Please Help!!!

Movick wrote on 12/19/2009, 1:52 AM
Hello all,

Still working in V5; no need at this point to upgrade. When I go HD I'll definitely upgrade to whatever version of Vegas is out at that time. For now V5 seems to do what I need. I'm shooting with an XL2 and occassionally a PD-150. That said, I'm having some issues with renders where pan, tilt and lateral camera movements render out jerky. I'm preparing to shoot an exercise video next month for a product which I've developed; I broke out my mint condition XL2 and shot some test footage in my kitchen.

I don't know if my problem is a capture issue, a PC issue or a Vegas issue. The footage linked below plays fine on an external monitor out of the camera - no herky-jerky movement - fluid as expected. I used available light for the shot with autofocus; my XL has a back focus problem and manual focus doesn't cut it for any dynamic camera movement. You may notice some autofocus hunting in the brief clip as I needed a fairly wide iris to use available light.

Shot 60i, rendered high-quality mpeg-2 lower field first.

Can anyone shed some light on this frightful problem? Resident XL2 experts: any suggestions for the back focus problem? The autofocus on the XL is really lousy!

The mpeg-2: http://rapidshare.com/files/322948294/xl2.mpg

Thanks guys!!!

Mov

Comments

farss wrote on 12/19/2009, 3:09 AM
"Shot 60i, rendered high-quality mpeg-2 lower field first."

That tells us nothing. If VBR what min, avg and max bitrate or if CBR what bitrate?
How does it play on the Vegas T/L before you encoded it to mpeg-2?

Bob.
Movick wrote on 12/19/2009, 3:27 AM
Plays similarly in Vegas preview.

See screenshot for settings:
http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/1313/vegasshot.jpg
farss wrote on 12/19/2009, 3:42 AM
A few things:

1) Those bananas look like they're past their use by date.
2) The dirty dish cloth doesn't add to the general feel.
3) I didn't notice any horrid jerkiness. There was a brief pause in the motion but that was when the camera changed direction.

You really need to dress the set a bit and keep camera moves simple. A plain shot dolly would have done. For that you only need a skateboard and a plank on on ironing board. A simple camera move well done beats a complex one badly done.
With that much DOF you need to watch everything in the background.

Bob.
farss wrote on 12/19/2009, 3:45 AM
Your min bps is too low. Up it to 2,000,000. As I noted below I cannot see anything wrong with the video anyway however such a low minimum can cause problems.

If you still think it's jerky try CBR at 8,000,000

Bob.
Movick wrote on 12/19/2009, 4:30 AM
Point is not the set or bananas or dish towel (which isn't dirty BTW!!). This was a totally impromptu test shot having not used the XL in so long. This isn't a set - it's my kitchen after I prepared a snack. I thought the contrast between all of the misc. on the island would let me check out the XL's contrast and color repro using a new preset I developed under available light (room lights only - not a single halogen or tungsten within a mile) at 4 in the am no less. I originally had no plans of anyone else seeing this!!!
Concerned after rendering the footage however I thought I'd upload the render for another opinion.

As well, the camera moves here are not necessarily representative of what I will do for the exercise shoot; I just wanted to do some dynamic moves to check for fluidity. Why would I fabricate or break out a dolly for this shot? I'm also not going to have dollies or skateboards on the actual set or a grip to schlep me along. We will likely have a carpeted floor and a very tight space within which to shoot - hand-held is on the menu - dollies no...feet yes.

Tried the CBR and VBR adjustments - still jerky on this end. I wonder if my media player or video card is the problem. I know the video should look a helluva lot more fluid than this!
winrockpost wrote on 12/19/2009, 4:39 AM
Try it on a tv if you haven't already, may just be interlace issue on computer playback
winrockpost wrote on 12/19/2009, 4:41 AM
Also try the same stuff using manual controls ,steadyshot off.. could be just the cam searching , setting and fixing
Movick wrote on 12/19/2009, 4:48 AM
Win,

I've noticed this issue some time ago with renders from my Pd150. Ever since I've avoided pans and dynamic camera moves as much as possible.

This footage looked fine out of the camera to an LCD TV. I'll author a DVD with this MPEG2 and play it on the DVD player to the big screen and see if its just the pc playback or something more sinister!!!

I hate these issues!!!

Thanks
Jay Gladwell wrote on 12/19/2009, 4:53 AM

Like Bob, I didn't see any immediate problems (with the exception of the auto-focus).

Depending on what you plan to do with the finished video, I would highly recommend you scrap the idea of shooting hand-held. Ninety-nine point nine per cent of the time hand-held video looks cheap and amateurish.

Ask folks why they didn't use a tripod (or a dolly) and the most common answer is, "I didn't want to take the time."

What does that say about the filmmaker?


Jay Gladwell wrote on 12/19/2009, 4:55 AM

Which render template did you use?

Movick wrote on 12/19/2009, 4:57 AM
http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/1313/vegasshot.jpg

upped min VBR and did CBR at 8M.
Movick wrote on 12/19/2009, 5:03 AM
Jay

We'll see how much fightin' room I have on the actual set. I'm not shooting fruit for the production anyway. A lot of exercise vids are shot handheld ENG style these days. Less cuts to show different angles and more real-time look than static tripod shots w/ cuts.
Jay Gladwell wrote on 12/19/2009, 5:12 AM

"A lot of exercise vids are shot handheld ENG style these days. Less cuts to show different angles and more real-time look than static tripod shots w/ cuts."

Right...

farss wrote on 12/19/2009, 5:15 AM
I've cut a lot of execrise videos and rent out quite a bit of gear to people shooting them. OK, I've never shot one myself but I know what goes into them and people are using more and more serious kit.

Back to your problem, if it looks fine on the T/L and given that several of us don't don't seem to see anything wrong with it then it probably is the player and or your PC just doesn't have enough speed to decode the mpeg-2 and drops a frame or two. The mpeg-2 encoders tend to go into macroblocking before you'll loose frames.

Regarding your camera issue, try DVInfo.net. There's a subforum there for your model of camera. As it's pretty old you might have to wait a while before you get any help.

Bob.