your Hard Drive as Output Device. Final Cut will then output a BD disk image. You won't be able to play it without additional software, but you can play the m2ts files within the Streams folder of the BDMV package. (Right click Show Package Contents to get inside the package.) QuickTime may not be happy playing it but it it isn't, VLC (free) should have no trouble. If the pans play smoothly, the answer to your question is yes. If not, the answer may be no – and/or that the source material is interlaced, as Tom mentioned.

Russ

Karsten Schlüter wrote:

garej wrote:

…sharp but juddering picture especially on panning.

…

interlaced footage, processed, then burned to DVD often has a FIELD DOMINANCE issue (the two fields are swapped). … which results in jidder on horizontal movements (content or camera)

Karsten, Shouldn't your DVD player and/or your TV set take care of interlaced artifacts? Back in the day (thankfully, way back in the past) when I did a lot of DVD projects, I did not de-intertlace and (blush) the results on a TV were pretty nice. (Not nice at all on a computer, of course.)

Russ

Russ H wrote:

… way back in the past…

two ol' men speaking about the wars ... 😝

No, for sure, when interlaced was standard, you never deinterlaced - to keep the original quality, as you mention. In an interlaced enviroement, therre are no 'artefacts' or 'combs' ....

But…

Wrong Field Order was a common problem… I completely blocked out all the technical stuff related to:

Did NTSC and PAL have diff. field order? … have to wiki that.

There was some issue with 640x480 vs 764x576 - one was up, one was low ... <scratching head>

And when you started to reframe it or did speed changes - kaputt!

back2topic:

interlace adds blur to horizontal pans (on a TV); with the wrong field order, you instantly get judder. To fix that, you have to correct the order, or deinterlace it.

... ohhhh, more bad memories come up, anyone remembering PoF? 30p in two identical 60i fields?

And the first versions of FCPX couldn't identify 50i correctly...

i is evil.

now, imagine a compound with interlaced material!!!! << internal joke 😝

These are my observations regarding panning judder.They are purely from an amateur/hobby point of view and some of my observations do not tally with what I have read on here over the years.

Firstly,the DVDs that you have already produced containing panning judder.

Most modern TVs have Motion Interpolation and the manufacturers give it their own name, e.g. Samsung=Clear Motion/Motion Plus,Sony =Motion Flow.

Most seem to contain the word MOTION.

In the menu settings on your TV, probably under Picture settings, look for this feature and ensure it is set to on.

Make sure you set this for the input you require i.e.your DVD input.

Some TVs can set this motion feature independently for each input so just because it is set for ,say, TV or HDMI 1 or HDMI 2 it may not be set for the other inputs.

Select the input on your TV for your DVD and then go to the menu settings.

Now try playing your panning- judder DVD.

The following is for HD video.My camcorder is a consumer HDV 1080i

If I produce a DVD or Blu-ray disc with progressive footage,then the only way to get rid of panning judder is to set the Motion Interpolation on my Samsung TV,Motion Plus, to on.

If I produce a Blu-ray disc with interlaced footage then it will not judder if set to on or off.Amazing quality.

If I produce a DVD, the only way I get no judder, with motion setting off, is if I use Compressor 3.0.5(to encode) with interlaced footage.If I use progressive in Compressor 3.0.5 then I get judder.The encoded files from Compressor are taken into DVD Studio Pro or Toast.Again ,excellent quality.

Any interlaced footage encoded for DVD by iDVD , DVD Studio Pro or Toast will judder for Motion set to off.

I always keep to interlaced so it does not matter what Motion setting I have.

In particular, if I do any recording for friends(not much, or is that not many?) then I can produce a judder free DVD or Blu-ray without worrying about their TV settings.

In short, I would say that if you use progressive then you may need to use your TV Motion setting to on, to get rid of judder.

If you use interlaced then there are ways to avoid using Motion settings.

If you are happy to set TV to Motion on,then use progressive or interlaced.

I should also say that progressive and interlaced(both DVD and Blu-ray) produce different textures to the video.

Progressive gives a Film type texture,whilst interlaced is the same texture as you would get from connecting camcorder direct to TV via A/V or HDMI cables, i.e a non processed feel.

Perhaps panning judder is more common than these forums may suggest but if the DVD input for TVs are set to Motion on, then it will not "exist" as far as the majority are concerned, or maybe just accepted.

I always keep to interlaced so it does not matter what Motion setting I have.

This applies when burning Blu-ray(e.g Toast) or DVD via Compressor ver 3.

Another thing to double check is that no PAL / NTSC mix-up has occurred during the process.

Al