If its not one thing its another...

Rick Meyer

Rick Meyer

Veteran
I am so sick of asking for help with this project. I just want to be done with this. It almost makes me want to yank my PC out, get a MAC and install Final Cut Pro, since I know it better. However, I think this has nothing to do with Premiere and everything to do with my limited knowledge of the program...

I have a timeline of edited footage. All of the transitions are in there. This footage is 30p Squeeze mode, slowed to 60%. It looks excellent. I have the dissolves in there. I am very happy with this. I render it out, uncompressed so that I can import it back in as a single movie so that I can apply color corrections but the really smooth slow motion is much more strobe-y for a lack of a better term. Its not nearly as glass smooth as before I render it out. I haven't encountered this problem before. I have had many other "issues" including digital artifacts, etc but the slow motion movement has never been a problem. But now, when I am once and for all nearly done with this chapter, the slow mo is giving me troubles.

Can anyone please help me move on with my life and shed some light on to what might be happening?

Thanks gang!

Rick

EDIT: I even tried re-rendering out the clip and was sure to unclick the OPTIMIZE STILLS box. No Luck.
 
Okay, let me ask this question: When you export a movie and are in the EXPORT MOVIE SETTINGS window, in the GENERAL section, which FILE TYPE is preferable? I at first had MICROSOFT AVI selected but the strobing was rediculous. Since, I have rendered out a clip that says MICROSOFT DV AVI and it does look a little better. That or I am imagining it...

EDIT: I am imagining it. It still looks like sh*t.
 
You definitely want to use DV AVI. That's what Premiere uses when you hit Render Work Area (it stores your movie in a bunch of little DV AVI files). In fact, as far as I know, if your timeline is already rendered and you export to DV AVI, you'll notice it's super fast cause all it has to do is copy those little files it has into one big file. If you're using another kind of AVI, you can get all sorts of terrible compression problems.

One thing you can try is not to render out at all. Premiere lets you treat a sequence as a clip - i.e. you can drag and drop it onto another sequence, and mess with it as one self-contained unit.

So make a new sequence called "Corrector." Grab your main movie sequence from the project window and drop it onto "Corrector" and then apply whatever color correction or effects you want.
 
Rick,

How are you evaluating the "look" of your slow motion footage? Are you judging it from within Premiere or are you burning a DVD and playing that to see your progress?

You can slow down your 30p footage to 80% playing speed with perfect results if you place it into a 24p time line, but any other speed reduction is going to be a compromise in terms of quality.

Can you live with an 80% speed clip or do you absolutely need it to be at 60%?

For the clip that you are attempting to slow down, did you make accommodations for that when shooting (different shutter speed)?
 
overnighttolondon-

thats a very good suggestion! I am going to try that right now. my only concern though is that if i drag the sequence as a clip into another NEW sequence, I would have to export it eventually. As for a MUCH quicker way to go from adding dissolves then adding color corrections without rendering, its a great tip. However, the main problem I am having is with getting my edit (which looks fine before I export by the way) to keep its smooth slow motion look.

Khmuse-

I slowed the footage down to 60%. Now, I know that is not ideal for 30p footage. However, I am more than happy with the results. I have also rendered out clips before as AVI files and EXPORTS to DVDs without this problem; the footage is now much choppier than before. This is what is so frustrating. It's as if I clicked something or did not click something or shut something off or SOMEthing. I know that as a general rule, the 60% 30p slow mo is not perfect glass smooth but its pretty okay. But, the way it looks now, after a uncompressed render, it is quite choppy. Kind of like when you try to slow down 24p footage too much.

And your suggestion is good...to use 80% speed...but that poses two problems for me...one the slow motion footage is precisely cut to the music and if I don't figure out what is going on with this, this problem will rear its ugly head again in the future...

Thanks for the thought though...

Rick

Hmmm...this is perplexing indeed....

UPDATE: Okay, I just tried your suggestion overnighttolondon and low and behold the jittery motion appeared in the new sequence. Huh? So, 30p 60% slowed down footage looks fine with cuts and edits and transition dohickies. But, when I drop that sequence into a new one so it becomes ONE clip unit, the choppy footage appears. So, I am deducing that the choppiness has nothing to do with rendering....hmmm....
 
Please if anyone has any suggestions, I am ALL ears. Or eyes I guess. In one sequence its fine. I put the same edited sequence into another sequence to make it one single clip and the slow motion looks like garbage. It's choppy, strob-y and not good.
 
Really weird. In theory, dropping the sequence onto another sequence should have no effect whatsoever. Two stab-in-the-dark things I can think of:

- for all of your clips, including the sequence that you dropped on a second sequence, make sure "Frame Blend Speed Changes" is selected (in Speed/Duration)
- the sequence thing makes the following unlikely, but it's remotely possible that your computer is having trouble keeping up with the video bitrate and can't display it to you fast enough, which would result in choppiness. However, this would almost certainly be a kind of erratic jitter and not a consistently not-that-great-slo-mo look.
 
overnighttolondon said:
Really weird. In theory, dropping the sequence onto another sequence should have no effect whatsoever.
Click to expand...

That's what I thought too. It's driving me buggy. As soon as I get done working, I will definitely follow your suggestions. At this point, I'll do anything...

As for the previewing slow mo--I am not opposed to point the finger at my computer. Though, it's a pretty sound system. But, these days, you never know if theres some crap in there bogging it down. However, the choppiness is not erratic. It's pretty consistenly strobe-y. Not only is it strobe-y when I drop it into a new sequence, but it's strobe-y when I export it to DVD. It's VERY mysterious.
 
Are you certain that the amount of "strobieness" isn't inherent based upon the way that it was shot and the speed reduction that you are attempting to achieve?

It would be a shame to waste a lot of time trying to fix something that isn't exactly broken.
 
yeah, im as certain as i can be at this point. last week, when you adeptly pointed out that i was having compression problems, i had to go ahead and re-cut the entire chapter because the original piece of captured footage was the only uncompressed footage that i had. however, i had to go back into speed/duration and slow the 30p footage down to 60%. This is because I was going on memory as to how much I slowed the original footage down. When I started this project, I remember thinking that 80% was not nearly slow enough for my tastes and I went down to the 60% range.

So, the new cut matched up very well to the music and matched up well to the previously cut version. So, if its off, its off by VERY little. Like MAYBE the original was 65% instead of 60%. But, I am not so sure of that. It looks pretty dang similar. Also, the original edit, compressed footage looked good in slow-mo. This new edit, as I've said, does not. However, the thing that perplexes me most is that even in real time, the new edit looks fine UNTIL I drop it as a single clip into a new sequence. It's frustrating because I can't really think of a solution other than to recut the ENTIRE thing AGAIN to less of a slow down in footage. That would kill me. As I've said, this matches to the music, perfectly right now.

I'll check the "Frame Blend Speed Changes" settings per overnighttolondon's suggestion and get back to ya. Thanks all for your considerations and problem solving skills. It really is helpful.

Rick
 
One last idea, I remember that your footage is 30p, but is your time line a 23.976 or 29.97 fps? The reason that I ask is that you might want to try only integer slow downs, as non integer raises the processing burden by a large margin. I realize that you are pretty tight on the range of slow down to match your audio, but an integer number (50% or 2:1) might be better in terms of its final look.
 
well, i believe my timeline is 29.97. its been so long, it seems, since ive set up this project that id need to doublecheck. also, i am working from the same project set-up as when i started this chapter. so, unless i inadvertently changed a setting, nothings changed. Unless of course, its possible to have two different timeline rates within the same project and i accidently set it up that way. i can look into that too.

as far as the integer thing goes, i agree with you; 80% is much more smooth than 60%. But, I was always fine with the 60% that I had. It was never nearly this strobe-y. Compounding the problem is that it was an overcast sky. The strobe-y look, with the flashing white sky would nearly kill an epileptic.
 
If it isn't too difficult, I would suggest trying the integer (50%) speed change. If you can live with the rate, it should be better than 60%. Be careful that the sky isn't blown out too badly and that you are exceeding the safe limits for NTSC, that could compound the problem.
 
Are there clips you can preview that don't have the sky in them or any fully exposed whites? See if those strobe too.

I've had problems before (as have other people on here) with exported footage (might have all been 24p footage) strobing with the whites when there are transitions on it. The strobing doesn't show up in Premiere, oddly enough, but it does show up when you render. Oh and this is without any slow motion. I forget what the solution was (have a look at some of the older threads) but it might have been to do as khmuse suggested with the NTSC Safe limits.
 
Thanks guys-

Yeah, the strobing actually happens irrespective of the sky. The sky just makes it more noticeable. I have plenty of non-sky shots and the movement is all out of whack. Right now I am tweaking with some settings, ("Frame Blend Speed Changes" and "Remove Flicker") with little success. And to re-cap, the movement is definitely a Premiere setting or Speed Change thing because it is constant. It's not my system.

Khmuse-
I haven't tried slowing it down to 50%. But, I am going to give it a try.

It's odd. Like I said, it's smooth as glass in the edit, but in a new sequence or rendered out I'm getting this problem.

Just to satisfy your curiosity, if you have any, I will try to post two clips tonight (I have to get to school). I'll post a clip I rendered out weeks ago and a clip from this weekends new-cut. I have a horrible host but if you'd like you can take a look. Not just for my sake, but for your own sake so you can avoid this trouble in the future.
 
ARe you dooing *all* your previewing in Preimier?

Or are you rending out and then watching it in Media Player (for example)

And how are you monitoring in Preimier? do you have an external monitor?

This almost sounds like an interlacing problem tha tyou can't see when you are previewing form the timeline. And here's why: Premiere only diplays the first field in it's monitor - no 2nd field means no jitter untill you render out. You'd see this right away on an external monitor - or when viewing in another app like MediaPlayer. The solution is to turn on de-interlace when you render.

- Mikko
 
To a degree.
Premiere still only shows the first field (which in prograssive still exists.. sortof.. i think) but becuse there is no time difference between the fields there is no flicker to worry about with progressive.

- Mikko
 
mikkowilson said:
Premiere only diplays the first field in it's monitor - no 2nd field...
Click to expand...

I don't think this is true. If you have Premiere's Monitor window zoomed to 100% (showing you your full vertical resolution), all of your fields can be seen and you can see interlacing. The only difference in terms of field playback between it an a TV I think is that Premiere shows you both fields of a frame simultaneously (which is why you can see the interlacing lines on fast motion). You *won't* notice the interlacing if you have the Monitor window smaller and set to "Fit," but when you have it on 100% you can see all of your fields.

rlm7189 said:
Does this also pertain to progressive footage?
Click to expand...

Not normally (as mikkowilson explained). But since there's nothing about your timeline that's officially 30p (it's really just a 60i timeline with 30p footage on it), I think speed changes are going to make use of all 60 independent interlaced fields in order to give you the smoothest possible motion signature. View your Monitor at 100% and see if you can see interlacing. Mikkowilson is right that this might have something to do with it looking weird. I forget, have you been able to look at this on a TV, either as a preview monitor in premiere or playing a dvd you've exported?
 
Any NLE's monitor or preview window does not exhibit the same behavior as a real NTSC monitor, even more so if one uses an LCD display. However, I believe that Rick has been exporting the footage to a DVD to view the results, so the issue may simply be the amount of slow down that he is attempting.
 
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