Quicktime Export---Choppy!!

davidpula

davidpula

Well-known member
I am editing 24p (23.98) Prores footage in FCP and having issues with the resultant Quicktime conversions. The same video that plays smoothly in the Final Cut timeline has a random "choppy", jittery, stuttering thing happening when the exported file is played in Quicktime. Every second or so there is a jump, or stutter, which is more accentuated with more movement or panning in the image.

I have googled this to death and found many others complaining of the same problem. I have yet to find an answer.

I have played with the settings in dozens of combinations. Under "Using Quicktime Conversion"---h.264, MPEG-4, Photo JPEG, Sorenson, even AIC and a few others. I've tried bit rates of 2 to over 100mbps. I've played with frame rates (current/24/23.98/23.976). Mostly I left Key Frame at "current" but also tried 24, and lower and higher numbers. Also tried various compression settings (low to very high).

All of these came out pretty much the same. The best compression in terms of these video jitters was actually Photo JPEG. H.264 was the worst. But even Photo JPEG is still not great. A similar, halfway OK method was also simply choosing Export--Quicktime Movie--Current Settings. This of course gave a huge file of 117mbps but I then compressed that in Quicktime itself and ended up with a 3mbps file which looked pretty much the same. So-so. Ok but still a bit jumpy.

The timeline I worked in was completely rendered and everything plays very smoothly during playback in FCP.

I'm using FCP 6.06. and Snow Leopard. I had this same issue when I had Leopard. I was using the new Quicktime X which came with Snow Leopard and then changed my default app back to my former Quicktime 7. Quicktime X is an utterly idiotic downgrade which displays less clip info and doesn't even offer Preferences. Both showed the jitter bug. I'm reading that people with all different OS's and versions of FCP and QT are dealing with this bug.

Anyone else had this incredibly irritating problem and found an answer? I don't see so many videos on Vimeo with this jitter.

Help please!
 
It sounds like you captured 24p wrong. Like maybe you shot 24p Advanced then captured at the wrong rate.

Now I'm saying this only because your exported files sound exactly the same as what I dealt with on one of my early projects... which turned out I didn't remove the pulldown upon capturing the footage.

But I could also see some of the choppiness in Final Cut, or more so when I had a tv hooked up as an external monitor.

Have you tried dropping a de-interlace filter on the entire thing? You might as well see if that helps. I'd also look in the browser to see if all the settings in your sequence and clips are the same.
 
I shot 24p on T2i and logged and transferred and had "remove advanced pulldown" checked in the preferences in the log and transfer window. Should I have this unchecked? The thing is it plays perfectly in the timeline. And I had the exact same problem exporting HMC150 24p footage. I have a feeling pulldown is not the problem.
Why would I need to de-interlace?
 
**As far as I know, T2i shoots at 24fps (23.98) and you wouldn't need to remove any pulldown. Someone else can feel free to chime in on this as I'm not 100%.

De-Interlace would just be done to test if it gets rid of the choppiness or not.
 
do you still have the original t2i files? If you do, just use compressor to convert one clip to Apple Pro Res. Don't check off any boxes, let it do its own thing.

Then import that file into final cut pro then export it. See if you get the same results or not.
 
I'm sorry to hear that. My only thought would be if this project needs to be exported asap, plunk the entire project on a hard drive then take it to another mac with final cut and try it on it.

Im running fcp7 on my i5 iMac and have never come across this problem. Sorry I couldn't be more help. Hopefully someone who has dealt with this will come along with solutions.
 
I did that after reading your post. Again, similar result to photo-jpeg compression. Acceptable probably to a layman, but still slightly choppy/jumpy image.

Very very bizarre. I don't get it.
 
This is Quicktime Conversion--->H.264. 13.23 mbits/s

Pay attention the the first half---the girl holding the camera, and the old lady with the glasses. As the camera pans, they as standing still....and they jitter!!! This is not what it looks like in FCP!!! IT's totally smooth there! (Except for minor, normal, 24p strobing.)


 
You exported your QuickTime movie not as a .MOV but as a .MP4. For some reason, QuickTime HATES this and it will not play back smoothly under anything except VLC (try it, you'll probably find it plays just find under VideoLAN).

Export it as a Quicktime movie and pick the codec as H.264. You don't get nearly as many configuration options with this, but it'll play back fine.
 
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