How to fix juddering

[rwilliam99]

I've read a ton of articles and viewed a ton of YouTube videos. I thought I understood what I needed to do but nothing I've tried has fixed the issue.

I have a Mini 3 Pro with the RC controller and I take it hiking - I like to take it up and shoot panoramas of the area I'm in as it gives me a nice view of things you can't see from the ground. I know it isn't "cinematic" but it is what I like. Anyway, the issue is that sometimes in these pans, the video stutters or judders - whatever you want to call it - the pan is not smooth at times. IT isn't necessarily totally consistent (parts of the pan can be smooth and others aren't), but it is consistently not smooth at times in all the videos. These are the things I've tried:

• Tried panning slower - didn't seem to make any difference - I've read the "rule of 7" and "rule of 13" (don't faster than 7 seconds edge or edge or 13 seconds edge to edge)
• I changed out my SD Card - I now have a Samsung Pro Plus card which is rated to 180 MB/s, which should be more than sufficient I think.
• Tried adding a ND filter and using the "180 rule" - setting my shutter speed (1/60) to double my frame rate (30fps) - didn't seem to make any difference
  • I tried several variations of ND Filters to see if any combination made a difference - they all worked about the same
• Someone posted having the caching enabled on the controller was causing it - I disabled that but it made no difference

Does anyone have other suggestions to try to improve/fix this or resources to find additional things to try? Most things I've read seem to focus on the "180 Rule" and/or the SD Card, which I've already pretty much exhausted.

Thanks in advance for suggestions

 

[slup]

On what do you see the judder... you have tried all the correct solutions so only one main reason remains actually, the device you try to play the video on. Test to drastically lower the recorded resolution (& keep it at 30fps) & make sure you use H264 & see if your device can play it smoothly... if it can, your viewing device may be outdated.

 

[rwilliam99]

On what do you see the judder... you have tried all the correct solutions so only one main reason remains actually, the device you try to play the video on. Test to drastically lower the recorded resolution (& keep it at 30fps) & make sure you use H264 & see if your device can play it smoothly... if it can, your viewing device may be outdated.

It is my computer which is certainly not outdated - an AMD Ryzen 7 2700 8 core processor with 64GB of RAM and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 video card with 6GM of RAM on it.

All videos have been recorded at 4k30fps using H.264. I've also played the recorded video file straight from the drone (no editing) to make sure I didn't screw something up there. I can try and do some 1080P videos to see if it persists, but I can't imagine my system would be considered "outdated" - certainly not bleeding edge, but it should be sufficient to playback a 4k video I think.

I'm just really frustrated at this point.... Thanks for the reply.

 

[slup]

It is my computer which is certainly not outdated - an AMD Ryzen 7 2700 8 core processor with 64GB of RAM and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 video card with 6GM of RAM on it.

All videos have been recorded at 4k30fps using H.264. I've also played the recorded video file straight from the drone (no editing) to make sure I didn't screw something up there. I can try and do some 1080P videos to see if it persists, but I can't imagine my system would be considered "outdated" - certainly not bleeding edge, but it should be sufficient to playback a 4k video I think.

I'm just really frustrated at this point.... Thanks for the reply.

That spec shouldn't have a problem... have you tried different media players? Have myself a higher speced PC than that & have despite that noticed that VLC media player is more prone to some smaller stutters than if I play the video in Windows media player classic or Potplayer.

 

[rwilliam99]

That spec shouldn't have a problem... have you tried different media players? Have myself a higher speced PC than that & have despite that noticed that VLC media player is more prone to some smaller stutters than if I play the video in Windows media player classic or Potplayer.

I had used VLC but it is so slow to load. I saw the recommendation for PotPlayer somewhere (here?) and have been using it for almost all viewing. I viewed one of my raw test videos using Media player and it was quite a bit better than PotPlayer - There might have been a bit of stutter but very small compared to PotPlayer. I also tried in VLC and it seems about the same at PotPlayer.

I was comparing the playback in different players and then Media Player started stuttering a bit as well - I was thinking I'd get consistent results from one player but it seems not.

I love the detail of the 4k shots - maybe I need to dial it back a bit - I will try and do more tests with 1080p and maybe 2.7k. If anyone has any other ideas I would love to hear them.

 

[akdrone]

try shooting at 60fps and a shutter of 120. Try setting up a panning motion and using cruise control to control the speed of panning. Cruise control seems to slow down your pan so you have to start panning a little faster than you want, well ahead of time and then hit cruise control but I think shooting 60/120 (or there abouts) will be more effective than the cruise control.

 

[rwilliam99]

try shooting at 60fps and a shutter of 120. Try setting up a panning motion and using cruise control to control the speed of panning. Cruise control seems to slow down your pan so you have to start panning a little faster than you want, well ahead of time and then hit cruise control but I think shooting 60/120 (or there abouts) will be more effective than the cruise control.

I've never used cruise control - I will try the 60fps/120 shutter at 4k, 2.7k and 1080p and see what that does.

Thanks for the suggestion

 

[slup]

If the stutter in playback is random & in different places depending on media player... the problem most likely isn't coming from the recording. And going higher in FPS will put on more load on your PC, higher FPS is more demanding than higher resolution usually.

 

[Cafguy]

Are you talking about studder OR Jello?

 

[BobaFut]

It is my computer which is certainly not outdated - an AMD Ryzen 7 2700 8 core processor with 64GB of RAM and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 video card with 6GM of RAM on it.

All videos have been recorded at 4k30fps using H.264. I've also played the recorded video file straight from the drone (no editing) to make sure I didn't screw something up there. I can try and do some 1080P videos to see if it persists, but I can't imagine my system would be considered "outdated" - certainly not bleeding edge, but it should be sufficient to playback a 4k video I think.

I'm just really frustrated at this point.... Thanks for the reply.

Are you playing your videos from the card via card reader?

 

[rwilliam99]

Are you talking about studder OR Jello?

I hadn't heard the term "jello" before I started looking into this - it is definitely not jello - it is studder/jerky playback at times.

I know this is bad because you are introducing streaming into the mix (as well as editing), but this is an example of what I'm referring to - 1:35-1:45 or so:

Please don't judge my editing skills..... I'm still learning

 

[rwilliam99]

Are you playing your videos from the card via card reader?

No, I'm copying them to my HD and playing them from there.

 

[rwilliam99]

If the stutter in playback is random & in different places depending on media player... the problem most likely isn't coming from the recording. And going higher in FPS will put on more load on your PC, higher FPS is more demanding than higher resolution usually.

It can't hurt to try, but I understand what you are saying. Something isn't adding up - just need to figure out the mystery variable.

 

[akdrone]

You are shooting at X fps and creating a timeline at the same rate, right?

 

[rwilliam99]

You are shooting at X fps and creating a timeline at the same rate, right?

Yes, but this manifests itself in the raw video files before editing.

 

[Macinfo]

Have you tried making these moves in CINE mode, and perhaps adjusted them for a slower motion as you pan. I know you indicated you tried slower panning, perhaps something more controlled may help?

The video posted looked very contrasty in spots, not what I was expecting for the seeming location, unless it was all due to the sun?

 

[rwilliam99]

try shooting at 60fps and a shutter of 120. Try setting up a panning motion and using cruise control to control the speed of panning. Cruise control seems to slow down your pan so you have to start panning a little faster than you want, well ahead of time and then hit cruise control but I think shooting 60/120 (or there abouts) will be more effective than the cruise control.

Ding, ding, ding!!!! We have a winner!

I made 9 different videos, 3 of each in 1080, 2.7k and 4k:

• One at 30 FPS with a shutter speed of 1/60 and an ND32 filter
• One at 60 FPS with a shutter speed of 1/120 and an ND32 filter
• One at 60 FPS with a shutter speed of Auto and no ND filter

In all cases, the 60 FPS videos did NOT stutter - all buttery smooth, but all of the 30 FPS videos DID, to varying degrees. While the ND filter did not improve stuttering at all, I do believe the videos looked better than without the filter.

Thank you so much for all the suggestions and advice!

 

[rwilliam99]

Have you tried making these moves in CINE mode, and perhaps adjusted them for a slower motion as you pan. I know you indicated you tried slower panning, perhaps something more controlled may help?

The video posted looked very contrasty in spots, not what I was expecting for the seeming location, unless it was all due to the sun?

I have done some in Cine mode and slowed the panning WAY down, but they still suffered from stuttering intermittently. The contrasty you were noticing was indeed due to the sun. I was flying over a recently "thinned" area, getting a different perspective on the work.

It seems as though 60 fps is the magic sauce based on my testing today.

 

[BetterBizWorks]

I've read a ton of articles and viewed a ton of YouTube videos. I thought I understood what I needed to do but nothing I've tried has fixed the issue.

I have a Mini 3 Pro with the RC controller and I take it hiking - I like to take it up and shoot panoramas of the area I'm in as it gives me a nice view of things you can't see from the ground. I know it isn't "cinematic" but it is what I like. Anyway, the issue is that sometimes in these pans, the video stutters or judders - whatever you want to call it - the pan is not smooth at times. IT isn't necessarily totally consistent (parts of the pan can be smooth and others aren't), but it is consistently not smooth at times in all the videos. These are the things I've tried:

• Tried panning slower - didn't seem to make any difference - I've read the "rule of 7" and "rule of 13" (don't faster than 7 seconds edge or edge or 13 seconds edge to edge)
• I changed out my SD Card - I now have a Samsung Pro Plus card which is rated to 180 MB/s, which should be more than sufficient I think.
• Tried adding a ND filter and using the "180 rule" - setting my shutter speed (1/60) to double my frame rate (30fps) - didn't seem to make any difference
  • I tried several variations of ND Filters to see if any combination made a difference - they all worked about the same
• Someone posted having the caching enabled on the controller was causing it - I disabled that but it made no difference

Does anyone have other suggestions to try to improve/fix this or resources to find additional things to try? Most things I've read seem to focus on the "180 Rule" and/or the SD Card, which I've already pretty much exhausted.

Thanks in advance for suggestions

I am having limited success with using a faster frame rate. and panning slowly. It doesn't always work. The frame rate depends on the speed of your pan. I also take smaller yaws never using more than 25 percent of the spin at a slow yaw. 30fps. I would not use around filter as it slows shudder speed. Nothing is perfect and it seems to be an issue with all of the models. Shooting at 4k also seems to be smoother.

 

[Joethedrone]

I've read a ton of articles and viewed a ton of YouTube videos. I thought I understood what I needed to do but nothing I've tried has fixed the issue.

I have a Mini 3 Pro with the RC controller and I take it hiking - I like to take it up and shoot panoramas of the area I'm in as it gives me a nice view of things you can't see from the ground. I know it isn't "cinematic" but it is what I like. Anyway, the issue is that sometimes in these pans, the video stutters or judders - whatever you want to call it - the pan is not smooth at times. IT isn't necessarily totally consistent (parts of the pan can be smooth and others aren't), but it is consistently not smooth at times in all the videos. These are the things I've tried:

• Tried panning slower - didn't seem to make any difference - I've read the "rule of 7" and "rule of 13" (don't faster than 7 seconds edge or edge or 13 seconds edge to edge)
• I changed out my SD Card - I now have a Samsung Pro Plus card which is rated to 180 MB/s, which should be more than sufficient I think.
• Tried adding a ND filter and using the "180 rule" - setting my shutter speed (1/60) to double my frame rate (30fps) - didn't seem to make any difference
  • I tried several variations of ND Filters to see if any combination made a difference - they all worked about the same
• Someone posted having the caching enabled on the controller was causing it - I disabled that but it made no difference

Does anyone have other suggestions to try to improve/fix this or resources to find additional things to try? Most things I've read seem to focus on the "180 Rule" and/or the SD Card, which I've already pretty much exhausted.

Thanks in advance for suggestions

Have you tried dialling down the gimbal rates on the controller?