Shimmering Lines Football Field

papaterry wrote on 11/3/2008, 9:27 AM

I videoed some night time football with Sony SR11 from up in the stands. Looks great shooting straight down at midfield and thereabouts, but aiming down towards end zone and the camera gave me shimmering yard lines and letters in the end zone.
Also, great color except when I stood at the railing and leaned over and shot the kids below on the near sideline, less lighted area; color faded and greyed noticeably. Been reading on this forum the high praises of hd mini dv (Canon VIXIA HV30 MiniDV High Definition Camcorder) and WONDERING IF I'D GET BETTER VIDEO. I can still return the SR11 to good old Costco and get the HV30. I'll be shooting more night time football, but that's just one of many uses-- mostly birthday parties, outdoor activities, lots of fast moving wild grandkids. Some say mini dv does better with the action stuff.

Comments

[r]Evolution wrote on 11/3/2008, 8:39 PM

My take on this is that it is the same as having a 1 or 2 pixel line... it will 'shimmer' when played back. Football field lines are probably about 1 or 2 pixels on a DV Video. Maybe the HD cam will capture them larger thus making them be and stay 'solid'.

Similar to a Striped shirt or Herringbone jacket. They 'shimmer' or 'wiggle'.

Maybe you can export both Progressive & Interlaced and compare... a Higher BitRate... or even get the HD cam and compare.

Maybe it's because the camera was trying to focus on different parts of the line which were actually at different focal lengths so it was continuously changing.

I'm not sure how to correct this... but I have seen it and try to avoid shooting things that I know will cause it. In your case, I'm not sure how you can remove the lines from a Football Field though but hopefully my input will help.

farss wrote on 11/3/2008, 11:00 PM

It's just the nature of video. You can use the best cameras money can buy and still have this problem. There used to be a time when if the talent turned up for an interview wearing something likely to cause a problem they'd send them down to wardrobe. These days no one seems to care so you'll see a lot of it on TV.
You can mitigate the effect by adding Gaussian Blur in the vertical direction, just enough to kill the problem. In general you don't see the problem on progressive displays such as LCDs. Shooting progressive doesn't help, it can make it worse when it's displayed on an interlaced display.

Bob.

papaterry wrote on 11/4/2008, 3:18 PM

Thanks much for the helpful input! It's so cool to be able to interact with fellow video lovers. Ya know, when I backed up a step and looked at the AVCHD right out of the camera to the HD TV it looks almost perfect. The yard lines do not shimmer; just the lettering in the end zone does it a little and the rows of seats in the bleachers across the field. It's a different story in the Preview window in Vegas 8.0c and in the DVD I made. Lots of shimmering/ wiggling when the camera is pointed down towards the distant end zone. So I burned an AVCHD Disc from within Picture Motion Browser, the Sony software that came with the SR-11 Camcorder, and it looks as good as what comes straight out of the camcorder via HDMI cable. It's a real frustration that I can't edit the video or customize the menu when I burn that AVCHD disc, but the quality is so terrific I don't know why Vegas doesn't give us that AVCHD disc option. I'm talking about being able to burn AVCHD on standard 4.7 gig discs. I have the Blu Ray player but I'm not set up to burn to Blu Ray discs and not ready to spend 18 bucks per disc if I had the burner for it. Thanks again for the help. Further comments are invited. And.."farss"...I plan to try your suggestions and see if I can learn something along the way. Thank you!

papaterry wrote on 11/4/2008, 3:25 PM

Bob, I appreciated your input about this being the nature of the beast, whateve you're shooting with. That removes any concerns about my Sony SR11 and the thought of taking it back for a hd mini-dv as I shared in my first post. I like this camcorder for a number of reasons and now that i have Vegas Pro 8.0c I'm not having the playback issues I had with Pinnacle Studio 12. It's not problem free, but so far I think acceptable. I'll toy with the Gaussian Blur.

Terry