7D Video stuttering?

[Keith Moreau]

Originally Posted by Liam Hall

No, you've got that round the wrong way. A 180 degree shutter will be more film like with more strobe. But you're right, a 180 degree shutter is best for this camera.

Normally with camcorders I'll use a 180 degree angle, for 30P this would be 1/60th. However, I often use a 1/30 or 'shutter off' setting for the 7D and other camcorders. I haven't found that this increases 'stuttering' but could result in lack of detail for faster moving scenes, potentially more blur in each frame.

I actually like this extra blur in many cases, I actually think 1/30 or 'off' looks more smooth, not less smooth, so some of the statements here about the 1/30 setting causing stuttering are confusing to me.

Regarding the stuttering Derek has mentioned, it seems a bit perplexing to me other than some problem during the capture or playback. However any Mac Book Pro should be able to playback native 7D files without stuttering. Some lower-powered Mac minis I've used do exhibit a kind of stop-start every second or 2. I've been pretty pleased with the smoothness of the 7D playback in most situations, either played natively or transcoded.

[Robert Kennedy]

On the subject of Compact Flash card speeds, the 60MB/s equates to ~400X. The video data rate maxes out at about 5MB/s which is ~50X. To be safe, you should budget for double that sustained data rate, so I would be comfortable with a quality card at 133X or higher for video work. The only benefit you might see from a UDMA 4 60MB/s is when offloading the card to your computer which will go considerably faster than the 10MB/s of a 133X card.

I know exactly what you're talking about and have a careful watch now on these motion artifacts whenever I am shooting. The squishing and stretching of things is indeed not a rolling shutter issue.. Does anyone have a name for this phenomenon that is more descriptive than "motion artifacts"?

Anyone have a better word to describe this phenomenom?

[Derek Reich]

Thank you, Keith.... this is what I have always felt was appropriate as well. Unless I needed to slow something down (without an overcrank option), I always thought a slower shutter would result in a smoother motion than a faster shutter speed. I still intend to try the 180 degree shutter with my 7D, but I'm afraid that the stutter I'm seeing has nothing to do with either frame rate or shutter speed.

You have a 7D? What type and speed CF card do you use? I also believe that I should not have had any problem viewing the native files in quicktime on a dual-core MBP. While I have seen a similar stutter before viewing HDV files on my old G4, this was always due to an underpowered processor, and was a playback only issue. This 7D stuff is different, and is going to make this camera unusable to me if every clip has to be transcoded just to make it work. For the most part, my clients are not going to be that interested in an extra step just to take files from this camera..... especially if it means transcoding in compressor due to the extremely long transcoding times. Time is money. (literally, when you're paying editors by the hour)

[Manus Sweeney]

unfortunately no matter how fast your machine is you and your clients will probably have to get used to that extra step!

you will spend much much more time working natively with the files, its possible but every clip and every fade/effect, every time you move something a little to the left or right will need to be rendered to playback in the timeline..

good luck with it!

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Derek Reich

This 7D stuff is different, and is going to make this camera unusable to me if every clip has to be transcoded just to make it work. For the most part, my clients are not going to be that interested in an extra step just to take files from this camera..... especially if it means transcoding in compressor due to the extremely long transcoding times. Time is money. (literally, when you're paying editors by the hour)

Ditch the 7D now. Because it's going to be a while before CPUs are fast enough to handle 7D footage on their own without a boost from a GPU or offboard processor. People have been discussing this issue with the 5D and 7D since early last year. I'm sorry you somehow missed all that before you spent your money.

However, I will say this. Nearly every digital cinema format that comes in the door needs prep time. This is what asst. editors do. Whether its from a RED, and ARRI, or comes in on HDCAM or HDCamSR, or film. Nearly everything has to be transcoded to ProRes, DNxHD, CanopusHQ, or something else for edit. Stuff get's transcoded to DPX/Cineon for VFX folks to work on. The idea of throwing native, 8bit, 4:2:0 footage onto the timeline seems to come only from broadcast news, or other outlets where speed has to trump quality.

[Derek Reich]

[QUOTE=Perrone Ford;1469645]Ditch the 7D now. Because it's going to be a while before CPUs are fast enough to handle 7D footage on their own without a boost from a GPU or offboard processor. People have been discussing this issue with the 5D and 7D since early last year. I'm sorry you somehow missed all that before you spent your money.


Ditch the 7D now?. Wow, that's unexpected. I was coming here for advice.... Sorry I'm behind the curve on this, but that's what I thought these forums were for. To get up to speed, and get some helpful advice from others who have some to share.

Others have posted that they have no problem without transcoding. This is what I'm trying to nail down, why some have to go through this extra step, and others don't seem to have to. I also was just trying to make sure my camera is not buggered. If it's something as simple as updating my FCP, or using a different flash card.

And for the record, most of my work IS for broadcast network news, so speed is often of the essence.

[Manus Sweeney]

i think it was just a misunderstanding..

you should be able to simply play the raw files without transcoding, but editing will always require transcoding, otherwise you'll have to continually render in the timeline, which would end up costing you much more time..

the transcoding isnt so bad though, dont let it put you off.. Prores is a good and efficient codec.. you'll have to work with bigger file sizes but otherwise should work fine on any reasonably good working Mac..

I think most people find the normal Prores 422 codec is enough, and probably wont make a big difference in selecting Prores 422 HQ.

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Derek Reich

Ditch the 7D now?. Wow, that's unexpected. I was coming here for advice.... Sorry I'm behind the curve on this, but that's what I thought these forums were for. To get up to speed, and get some helpful advice from others who have some to share.

Others have posted that they have no problem without transcoding. This is what I'm trying to nail down, why some have to go through this extra step, and others don't seem to have to. I also was just trying to make sure my camera is not buggered. If it's something as simple as updating my FCP, or using a different flash card.

And for the record, most of my work IS for broadcast network news, so speed is often of the essence.

There is no misunderstanding. And I am giving you the advice you need. Just not the advice you want to hear. I'm sorry if that doesn't rate as "helpful". You clearly stated that the camera would not work for you if you had to transcode, and your clients would not accept doing that extra step. Well, with the 7d you ARE going to have to transcode and your clients ARE going to have to do that extra step. Therefore the 7D will not meet your needs or your criteria.

No one here is posting that they can edit 7D footage smoothly without transcoding. Playback, yes. Edit no. There is nothing wrong with your camera, other than the fact it shoots in a format that is too difficult for any of the modern machines to slug their way through. At least only on CPU power.

There are options available from third parties (not sure for Macs) that can leverage the GPU on the quadro cards to assist and make this easier. To make matters worse, you also have an outdated Mac for doing heavy HD editing work.

So to reiterate, if you need a speedy workflow because you are in a broadcast situation, you have a camera that is wholly unsuitable to the task. You can either transcode the footage, suffer through the problems you have now and learn to live with it, or purchase a camera that meets your and your clients needs. Simple as that.

[Derek Reich]

Thanks, Manus
That's exactly what I am getting at..... I can't even view these files in Quicktime without the stuttering, nor can my client. Since they play clean when transcoded, I can safely assume the camera is not the problem.

I did receive this reply from Canon:

"Thank you for your inquiry. We value you as a Canon customer and
appreciate the opportunity to assist you. We are sorry to hear that you
are having issues with drop frame video on you EOS 7D.

The choice in memory cards could certainly be the culprit in this case.
I would recommend trying a few different cards if possible, to eliminate
this is a possible suspect. Class VI cards and higher should be able to
used without much impact on the camera. Updating your software to the
latest version of Quicktime may also resolve this issue for you. We
certainly apologize for any inconvenience this issue causes you at this
time."

I have heard this before, too..... but what really makes it confusing is hearing some people say that their card was not fast enough, or others say a card TOO fast can cause the problem. I do have the latest version of Quicktime, so I know that's not the issue.
My card is plenty fast enough according to Canon specs... maybe it's as simple as switching CF card brands? However, that said, IF the card was the culprit, then I would expect the file would not be corrected by transcoding, and would also stutter in-camera which these files do not.

I really don't have a huge problem with transcoding, but if I have hours of footage the time involved simply to get the clips into a loggable format is going to be daunting and a hard sell to clients who are already wary of solid state media. I know this is the future, and I love the aspect of no tape, discs, or spinning hard drives, but it takes some clients a while to warm up to the fact that they aren't getting a tape in their hands at the end of the day. Since I primarily hand off content at the end of a shoot, I have to sell this idea to some rather 'old school' mentalities that are often slow to adapt.

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Derek Reich

I really don't have a huge problem with transcoding, but if I have hours of footage the time involved simply to get the clips into a loggable format is going to be daunting and a hard sell to clients who are already wary of solid state media. I know this is the future, and I love the aspect of no tape, discs, or spinning hard drives, but it takes some clients a while to warm up to the fact that they aren't getting a tape in their hands at the end of the day. Since I primarily hand off content at the end of a shoot, I have to sell this idea to some rather 'old school' mentalities that are often slow to adapt.

Derek,

I've been shooting tapeless since 2004. There are lots of ways to solve this problem. I shoot XDCamEX. It does not require a transcode to playback smoothly, or edit smoothly. Others do the same with P2 based DVCProHD, or AVC-Intra. Both will play back smoothly on a modern machine. However Handoff becomes a slightly bigger issue because you need to make a copy rather than give your very expensive cards away to clients.

You could choose to shoot on a camera with an HDMI/SDI port and use a NanoFlash. That records on CF cards and you could hand that off to the client. But the nano is $3k, though the output more than justifies the price.

I really am not trying to be harsh here, and I am really trying to give you real professional advice, one pro to another. You've painted yourself in a corner with your camera selection and your stated criteria. So either the criteria has to bend, or the camera does.

[Marty Welk]

did you mention anywhere in all this, if you FrameStepped through the video and saw it, or just on a real time playback. to determine if there are any "frames" actually "missing" from the original recording itself?

are the jump locations in areas where the whole frame of pixels changes?
just curious.

[Keith Moreau]

Originally Posted by Derek Reich

Thank you, Keith.... this is what I have always felt was appropriate as well. Unless I needed to slow something down (without an overcrank option), I always thought a slower shutter would result in a smoother motion than a faster shutter speed. I still intend to try the 180 degree shutter with my 7D, but I'm afraid that the stutter I'm seeing has nothing to do with either frame rate or shutter speed.

You have a 7D? What type and speed CF card do you use? I also believe that I should not have had any problem viewing the native files in quicktime on a dual-core MBP. While I have seen a similar stutter before viewing HDV files on my old G4, this was always due to an underpowered processor, and was a playback only issue. This 7D stuff is different, and is going to make this camera unusable to me if every clip has to be transcoded just to make it work. For the most part, my clients are not going to be that interested in an extra step just to take files from this camera..... especially if it means transcoding in compressor due to the extremely long transcoding times. Time is money. (literally, when you're paying editors by the hour)

Hi Derek

I have a 7D, and I have several macs, my main edit machine is a Mac Pro 8 core with a ATI HD 4870 Graphics card, it's a pretty fast setup so on that system there's no problem playing back 7D footage and doing assembly editing natively, that is using a 7D-native timeline to edit 7D clips. However, as other posters have stated, if you're doing to do ANYTHING to the 7D footage that would require the Mac to render the footage, such as effects, dissolves, color correction, you won't be able to get real time playback on pretty much any system on those areas of the clip(s) that have to be rendered. For example, my 7D is definitely a 'B' camera for me, my primary camcorders are Sony EX1s and a JVC HM100s, whose EX codec is pretty high quality and pretty easy on the CPU for editing. If I create a EX-based timeline so I can do quick editing with the EX1 (with the FCP rendering set to use Prores 422, that way renders are automatically transcoded to a codec easier on the CPU) then any 7D clips I drag into the timeline either need to be rendered or cannot play back realtime. If I want to eliminate the rendering issues with the 7D clips, I'll render them into whatever codec my sequence is using, in my case usually Prores of some sort or XDCAM EX.

Usually on lower powered computers, I'll get stuttering, sometimes it's acceptable, sometimes it's not.

I also have a 2 year-old MBP dual core and I get stuttering, strangely, on my weaker Mac Mini Dual 2gHz, I get less stuttering. Maybe newer MBPs with better GPUs might get less stuttering. With more movement, you'll get more stuttering, that is if the frames change greatly from one to the next, the CPU is going to need more power, that's usually when you get the stuttering. If you have successive frames without a lot of differences between them, you'll see less stuttering. If you're playing back the files in Quicktime player, to a 'command-I' and look at the 'playing FPS' rate. If it's less than a continuous 30FPS, you're getting stuttering.

Do you have access to a 4 core or 8 core Mac Pro to test out your footage? You'll be able to see if it's inherent in the clips. There are also great utilities to view your CPU usage, one that I have running all the time is a Preference pane called "Menumeters" which shows, real time, the CPU usage. On the 7D clips on my older MBP, I get pretty maxed out (95+%) CPU on both cores, which means there could be stuttering. On my 8 Core, I get about 25% while playing complex 7D clips.

I've also heard that sometimes using IS on lenses will result in a kind of jumpy motion due to the IS that isn't optimized for video recording. I haven't seen this much with my IS lenses, but the rumor is out there.

I think that in highly-compressed and complex H.264s out of camcorderswon't currently playback real time all that easily, though the 7D's version of H.264 seems a little easier on the CPU then the typical AVCHD on some camcorders. On the cards, I use a couple different ones, mostly a Kingston Elite 32GB 133x, which, while not the fastest card seems fine for video for me and is a great deal.

Good luck with it.

[Derek Reich]

Originally Posted by Perrone Ford

There is no misunderstanding. And I am giving you the advice you need. Just not the advice you want to hear. I'm sorry if that doesn't rate as "helpful". You clearly stated that the camera would not work for you if you had to transcode, and your clients would not accept doing that extra step. Well, with the 7d you ARE going to have to transcode and your clients ARE going to have to do that extra step. Therefore the 7D will not meet your needs or your criteria.

No one here is posting that they can edit 7D footage smoothly without transcoding. Playback, yes. Edit no. There is nothing wrong with your camera, other than the fact it shoots in a format that is too difficult for any of the modern machines to slug their way through. At least only on CPU power.

There are options available from third parties (not sure for Macs) that can leverage the GPU on the quadro cards to assist and make this easier. To make matters worse, you also have an outdated Mac for doing heavy HD editing work.

So to reiterate, if you need a speedy workflow because you are in a broadcast situation, you have a camera that is wholly unsuitable to the task. You can either transcode the footage, suffer through the problems you have now and learn to live with it, or purchase a camera that meets your and your clients needs. Simple as that.

It's not MY workflow that is the problem. I don't generally edit what I shoot. All I am trying to find out is why I can't playback quicktime files on several different adequately powered computers in Quicktime. I think my clients would be fine transcoding if they have to, as long as they can log the raw and just deal with the transcode on the clips they want. Having to transcode everything just to view it normally seems unreasonable when I have read others are able to do it.

And quite frankly, comments like "Ditch the 7D now" ARE unhelpful. Your advice is welcome, and will be useful to everyone else who is behind the curve like me. I don't think comments like that serve any purpose other than to bring some attitude to the thread that is unnecessary. If I'm asking dumb questions, then don't reply. Others are offering useful advice, too.

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Derek Reich

It's not MY workflow that is the problem. I don't generally edit what I shoot. All I am trying to find out is why I can't playback quicktime files on several different adequately powered computers in Quicktime. I think my clients would be fine transcoding if they have to, as long as they can log the raw and just deal with the transcode on the clips they want. Having to transcode everything just to view it normally seems unreasonable when I have read others are able to do it.

And quite frankly, comments like "Ditch the 7D now" ARE unhelpful. Your advice is welcome, and will be useful to everyone else who is behind the curve like me. I don't think comments like that serve any purpose other than to bring some attitude to the thread that is unnecessary. If I'm asking dumb questions, then don't reply. Others are offering useful advice, too.

Ok,

You cannot play back the footage because your mac is too slow. What you deem "adequately powered" seems to be mismatched. If you have a fast quadcore or an 8 core, then yes, it should play back. But I wouldn't bet on ANY dualcore being able to play this stuff back.

My comment to ditch the 7D may seem unhelpful, and for that I apologize. But that may be the most realistic advice you get here even if it was a bit sharp. You aren't asking dumb questions. You are asking the right questions, but unfortunately, you are asking them after you've already spent your money. And you clearly indicated that you did not want to pursue the primary things that would solve you issue.

I wish you the best with this, but I still think your best solution is going to be transcoding, or shooting in a different format.

[Derek Reich]

Thank you Keith, for the very informative reply!
This is the kind of stuff I come here for. I am learning that this is indeed the case for editing, however at the moment on no computer am I able to playback the files in quicktime without the stuttering. I know the client is using a very powerful quad-core mac editing system, and they report seeing the stuttering. When I first viewed the quicktime clips on my MBP, (2.6Ghz dual-core) I just assumed it was playback stutter, but for that computer I was surprised since I routinely view HDV and XDEX as well as XDCam files with no issue whatsoever. The 7D is obviously a different beast, but I was hoping that at least the quicktimes would be more friendly.

All of the stuttering I have experienced is exactly as you describe, occurring more often with object moving rapidly through the frame. (in this case, traffic) I'm locked down on a tripod (this is also a b-camera for me, I'm manning an XDCam while the 7D is getting some gravy shots) I have not used IS on any lens, and in fact everything is set manually.

The idea of the flash card is curious, because I have found that coming up fairly frequently in other forums, and now the reply from Canon.

Thanks for your input, I can also pass this along to the client.