Motion still flickers

1Nina

Senior Contributor Location: Norway, 50km southwest of Oslo Joined: Oct 08, 2008 04:12 Messages: 1070 Offline

Solved by

Sep 30, 2011 02:44

I am working on a video and had to test motion and borders in PD.
(I am not sure I can use it.)
At the same time, I wanted to find out if render .m2ts file, the standard 1280x720
in PD (here 76Mb) - or - render the standard .wmv HD quality 1280x720
(here 16,7Mb) would make significant difference when uploaded to and viewed on YT.
From earlier versions of PD, and still in #9, the flicker in motion has been a problem
and a pain. Viewing in preview window makes one want to cry. It's not
equally awful when rendered. I wanted to test if flicker would appear less obvious
when applying a border.
I'm on build 2930. The fixes, as presented /written, for the latest version do not apply to
my system.

In the uploaded tests, I want you to pay attention to motion and the borders.
I have used gridlines 2x2, snap to. I have applied borders, 1px, grey solid. Both before and
after render, the colour of the border flickers between grey and green, at least to my
eyes. It seems to be slightly better in the .wmv render?
If motion is set to 1-1,5 sec, then the flicker is less obvious,
but slower motion is often the choice when you want to actually see what is on display.
The clip in motion is here set to 4 seconds, minus the fade-in and transition.

Also, when rendered, borders disappear on the outer sides. There is a small
"overlap" in the middle.
You can watch both these tests in 720p.
Please tell if difference in quality is noticeable.

wmv: http://www.youtube.com/user/60johnin?feature=mhee

m2ts: http://www.youtube.com/user/60johnin?feature=mhee#p/u/1/BLAqtwWPVR8

Nina

Just something.
https://www.petitpoisvideo.com

Carl312

Senior Contributor Location: Texas, USA Joined: Mar 16, 2010 20:11 Messages: 9090 Offline

Sep 30, 2011 10:55

Nina,

I watched both of your demos. I can not see much difference between M2TS or WMV in the video. WMV is a much smaller upload.

The border does flicker grey to green, but to me, your motion is so slow, that the movement is plain to see.
It the motion was a little bit faster, the eye would not notice the flicker or the motion.

Motion is an artificial creation, how smooth is dependant on how many frames of shift happen. interlacing exacerbates the motion flicker. If you are moving a frame and the top field is not the same as the bottom field, you get flicker.

The human eye can detect flicker if the rate of change is less than about 20 changes per second. Any speed of change that is faster that about 20 hertz will not be noticed.

A good example is fluorescent lamps. They flicker at the line frequency but humans do not see the flicker because the line frequency in Europe is 50 Hertz, in the USA it is 60 Hertz.

If the line frequency was about 20 Hertz, we would see the flicker.
Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.

vn800rider

Senior Contributor Location: Darwen, UK Joined: May 15, 2008 04:32 Messages: 1949 Offline

Sep 30, 2011 14:11

Whilst I agree with Carl, I think Nina is highlighting the "poor" performance PD has (and has had for the last 2 versions?) in presenting smooth movement.

In PD7/8 Cranston and others showed, and produced examples for CL, that the motion applied by PD is not "linear" but is actually more like a waltz. In most cases, if the motion is with a video and a"compromise" with speed etc is worked at, the odd motion is bearable, but for smooth graphic motion it is, and has been for some time, disappointing. Other NLEs do not seem to exhibit such motion oddities to the same degree, which I think is the benchmark for CL to aim at.

As to the colour shift, I cannot think of a reason why PD should change the colour of a border if motion is applied - unless the change is a genuine optical illusion?

Cheers
Adrian

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. (see below)
Confucius
AMD Phenom IIX6 1055T, win10, 5 internal drives, 7 usb drives, struggling power supply.

Rocket-Scientist

Senior Member Location: HUNTSVILLE, ALABAMA Joined: Apr 23, 2010 10:14 Messages: 288 Offline

Sep 30, 2011 14:46

I wonder if the motion PIP is overlayed on a black color board and shrunk to the TV safe zone, produced, then that resized back up might at least deal with the green.

Have you tried apply motion and produce in progressive, then re-encode interlaced, would it moderate the flashing.

Just idol thoughts

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Sep 30. 2011 14:47

RTX 2060 SUPER 8GB GDDR6
(2 NVME 2TB, 1 SSD 2TB, 3SATA 18TB )
PD18 ULTIMATE 64bit
WINDOWS 10 PRO 64 BIT
GIGABYTE X570 AORUS PRO WIFI MB
RYZEN 7 3700X 8-CORE , 64 GB DDR4
ORSAIR HX1050 watts PSU

1Nina

Senior Contributor Location: Norway, 50km southwest of Oslo Joined: Oct 08, 2008 04:12 Messages: 1070 Offline

Sep 30, 2011 15:34

...just to say that
the PIPs are overlayed on black colourboard,
I have not used TVsafe zone -
they are produced progressive.

Just something.
https://www.petitpoisvideo.com

Cranston

Senior Contributor Location: USA Joined: Aug 17, 2007 02:26 Messages: 1667 Offline

Sep 30, 2011 20:21

Quote: ...that the motion applied by PD is not "linear" but is actually more like a waltz.

One (of many) demonstrations of this behaviour here...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPzRrArBLZQ

I agree with Adrian that the behavior that Carl described can also be a factor. But the primary cause and problem, is the way the PD motion causes the media to shift, jump, and change resolutions by one or two pixels, as the media advances frame by frame.
Yes, the faster the motion (or the shorter the duration of the motion), makes this anomaly less noticeable. But that's not the fix that many have eagerly been waiting for, for over 3 versions of PD.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Sep 30. 2011 20:22

Click here PDtoots for a collection of PowerDirector Tutorials and Tips