DaVinci Resolve 18 - Jumpy video in 4k 29fps - what am I doing wrong?

[Lister]

Resolve is an incredible bargain. When I was teaching at a major international film school in the mid-nineties, a seat at a system like Resolve cost over a hundred grand. Resolve is free! (minus the hardware, of course) Even a modest-spec laptop can edit video with Resolve if you RTFM.

 

[Skybuyer]

There is a lesson here. It makes total sense to keep the rendered FPS the same rate as the captured FPS. Something that I always subscribed to in my career as a professional photographer is to set your gear to something you like, make it all sync together and set the technicals at a constant (if you can) so it becomes one less thing to think about- and something you don't have to troubleshoot later.

 

[Grandpa]

There is a lesson here. It makes total sense to keep the rendered FPS the same rate as the captured FPS. Something that I always subscribed to in my career as a professional photographer is to set your gear to something you like, make it all sync together and set the technicals at a constant (if you can) so it becomes one less thing to think about- and something you don't have to troubleshoot later.

Keep it in as part of your pre-flight checklist.

 

[TalesFromOurPocket]

I had the same problem editing 4K footage at 59.94 (60fps) on my first install of v18. I normally edit my timeline in HD (and later use 4K for rendering) but even that didn't help at all.

Black Magic just released 18.0.2 Build 7. I installed it and immediately all the problems I was having are gone. In general it is also more stable. I suggest upgrading if you haven't already.

 

[skycam509]

What's your quality setting in the rendering tab..? Too high there may hog down your computer when trying to play it.
YT will also make the clip worse if you don't follow the recommended quality setting (Mbps) for the clip resolution & frame rate.

This is what YT want's for 4K 30fps ...

View attachment 154401

... & here you dial it in (56Mbps approx 56000kb/s)

View attachment 154402

This is really good advice. Follow it!

The bitrates shown here are for HDR video. For non-HDR, the recommendations are even lower. I render my 4K 30 footage and 45,000 kb/s for YouTube and it works great. This is really important. When I was uploading at the full bitrate the drone provided, (up to 150,000 kb/s depending on which drone) I had a lot of problems with artifacting and banding in the sky and other areas of solid color.

 

[Heed]

I figured the culprit was timeline frame rate when I saw this this thread title ... because it hit me too when I first started using Resolve a few years ago.

In case you stumbled into the right answer vs reading it somewhere - the timeline frame rate needs to be set to match the raw frame rate from the outset before bringing in the video clips.

If you forget or don't use a template, the only solution is to create a new timeline with the correct frame rate. While you can change the frame rate in the software once the project is started, the video remains choppy.

A few times I've forgot, been a bit into video editing and then rendered the clip to check my work and went - DOHHH! I'm going to be using the template idea above.

 

[DavidT_ NZ]

Thanks, it was all done in camera, set the Cine mode to 5degree gimball speed and 10 degrees turning speed, and came down with a spin on the drone. Sped it up to double in PP.

I have a Mavic Air 2 and the often underused Quickshots has a setting that can be used to achieve something similar. The druid site footage is excellent and conjures up images of the temple rites from ancient times. Great drone control and editing. Thanks for posting.

 

[SmilingOgre]

Yup, ya really want your footage frame rate and Resolve's timeline frame rate to match. Either right click on the clip and choose attributes and change the frame rate of the clip or use the little gear at the bottom right of the edit page to change the timeline frame rate. Even small differences will cause Resolve to either drop frames or add frames in render making things jerky.

 

[monteolsen1]

Looks much better now. That’s a really neat place.

That thing where you have the camera pointed straight down and are spinning - did you do that in post or is that actually straight out of the drone camera from your maneuvering? If the latter I wouldn’t have guessed that would come off that well.

 

[monteolsen1]

I agree! Very smooth!

 

[Skybuyer]

I figured the culprit was timeline frame rate when I saw this this thread title ... because it hit me too when I first started using Resolve a few years ago.

In case you stumbled into the right answer vs reading it somewhere - the timeline frame rate needs to be set to match the raw frame rate from the outset before bringing in the video clips.

If you forget or don't use a template, the only solution is to create a new timeline with the correct frame rate. While you can change the frame rate in the software once the project is started, the video remains choppy.

A few times I've forgot, been a bit into video editing and then rendered the clip to check my work and went - DOHHH! I'm going to be using the template idea above.

Doesn’t DR ask if. You want to change the frame rate when importing file? Am I doing wrong by telling it to change the frame rate? Or must I set a different frame rate in DR. Drones are set to 30fps but project become 29.97fps. Does it make a difference?

 

[AlbionDrones]

I have a Mavic Air 2 and the often underused Quickshots has a setting that can be used to achieve something similar. The druid site footage is excellent and conjures up images of the temple rites from ancient times. Great drone control and editing. Thanks for posting.

Thanks for the nice words Dave, much appreciated... That was the tone of the video I was going for, conjuring up the spirit of what may have been... Ok, it is a folly, but it does have an interesting atmosphere...

 

[AlbionDrones]

Yup, ya really want your footage frame rate and Resolve's timeline frame rate to match. Either right click on the clip and choose attributes and change the frame rate of the clip or use the little gear at the bottom right of the edit page to change the timeline frame rate. Even small differences will cause Resolve to either drop frames or add frames in render making things jerky.

Yup, got it sorted now, thanks

 

[AlbionDrones]

I agree! Very smooth!

Thanks...

 

[AlbionDrones]

Doesn’t DR ask if. You want to change the frame rate when importing file? Am I doing wrong by telling it to change the frame rate? Or must I set a different frame rate in DR. Drones are set to 30fps but project become 29.97fps. Does it make a difference?

Yeah, I was asking the questions when I first started using DR, about 3 months ago, got it sorted now... Although if you import the music clip first, then DR doesnt ask if you want to change the frame rate, so now I import music after the video and make sure all vid is set to the same frame rate...

 

[Skybuyer]

Yeah, I was asking the questions when I first started using DR, about 3 months ago, got it sorted now... Although if you import the music clip first, then DR doesnt ask if you want to change the frame rate, so now I import music after the video and make sure all vid is set to the same frame rate...

Makes sense.

But does it matter if shot footage is straight 30fps and DR wants to convert clips to 29.97? …or vice versa.

What were the frame rate difference with the OP’s original video that created the conflict.

 

[AlbionDrones]

I was the OP, the FR of the video was 30fps, but DR was set to 24fps, which caused the jumpiness...

All sorted now, newer videos are much smoother

 

[SmilingOgre]

Makes sense.

But does it matter if shot footage is straight 30fps and DR wants to convert clips to 29.97? …or vice versa.

What were the frame rate difference with the OP’s original video that created the conflict.

It all depends on the ratio between the dissimilar frame rates. For example, 120 FPS played back at 24 FPS will play in slow motion without dropping or adding frames and it is exactly 5X the 24fps. 29.97 played back at 30fps will add frames at some point to make up the difference of a single frame. The worst I have come across was filming in 25fps (euro cine) and playing back in 24 fps (US cine). The NLE would drop a frame every second. I was filming rows of corn parallel to the path of the drone. Looked like a game of leap frog. I set the footage to play at 24fps and all was fine. The difference of 1 frame per second was not perceivable to me e.g. slowing or accelerating.