Strobing / flicker effect when panning in 24p

[Dominik Seibold]

I did a test:
I put my 24p-recording-ex1 with a 11.25°-shutter on a rotating chair. Because of the inertia of the chair-camera-combination it should be a smooth motion. Also I used a light for having a traceable spot in the picture. Then I blended the recorded frames together for transforming the problem of checking the smoothness of motion to the problem of checking the regularity of a pattern. My conclusion is that it's absolutely smooth! Perfect 24p-recording without any judder!
Here is the blended picture:
http://www.dominik.ws/24p-test.png
And here is a single frame of it:
http://www.dominik.ws/24p-test-frame6.png

[Robert St-Onge]

Originally Posted by Steven Thomas

24 progressive frames per second is 24 frames per second. Throw the footage onto your time line and count them. They're there.

This is like saying a Hummer has 4 tires, count them, they're there. But for some strange reason mine just doesn't accelerate well. Could it be the driver or is it under the hood?

[Alister Chapman]

Here's a thought: The EX1 is one of the sharpest cameras out there. The extra image sharpness gives the eye more to lock on too so the jump from one frame to the next is visually more pronounced. My test shots of the EX1 at 25P with fast pans following aircraft look completely normal to me. Also the EX1's LCD seems to add judder that is not actually present on the cameras output.

[Robert St-Onge]

Originally Posted by Alister Chapman

Also the EX1's LCD seems to add judder

Yes, it does add more than there is on the actual shots

[Robert St-Onge]

Originally Posted by Alister Chapman

Here's a thought: The EX1 is one of the sharpest cameras out there. The extra image sharpness gives the eye more to lock on too so the jump from one frame to the next is visually more pronounced.

I am using a Letus Extreme, and shallow depth of field, the problem is still there. In comparison, the JVC HD250 with 18x4.2 BRM-M48 Fujinon was very sharp, well it looked like it was electronically boosted sharpness, and with no shallow depth of field, it was nice 24p motion.

Anyhow, I know all these are subtleties, I can most likely live with it, but my number one problem at this point is the color rendition of the EX1, blacks clothing looking brownish, this is far from being subtle, especially when you are doing corporate work!

[Dominik Seibold]

Here's a slow one with 79 frames:
http://www.dominik.ws/24p-test2.png
Again absolute regular (as regular as my chair rotates ;) ).
The ex1 really does its job right.

[Greg Boston]

...it is a shame that new/amateur videographers like myself have been shy to ask questions for the fear of being ridiculed.

That is exactly what DVINFO WILL NOT stand for. If you feel that way, the forum is failing because one of the greatest strengths of this forum is that new/amateurs can seek advice of professionals and expect to receive courteous, helpful responses.

If you or anyone ever feels ridiculed, please avail yourself of the "report bad post" button to the left. All DVINFO mods will be alerted.

I myself, have answered the same questions over and over to different folks and feel that the slight inconvenience it may feel like is greatly overshadowed by the goodwill it promotes.

Don't be shy, Todd. Seriously, I mean that.

regards,

-gb-

[Eric Pascarelli]

Originally Posted by Dominik Seibold

Here's a slow one with 79 frames:
http://www.dominik.ws/24p-test2.png
Again absolute regular (as regular as my chair rotates ;) ).
The ex1 really does its job right.

Of course it does. 24 fps and they're all there.

But the frame sequence you are showing would probably be stroby in motion by virtue of its narrow shutter.

Try turning off the shutter and do the same thing and you should see continuous (or almost, depending on the composite method you are using) streaks.

Try 180° and you'll see a dotted line with half on/half off cadence. This is what any film or progressive camera should be shooting for the generally accepted "film look"

[Steve Phillipps]

Well said Greg. This forum is well moderated, and abusive or aggressive posts in particular I know are not tolerated and I have seen them dealt with.
Keep up the good work guys.
Steve

[Nick Baker]

First I would like to say I totally disagree with Eric Pascarelli. I have worked with 35mm film for 8 years, both still and motion. The EX1 has flicker ever on slow moving shots and people with a good eye can tell. If you have an EX1 do the following (24p 180 shuttle) shoot while zooming, not too fast and make sure you are at a steady rate of zoom speed on a person or sharp defining object such as a book cover (do this while holding camera). when you play back, freeze frame, then play one frame at a time you will notice that on a wide to tight shot some will be in focus and some wont. the fact of the matter is there are many different shots that show flicker people just look at your subjects if you do not notice flicker and out of focus get your eyes checked out. Some people are uneasy with coming to terms that their new EX1 as well as all 24p HD cameras on the market suffer from rolling shutter as well as 23.98 not true 24 frames . I am one who has a love hate relationship with my EX1.

[Craig Seeman]

I think we need a Sticky on basic trouble shooting or system setup.

Like:
Check HD playback on HD monitor or HDTV.
Make sure input to HDTV actually spec'd to handle and display the signal you're inputing (for example: component input on some HDTV is only 1080i, not 1080p)
EX LCD, while excellent for focus and framing, may not be most accurate for color or motion display.
Be aware that a monitor that is not calibrated may not be color accurate.
Be aware that Computer may have issues decoding the XDCAM EX codec in real time at full frame size.
Be aware NLE may be doing scaling on the fly, which will impact various playback aspects negatively.
Be aware that compressing the file to another codec may introduce or exaggerate certain aspects negatively.

The best way to check a recording may be from "native" or "rewraped" (but not re-encoded) file (MP4, MXF, MOV from Sony Clip Transfer) played to HDMI input to HDTV or HD-SDI to HD Monitor from a Computer known to handle the source file decode and playback without issue. HDTV should be able to handle both 1080P input and display.

[Jeremy Hughes]

Could it be issues with the batches of cameras Sony has put out? I have not had any issues with pans. I've done TONS of tests when getting my LEX setup correctly and comparisons. I also get clean blacks, reds, etc. No vinetting, etc.

BTW, another thought - and this is the bigger point/question I have:

HAS anyone checked to see if its the codec written to the cards that the issue? I'm wondering if anyone is capturing out of the HDSDI and seeing much better results capturing into an intraframe codec instead of the GOP we get on the cards.

[Dominik Seibold]

Originally Posted by Nick Baker

If you have an EX1 do the following (24p 180 shuttle) shoot while zooming, not too fast and make sure you are at a steady rate of zoom speed on a person or sharp defining object such as a book cover (do this while holding camera). when you play back, freeze frame, then play one frame at a time you will notice that on a wide to tight shot some will be in focus and some wont.

I did:
http://www.dominik.ws/zoom.mov
This is a 100% frame-crop. On the upper right you can see the whole picture.
24p, 180°-shutter, f2.4, full MF, linear 10s-shot-transition from full wide to full tele.
Each frame is perfectly in focus.
But this was shot on a tripod. Why should I hold the camera while doing this??

[Alex Gutterson]

Ummm... I noticed the same thing then just took off the "auto-gain", "stabilization", "auto-white" settings, as well as everything else where it looked like Sony was trying to Vista"ize" my production experience.

After I did that the camera began to sing.

[Steven Thomas]

Originally Posted by Robert St-Onge

I am using a Letus Extreme, and shallow depth of field, the problem is still there. In comparison, the JVC HD250 with 18x4.2 BRM-M48 Fujinon was very sharp, well it looked like it was electronically boosted sharpness, and with no shallow depth of field, it was nice 24p motion.

I've owned the JVC HD100 for a couple years and have a lot of footage. The motion looks the same, except the JVC codec can fall apart with real high detail motion such as water or rustling of leaves.