Mavic footage stutter

greginfinity · May 12, 2017

Watching my own footage (raw from SD) I notice some stuttering. I went to youtube to watch a bunch of other footage and it appears prevalent in some other mavic videos. This one comparing the Inspire to Mavic shows the stuttering pretty pronounced (although the Inspire has some questionable moments too). I am guessing the inspire was shot with a higher frame rate though.

Is this just an artifact of the compression (grabbing a keyframe every so often is a problem with a lot of motion)?

I am pretty sure it isn't my playback power, especially since I see the difference drastically in this comparison footage.

adamsweeting · May 12, 2017

Are you using auto camera settings?

elvis101 · May 12, 2017

After watching it frame-by-frame all is clear:

This video is 30 fps (29,970).
Inspire footage was shot at 30 fps and does not stutter (because no framerate conversion was made).
Mavic footage was shot at 24 fps and converted to 30 fps on import to video editing app. - each four frames a frame is doubled to achieve 6 additional frames in one second.
Its movement stops for a moment 6 times a second, what induces visible stuttering.
So in this film stuttering is not Mavic's fault, but bad framerate conversion of Mavic's footage.

I could double some frames in this Inspire footage and remove doubled frames from Mavic's. Then Inspire would stutter and Mavic not, please look:

Inspire vs Mavic

Gadgetdude · May 12, 2017

Are you shooting in 4K? From what I am understanding if your computer does not support 4K and the video file is 4K you will see the stuttering.

Qoncussion · May 12, 2017

The shuddering could be your computer. You don't need to have a 4K video card or monitor to get rid of the shuddering, but you do need to have a computer that is powerful enough to play the raw footage. On a 1080p monitor/video card computer, you may see the video flickering during playback. If this is the case, try rendering the footage in 1080p using a video editing program, and then view it. Odds are it will play back fine.

greginfinity · May 12, 2017

Thanks for the feedback all, the 24 -> 30 makes sense. I tried again on my computer, and it is just occasional. I have a 4k monitor, i7 2600k and an RX 480 which should be enough (and SSD drives). When I get stutter, I just go back and rewatch the section and it is fine again. Must be my system I guess, or VLC. Thanks!

Lt Shanks · May 12, 2017

greginfinity said:
Thanks for the feedback all, the 24 -> 30 makes sense. I tried again on my computer, and it is just occasional. I have a 4k monitor, i7 2600k and an RX 480 which should be enough (and SSD drives). When I get stutter, I just go back and rewatch the section and it is fine again. Must be my system I guess, or VLC. Thanks!

Just a side note Greg your processor being a 5+ year old chipset is more than likely the culprit. If you can afford an upgrade to the processor you would probably benefit from it dramatically and say goodbye to the dreaded stutter or periotic freezing.

Lt. Shanks

bdrowe · May 12, 2017

slow SD card speed can also cause frame issues

CyberNate · May 12, 2017

You need to change your video card refresh rate better match the Mavic footage. You could try 50Hz if shooting at 24 FPS. I've noticed that I see choppy video on my computer monitor until I adjust for it, but if I watch on my Surface Pro tablet, there is no stutter at all. Always fluid on my surface pro.

MrMavic · May 12, 2017

greginfinity said:
Watching my own footage (raw from SD) I notice some stuttering. I went to youtube to watch a bunch of other footage and it appears prevalent in some other mavic videos. This one comparing the Inspire to Mavic shows the stuttering pretty pronounced (although the Inspire has some questionable moments too). I am guessing the inspire was shot with a higher frame rate though.

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Is this just an artifact of the compression (grabbing a keyframe every so often is a problem with a lot of motion)?

I am pretty sure it isn't my playback power, especially since I see the difference drastically in this comparison footage.

That's because your video card is not sufficient. It plays better the second time you play it because your hard drive is cacheing the video the first time you play it. Mine does that too because I have a 2010 Mac with a 512 MB Video card. I am buying a new Mac for this reason.