WHY YOUR CINEMATIC DRONE FOOTAGE STUTTERS...
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ธ.ค. 2024
- Whether you're filming with a drone, a GoPro, or a DSLR, if you're trying to get nice smooth panning shots and are seeing clips that stutter in the final produced video, you've likely got a frame-rate mismatch issue. I'll help you understand what's causing it and how to avoid it in the future.
Original music by: David Wray
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This is really a golden nugget you share here. Highly appreciated. You get a subscriber with this one video.
I just got my mini 3 Pro drone and took it up and when I do video playback on my computer, I find that forward and backward video is fine and smooth, but panning left and right is jagged... micro stuttering abit... makes it almost hard to watch. Of course the faster I twist left to right the worse it is... is there a setting I can set that will make turning left or right video as smooth as forward and backward motion? I have it in 4K 30 FPS HQ but it is in H265... and the SD card I use is a high speed card...
Same problem, and the information in this video is misleading. The problem is with the video player that freezes every 2 or 3 frames and gives the sensation of watching 4 or 5 frames per second. It's an incredibly common problem but it doesn't seem to bother anyone. You won't find any solution online. I also tried asking to "chat gpt", but no solution. I've noticed that on the smartphone and laptop this doesn't happen.
Finally someone who gives correct information. I made a video myself about that topic two years ago, as I thought nobody talked about this so far. Didn't find your video back then. My recommendation is also to shoot everything in 29.97/30 fps and work in 30 fps timelines IF the project is targeted to audiences behind smartphones or computers, as 60 Hz is still the standard. As you say yourself, shooting 24p and putting it on a 24p timeline sounds ok and smooth, but the "incompatibility" happens between the 24p timeline and the 60 Hz refresh rate, giving a 3-2-3-2-3-2-... cadence that produces this judder/stutter - which you don't have when you watch a movie in cinema or on TV.
So yes, 30 fps all the way if you want a filmic look that plays back smooth on smartphones and computer screens. I'm 99% sure, if everything else (story, lighting, location, acting etc.) is the same, 30 fps will look just as cinematic as 24 fps and nobody will notice the difference. People always attribute the cinematic look to the frame rate, while this is just a very small fraction of it. Well done, thank you for sharing your insights!
I wish I saw this earlier. I have filmed 2 complete holidays in 24 fps. And the video's look absolutely horrible. Only jumps. Nothing fluent...
Is there any solution?
Appreciate this - I have been trying to sort out the jitter in one specific video for a while and you resolved it for me. Much appreciated.
Thank you for your video very informative. Just what I needed since I was having that issue and nothing, I did remove the jitter when panning my drone. Just how do I go about slowing down my footage? Do I need something like DaVinci Resolve? Can you point to some tutorials to do that? Thanks a lot.
Certainly Resolve will do it, as will pretty much any other video editing application. I use Power Director, but if Resolve is what you have access to, then I'm sure you can do a quick search and find a video on how to do slow-motion in Resolve (or other editing application). Maybe this will get you started: th-cam.com/video/pqAGXx_LuX0/w-d-xo.html
great video .....QUESTION ...i have an ipad mini 6 with my air 2s drone but all the live view on the ipad is very stuttery when ever there is a faster movment to left or right ...is this normal on an ipad or is there a way to watch the live view smoothy ...many thanks
This is great information. That said, the issue you address seems more of an ever present jitter than a random, occasional stutter. Taking my 4k/60 drone footage and outputting it as 1080p/30 gives me the result you show in your samples (my term = jitter). That same clip output as 1080p/60 is smooth except for random and more pronounced jerky playback, which I'll call stutter. I find it in at least one place (usually several) of each video. Although I have not established a one to one correlation, I also see the same behavior while viewing the live feed while in flight. I initially blamed this on a radio transmission glitch, but it should not be on the video saved to the card in the drone. Any thoughts?
Jeff - This issue, or what I'm now calling a FAULT with DJI drones, is affecting thousands of us, and DJI are ignoring the issue/fault. I'm on my THIRD drone, and all 3 have the fault. My 1st was an A2S, which, when DJI saw the footage said "ohh yeah, that's not right, send it back for repair". When it was returned, it was THE SAME!! Sold. Bought a Mavic 3 - the SAME. Returned for an exchange, from a later batch - the SAME!! It's NOT an SD card issue; it shows the same when using the internal storage. It's not PC related as it can be seen in the live feed from the drone, even when not even recording. I've changed every possible setting I can, and it remains.
@@davybloggs1564 Thanks, Davy! My Mavic flew away. Good riddance! A friend. who is a legitimate pro, has multiple Phantoms, produces smooth as silk video!? He was going to look at mine, but we never got around to it. Good luck!
Great video! I just recently was wondering about the micro stutters in my mavic air 2 footage. They are still existing quite noticable even when I matched the Adobe Premiere Output framerate (24fps) with the Mavic footage (24 fps). But I did one mistake while recording, I set the shutterspeed to auto. Also I did not use any nd filter. Do u think this might be the reason for the stutters?
Make sure you're following the 180 degree rule
The music on background is annoying. I am really trying to concentrate on what you are saying.
Please help, my Mavic Air2 video caputres are still choppy despite that I'm recording on internal memory, Im applying the 180 rule using filters, I refreshed the firmware and did the calibrations. I also disabled saving cache, I tried both H.264 and H.265. My drone was good in the beginning, I just bought it 1 year ago with no crashes. It's driving me crazy to see the poor videos. Please help and share some advice
thank you for this. confirmed what I already was thinking. I had already messed around with reducing speed to 80%. I was also suspicious my memory card could be part of the problem. Ordered a SanDisk Extreme 256GB V30 A2 microSDXC. Really cool seeing all this drone capture information on TH-cam. SO much useful information.
I enjoyed your video. I have never been able to shoot drone footage at 30 fps, much less 24fps if I am panning or moving past buildings or hard-edged vertical lines without the jerks, stutters, flickers, etc. I have even noticed in professional "cinematic" movies, videos, etc. the 'stutters" when buildings go by, etc. and it drives me nuts. I have sacrificed motion blur for the smoothness of 60 fps, and 1/120 shutter speed. Anyone know any issues with shooting 60 fps at 1/60 shutter speed? 24 fps with vertical line moving by jittering doesn't look very "cinematic", or at least realistic to me anymore.
Everytime I get finished videoing on my pro 2 I always get some part of the video that has pixels show up around the corner of the video and then disappear fast what do I do?
I think there is a way to fix this in After Effects. Do you know how to do that?
Sorry Paul - I don't have have After Effects, but you may be right about that. Hopefully someone else can chime in with more info.
Great explanation and thanks for sharing your knowledge, much appreciated. Just one little criticism and that is your background music is too loud and quite distracting. Try ducking to around -27db when talking.
So I have a big problem with choppy videos or videos that stutter straight from the SD Card. I follow the 180 degree rule, I'm shooting at 24fps, my shutter speed is at 1/50 and added ND filter as well. I even turned off caching and auto HD sync. I'm using a Mavic Mini 2. I have no idea what else I can do. It's quite disappointing after investing money and time in this drone. Any ideas? You reckon that 24fps with 1/50 shutter is causing the problem and I should use 25fps instead? Or 30 fps with 1/60 shutter?
One other thing you might try is playing the raw clip file back on a decent large screen TV. If it plays fine there, that might indicate that you've just been seeing a refresh clash with your PC monitor. But hard to say for sure.
Great information! Thanks.
I just shot footage with a mavic 2 zoom. The unedited video playback stutters when there is a lot of change between frames. And yet when looked at frame by frame on an editor, the frames are all there. Can't fathom what's going wrong.
And what about shutter speed? I think that if we leave it to auto it would be problem cause as we all know it should be double the frame rate
my dji mini 2 footage stutters straight from the card, when I play it in VLC...Any clues? Thanks
I've heard (though haven't seen for myself) that this can happen when the drone is struggling to being taxed to cache video to your phone simultaneously (the default config). Would be worth turning off that setting to see if resolves your issue as others have claimed. Let us know how it goes!
I would like to add that I generally correct choppy panning of ANY camera by changing the shutter speed on the camera... There's no mention of shutter speed settings here.
Awesome information. I see so many TH-cam drone footage that is full of stutters. I am surprised that some creators just never seem to figure this out.
i know I am kinda off topic but does anyone know of a good site to watch newly released series online?
@Armando Crew i use FlixZone. Just google for it =)
@Armando Crew I would suggest FlixZone. You can find it on google =)
@Daniel Tatum definitely, have been watching on Flixzone for since april myself :D
@Daniel Tatum thanks, I signed up and it seems to work =) I appreciate it!
All good info! I also discovered this on some of my early drone videos and it was indeed caused by a mismatch between frame rate of my video and frame rate of my editing project. 👍😎
Your video is helpful. So it's safe to say if I record in 30p, just make sure to export to 30p final footage and likewise, if I shoot in 60p, just make sure to export to 60p final footage, then it should be all safe, correct? I use CyberLink PowerDirector if that makes a difference.
Yeah basically that's it. But you can also take the 60p clips and just render them at 30p or slow them down to 50% on a 30p timeline. OR, if you need to use a 24p timeline for some reason, just slow those 30p clips to 80% (or 40% for the 60p cljps) and it should still be smooth as glass for you!
@@ReeWrayOutdoors Also, during bright daylight, I think the higher 60p is better since I can use higher shutter speed like 1/120 (double FPS rule). If shooting 24p then I have to use 1/48, which is better for night shoot. Is that the right thought process?
@@boston4688 Yeah, I've only just recently started experimenting with the 180 deg rule. I'm not not yet fully convinced that it makes a significant difference but I'm also trying not to draw any premature conclusions. I also just got some ND filters to help get the desired shutter speed in bright conditions. I'll probably be putting out a video on all that in a few weeks once I'm more confident in my findings.
Seems no one really knows the solution. I see stutter in videos in DJI promo videos even. This is all basic knowledge, but it still stutters sometimes. Maybe filming in 50 fps and then render in 25 fps migh help. Or 48/24. Anyone tried this? Did it help? Thanks.
I think in a lot of cases, it also has do to with what you're watching on. Most computer (and smartphone) displays still have a 60Hz refresh rate and so 24fps is likely going to look (at least micro-) stuttery since 24 does not divide evenly into 60. And while most widescreen TV's also still use 60Hz refresh, they are optimized with some tricky tech to better handle 24fps since that's an old Hollywood standard. Personally, I prefer 30fps since it tends to look smoother on just about everything - but my Sony a6600 doesn't do eye-detect AF in 30fps. :-/ So I usually stick to 24fps to ensure I get bullet-proof auto-focus.
Thanks! I was thinking that was the issue, but I liked your solutions.
I took videos in 24 and save them the same 24 fps and still choppy. How to fix this?
Have you tried viewing the rendered video on a large screen TV? I've seen where I'll still see some stutters on my monitor, but looks great on the TV. If now, have you looked into the 180 deg rule, where you'd probably need an ND filter so you can keep the shutterspeed at double the frame rate and still properly expose? This might help as well.
I record video at 1080/60p and I edit video with movavi video editor and it stutters...its so frustrating.
Have you tried viewing the rendered video on a large screen TV? I've seen where I'll still see some stutters on my monitor, but looks great on the TV. If now, have you looked into the 180 deg rule, where you'd probably need an ND filter so you can keep the shutterspeed at double the frame rate and still properly expose? This might help as well.
Thanks for your sharing. Very helpful for some beginners
Good vid but i use 2 hearing aids and the music at this vol makes it difficult for me
Sorry about that!
Great information but forgive me for mentioning that I found the background piano music very off-putting. Admittedly I do have a slight hearing impairment but you might consider not using background audio during narration?
Noted!
I just saw your video and enjoyed very much. Maybe you can help on an issue with my Mavic Mini. I have been flying the Mini since late March 2020. My device is a IPad mini gen 5. I am still on version 1.1.10. My SIM card is a Evo plus 256 GB, speed class -10. Mini flies perfectly in all aspects. I live on a very small community and have a lot of open areas. Everything was fine up until about late October when I started noticing video jitter whenever I yaw or move camera up or down. Distance is not an issue as it happens close or far in either 2.7k or 1080 both at 30 FPS. When I play back video from my cached on the app on my IPad is when I experiment the jittery video.
The weird thing is if I download the videos to my laptop computer all videos are perfect!! I thought maybe it was SIM card related but this card was working perfectly before and it was bought new for the drone from the first day. Any suggestions would be appreciated!!!
Richard
Just speculation, but I'm guessing something to do with the video transmission feed back to your phone. As I understand it, the original Mavic Mini did not use Occusync (like the Mini 2 and the bigger drones use) to comm with the controller. So any radio interference in the area could wreak havoc on the quality of that video transmission. Again, just a guess on my part. Could also be something going on with your controller maybe.
To add to ReeWray’s response, when you are viewing the videos from the App, you are getting the cached previews (the same view that you would have been seeing in real time while flying). If your video transmission signal drops out, you’ll see compression artifacts, glitching, and skipped frames. The same is true for all DJI drones, not just the Mini, but without Occusync I’m sure it’s much more likely to happen. You can overcome this by “downloading original” copy to your device (although not if you recorded in h.265 format). I generally wouldn’t recommend this though because video files can get massive and they’ll take up a lot of space on your device, not to mention take forever to transfer.
24FPS does not give the footage a cinematic look. It is the way you shoot the subject. The reason there is 24FPS is from the early days of shooting movies in film. It was the slowest frame rate without flickering which used the least amount of film stock which was a cost saving and not because the way it looked.
Completely agree. We've all become accustomed to 24fps so it's what we're used to. I actually now prefer 30fps and have recently started shooting everything at that framerate.
@@ReeWrayOutdoors I have found it interesting that I have a Mavic Air 2 and shoot at 60FPS and it seems to give a sharper clearer picture when reduced to 30FPS. Not for sure why but, maybe the doubling of the data rate gives the clearer video at 30FPS. The edited video is 30FPS.
Very good explanation and the 24 to 30 fps relation works well on normal cameras too.
Thank you for a very informative video! I have have severe stuttering when panning. I even bought ND filters to try and solve the issue but it didn't (so I could adjust the shutter speed correctly).I don't think its the monitor refresh rate messing up but I will have to confirm that... What I did notice today though is that if I speed up the playback a bit the stuttering stops / gets less frequent
Yeah I've not found that the ND filter/180 deg shutter rule really makes a big difference in panning smoothness. I recently did another video about that (and a bit of frame rate comparison) if you're interested: th-cam.com/video/8HoLgyCzyVM/w-d-xo.html
@@ReeWrayOutdoors sounds interesting, I will check it out!
Great VIDEO. One thing... We do not film, we video. We shoot Digital Video. :-) Film, filming, and filmmaking are the most misused words in the industry. :-)Digital Video and film require different skill sets. Having DIFFERENT historical and TECHNOLOGICAL timelines spanning 150 years. Educate by having pride and knowledge of the gear we use including the words that describe what we do. Our tools are Digital Video, Non-linear, and CGI. We are moviemakers, not filmmakers. Videographers and/or cinematographers. We video or are videoing, we do not film. That's the other RARE professionals who know how to use film and film cameras, like an ARRIFLEX 435 Panavision R-200 and Steenbeck flatbed film editors. :-) Know the difference and be better at your craft. You will also stand out in an industry polluted with point-and-shoot "pros". Respect to you.✌♥
Great info! I have suffered from this especially with drone footage.
Thanks!! One other thing I've learned since this video is that it can help a great to keep your shutter speed at 2x the frame rate. So if you're using 30fps, you'll want a shutter speed of 1/60. But the problem is that will often over-expose your clips unless you use an ND filter to counter that. :-/ I find them a bit more hassle that they're worth (to me), but something to consider! ;)
Great video. Thanks for helping me with this problem.
Thanks man!
ok....good luck!!! friend
Good video, great information. I only wish you would have "ditched" the background music though. To me, it's very distracting while I'm trying to focus on what you're talking about. Thanks for sharing what you did here. Marc T.
Great info very informative thanks
When you say 24fps, is that really 23.9** something?
Yeah - at least with all my devices (GoPro, DJI Drones, Sony a6600), when you select 24fps, it's really 23.98fps when you look at the file properties.
Thanks for the info.
Have been having that problem hopefully not anymore
Thanks again !
It’s not due to my footage. Footage looks buttery smooth on a phone. But on my rtx 2070 computer it stutters like mad. Same except slightly worse on my 2017 MacBook Pro. Wtf.
Yes 24 fps, stuffers, 30 studders, 60 studders.
Omg you just saved me a 2 hour trip to re shoot footage I accidentally recorded in 4k lmao. It was my monitor making it look stuttered
You just saved my first flight footages. Thx so much!
Great video highlighting, why videos may stutter and how the problems maybe resolved 👍 liked thanks 🙂
No background music while you're speaking would be better.
thank you so much for doing what you do.
Interesting. I will try shooting at 30 FPS to compare.
BUT NOT!!!!!! The common problem of stuttering videos, which generate 3 or at most 5 frames per second in playback (visible well in panning scenes), are not due to the softness of the single frame, or shutter speed. You would still have a smooth 5 frames per second. We know that the same videos seen on a smartphone are silky smooth (sharp or blurry frame is the same). The problem affects most Windows desktop PCs with 4k monitors. PCs are not optimized for video streams but for games or work evidently. However, many high-end laptops play videos smoothly.
Excellent info thank you, but just one thing, backgroud music is just that, meant to be in the background, not fighting to be heard over your narration !
May i suggest you re edit the output of this video with the background music turned down ?
2:05 I see tac tac tac tac about 5 frame per second!!!!! poor my eyes!!!!
In the beginning video footage looks smooth to me, my footage is garbage looks like an earthquake 😢😢😢
False: you can fly inside of Yosemite national park. You cannot take off or land there. The FAA controls that airspace, not the national park services. This applies to all national parks.
If that's a bad case of the stutters mine is a thousand times worse
Took it off auto mode, used your rule..problem solved, thx man.
Just interpret your footage to whatever framerate your timeline is, before putting it on
Ha! Yes, that's basically the short answer! I do though now prefer to take video at either 30 or 60fps because I can then slow it down to 80% (of 30) or 40% (of 60) and still get great results on a 24fps timeline...and I generally find that the slower motion gives me a more 'cinematic' result anyway for most clips.
WHAT?!? "That is what it should look like", What, stuttering, again?!? At 2:18 that is not smooth! Better maybe, but not smooth.
This issue, or what I'm now calling a FAULT with DJI drones, is affecting thousands of us, and DJI are ignoring the issue/fault. I'm on my THIRD drone, and all 3 have the fault. My 1st was an A2S, which, when DJI saw the footage said "ohh yeah, that's not right, send it back for repair". When it was returned, it was THE SAME!! Sold. Bought a Mavic 3 - the SAME. Returned for an exchange, from a later batch - the SAME!! It's NOT an SD card issue; it shows the same when using the internal storage. It's not PC related as it can be seen in the live feed from the drone, even when not even recording. I've changed every possible setting I can, and it remains.
The segment you reference looks smooth on my high-refresh monitor and my 65" 4K Samsung TV. Sometimes it's what you're viewing the video on that is creating the stutter. :-/ Maybe that's what is going on?
@@ReeWrayOutdoors Thanks for your reply, but you didn't read my message fully, as I explained it is not the PC/hardware - I also have a high refresh rate monitor, well 120Hz/1440p (which I've tried changing those settings too, with no change in stutter), driven by a super fast PC, with a very high end GPU (6800XT), but it's not the hardware, as the juddering can be seen right on the phone or tab while flying; before it goes to the PC. It's not the SD card either, as A) I use a fast, 90MB/s write, card, and B) it happens when using internal storage.
in fact the problem is not the drone, but the monitor of your pc!! Resign yourself, you won't find a solution for this problem. Everyone only talks about blurring the frames so as well as having the sensation of seeing a jerky video, you can also watch it out of focus!!! for consolation that if you watch it on a smartphone, it will work smoothly.
Thanks for the great info, but to me your background music is distracting/annoying.
This is the raw footage that I am getting from my SD card. (No editing/rendering done) and it is so choppy. th-cam.com/video/eoKi_IPW2-c/w-d-xo.html
I am using same SD card from almost two years and for first year there was no choppiness but from last few months all videos are like this. I have tried recalibration for IMU, gimbal, compass, downgrading/upgrading to latest firmware. Not sure if the SD card can be an issue as earlier I have recorded so many 4k videos using same sd card with default settings.
Hmmmm do you get the same result even if you set it to 1080p 30fps? What SD Card are you using? And you're saying it looks the same when you play back the files off the hard disk as it does from TH-cam?
@@ReeWrayOutdoorsI am using below SD card and got to know that it is not recommended for 4k recording but the thing is that I am using same sd card and have recorded several 4k videos in 2019 without having this issue.
www.amazon.in/dp/B073JYVKNX/ref=cm_sw_r_wa_apip_kyIfAC39DFJiM
@@ReeWrayOutdoors here is one such example. Same settings on drone (factory defaults) and same memory card but no choppiness.
Also, I see the chopiness in live feed on my iPhone XR too. I have also tried to run the raw footage on my iPad Pro 2020 and Macbook Pro 2018 model so can confirm that device on which it is played is not the culprit but the video itself.
I have ordered a new sd card with U3 v30 thing but is there anything that I can do to rule out if it is really the memory card causing such video. May be checking the live feed on phone if it still has choppiness without installing sd card.
th-cam.com/video/A9heHsLTqAU/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/video/2pygvlqfWr0/w-d-xo.html
What about this kind of jerkiness?
That's not the problem I'm having
Great information as always , one constructive critisism ..like most youtube info vids ..please loose the muzak, it just smogs out what you are saying
I can guarantee all you drone footage shooters that you're not shooting in 30 fps. You're actually shooting in 29.97 fps and probably dropping that into a 30 fps timeline. There's your issue.
Trying to listen to the info and this ridiculous background music is ruining it.
@2:07 the camera literally stutters in the example LMFAO
Lost me there
good informative video but could have done without the distracting music
for many people this will work, my Mavic Air 2 had a different problem
I now have the Air 2 as well - did the video while I had the Mavic Pro. What problem are you running into?
@@ReeWrayOutdoors stuttering, even in video raw from the drone
@@sjmedia_official have you tried disabling the option for caching video to the phone during recording? I read one account where that appeared to resolve that issue. Also, might try playback on a decent wide screen TV just to see if maybe the issue is actually on your b pc monitor refresh rate or something.
@@ReeWrayOutdoors yes I did, only that helped. Not sure why DJI is not repairing this faulty feature.
@@sjmedia_official one other thing that just occurred to me: you might try selecting h.264 encoding instead of h.265, which can be a bit of a heavy lift for playback of the raw clips.
Why can’t you get straight to the point. We don’t want to hear your life story
Well aren't you a pleasant person! 😏
60fps+ for life. Hell if I could I would set my fps to 120fps. When will 24fps and 30fps just become the way of the dinosaurs? Some of us have native 240hz monitors at this point. Also Dji drones don't drop frames on with a "low speed" DD card, it just wont record.