Video Judder at 4K - Im kinda disappointed, am I doing it wrong?

[Daniel de Haan]

So I've been contracted to do video footage of a construction project and I want to deliver the best possible quality footage so I threw my Spark out and got the M2P.
The settings I used here in Europe PAL system were:

• 4K (3840x2160) Full Wide
• 25fps (I'm told its less heavy to edit than 24fps)
• 1/50 shutter speed
• Sunny white balance on sunny day
• ND 16 filter from DJI
• ISO 100
• Appature as low as possible without over exposing, but typically around 2.4-5
• H.265 D-LOG

And yet I get substancial clear judder on slow pans. Even if I take Premier and speed up the footage 2x and go to 50 fps it still looks bad.
I use a windows gaming computer with a GTX 1080TI GPU and 32GB of DDR4 2600 and i9 9900KS 4Ghz CPU that can run 4K video without breaking a sweat. Also played it off my LG 4K TV and had same effect.

So I went out to test a bunch of settings to see what I could do to improve this:

• 1080p 24/25/60fps
• 2688x1512 (2.7K) 24/25/60fps
• 4k 24/25 and both HQ and Full Wide

Always keeping shutter speed at 2x the frame rate (on 24fps I still used 1/50) and all other setting the same.
As a result, only the 60fps in either 1080p or 2.7K were silky smooth no matter how fast I panned and the rest was literally garbage unless I panned extremely slowly (no real difference between 24 or 25 fps)
Taking the good 60fps footage down to 24fps in post resulted in judder again...

So I'll stick with 2.7K 60fps 1/120, but am disapointed that I can't get nice 4K footage out of this drone nor 4K/60fps....am I doing something wrong or is this as good as it gets in 4K?

Any thoughts on what I might be doing wrong here?

Thanks!

 

[Not A Speck Of Cereal]

You're disappointed in panning while using settings for that cinematic look. My question is: why are you using cinematic settings for a construction job? Use the 60 fps and your clients will be happy. This isn't a movie.

Note: if you look at actual films, you will see very few panning shots, very little zooming, etc. etc. Hollywood traditionally keeps the shot static, and when it moves, the camera is on a dolly (the entire camera moves, does not just pan from a stationary point). And when you DO find panning in a classic low FPS film, you will often see judder.

Chris

 

[zeusfl]

Also by using D-LOG do not expect to have a nice colors out of the stock video. Will look very white and bad but has tons of information for editing just like happen with RAW (DNG) files out of the drone. JPG will be the best option out of the drone for pictures without editing or Normal mode for Videos at 4K/30FPS since M2P does make 60fps in 4K.

 

[Drumsagard]

I'd suggest shooting 1080P at 50fps in h.264, when slowed on a 25p timeline it looks very smooth.

 

[zeusfl]

When you are working for a construction project, every frame counts. This is probably for inspections and need every detail possible. 1080P will wont provide the level of details.
Just my opinion.

 

[Thomas B]

So I've been contracted to do video footage of a construction project and I want to deliver the best possible quality footage so I threw my Spark out and got the M2P.
The settings I used here in Europe PAL system were:

• 4K (3840x2160) Full Wide
• 25fps (I'm told its less heavy to edit than 24fps)
• 1/50 shutter speed
• Sunny white balance on sunny day
• ND 16 filter from DJI
• ISO 100
• Appature as low as possible without over exposing, but typically around 2.4-5
• H.265 D-LOG

And yet I get substancial clear judder on slow pans. Even if I take Premier and speed up the footage 2x and go to 50 fps it still looks bad.
I use a windows gaming computer with a GTX 1080TI GPU and 32GB of DDR4 2600 and i9 9900KS 4Ghz CPU that can run 4K video without breaking a sweat. Also played it off my LG 4K TV and had same effect.

So I went out to test a bunch of settings to see what I could do to improve this:

• 1080p 24/25/60fps
• 2688x1512 (2.7K) 24/25/60fps
• 4k 24/25 and both HQ and Full Wide

Always keeping shutter speed at 2x the frame rate (on 24fps I still used 1/50) and all other setting the same.
As a result, only the 60fps in either 1080p or 2.7K were silky smooth no matter how fast I panned and the rest was literally garbage unless I panned extremely slowly (no real difference between 24 or 25 fps)
Taking the good 60fps footage down to 24fps in post resulted in judder again...

So I'll stick with 2.7K 60fps 1/120, but am disapointed that I can't get nice 4K footage out of this drone nor 4K/60fps....am I doing something wrong or is this as good as it gets in 4K?

Any thoughts on what I might be doing wrong here?

Thanks!

Could you post the video, or enough to illustrate the problem here.

The reduction in frame rate you describe would likely result in judder as software interpolated to fill the stream of slowed enough.
Likely your client can’t tell the difference between your last stated settings and 4K.

Again, please post eman example of the offending video.

 

[Garatshay]

So I've been contracted to do video footage of a construction project and I want to deliver the best possible quality footage so I threw my Spark out and got the M2P.
The settings I used here in Europe PAL system were:

• 4K (3840x2160) Full Wide
• 25fps (I'm told its less heavy to edit than 24fps)
• 1/50 shutter speed
• Sunny white balance on sunny day
• ND 16 filter from DJI
• ISO 100
• Appature as low as possible without over exposing, but typically around 2.4-5
• H.265 D-LOG

And yet I get substancial clear judder on slow pans. Even if I take Premier and speed up the footage 2x and go to 50 fps it still looks bad.
I use a windows gaming computer with a GTX 1080TI GPU and 32GB of DDR4 2600 and i9 9900KS 4Ghz CPU that can run 4K video without breaking a sweat. Also played it off my LG 4K TV and had same effect.

So I went out to test a bunch of settings to see what I could do to improve this:

• 1080p 24/25/60fps
• 2688x1512 (2.7K) 24/25/60fps
• 4k 24/25 and both HQ and Full Wide

Always keeping shutter speed at 2x the frame rate (on 24fps I still used 1/50) and all other setting the same.
As a result, only the 60fps in either 1080p or 2.7K were silky smooth no matter how fast I panned and the rest was literally garbage unless I panned extremely slowly (no real difference between 24 or 25 fps)
Taking the good 60fps footage down to 24fps in post resulted in judder again...

So I'll stick with 2.7K 60fps 1/120, but am disapointed that I can't get nice 4K footage out of this drone nor 4K/60fps....am I doing something wrong or is this as good as it gets in 4K?

Any thoughts on what I might be doing wrong here?

Thanks!

RED Cameras make a very useful app called RED Tools that has, amongst other things, a calculator that shows how long a pan over a given arc should take at different frame rates. It’s intended for use with their cameras, but works fine for simple fps/ arc Calcs. Hint: you have to go a lot slower than you’d think, but other responses have highlighted this - and you’ve noticed it too.

 

[hiflyer201]

RED Cameras make a very useful app called RED Tools

Hey "G" big thanks for that!

 

[CareyL]

So I've been contracted to do video footage of a construction project and I want to deliver the best possible quality footage so I threw my Spark out and got the M2P.
.....
And yet I get substancial clear judder on slow pans. Even if I take Premier and speed up the footage 2x and go to 50
Any thoughts on what I might be doing wrong here?
Thanks!

Small piece of tape left on back of camera?

 

[Daniel de Haan]

You're disappointed in panning while using settings for that cinematic look. My question is: why are you using cinematic settings for a construction job? Use the 60 fps and your clients will be happy. This isn't a movie.

Note: if you look at actual films, you will see very few panning shots, very little zooming, etc. etc. Hollywood traditionally keeps the shot static, and when it moves, the camera is on a dolly (the entire camera moves, does not just pan from a stationary point). And when you DO find panning in a classic low FPS film, you will often see judder.

Chris

The job is a mix between 1.) ad-hock videos/picts to view progress on the site, 2.) Weekly pictures for timelapse footage over 4 years taken from 10 different locations 3.) Cinematic videos in different styles (like a full 360) for marketing purposes and to show off to the company staff during their corporate events.

 

[Daniel de Haan]

Also by using D-LOG do not expect to have a nice colors out of the stock video. Will look very white and bad but has tons of information for editing just like happen with RAW (DNG) files out of the drone. JPG will be the best option out of the drone for pictures without editing or Normal mode for Videos at 4K/30FPS since M2P does make 60fps in 4K.

Yes I like to process everything in Post using Premier or Lightroom so I do D-Log and RAW. On video I use a LUT from DJI for REC 709 then make my own adjustments. BUT - I've only recorded in DLOG so I didnt even realize you can do 4K/60FPS if recording normal LOL!! I'll give it a try and see if I'm happy with the results. Thanks for that!

 

[Daniel de Haan]

Could you post the video, or enough to illustrate the problem here.

The reduction in frame rate you describe would likely result in judder as software interpolated to fill the stream of slowed enough.
Likely your client can’t tell the difference between your last stated settings and 4K.

Again, please post eman example of the offending video.

I tried, seemed to work then when posted nothing was attached, I'll try to upload to YouTube and post.

 

[Daniel de Haan]

Small piece of tape left on back of camera?

Yeah that was a tricky one when I did the unboxing, but glad to say I took that off before the 1st flight. I'll bet a few people still have it glued to the back,

 

[Daniel de Haan]

I tried, seemed to work then when posted nothing was attached, I'll try to upload to YouTube and post.

OK here are the YouTube links to see the footage direct upload no editing. Note I did not color correct this D-Log footage so the focus is on Judder only. All I did was start recording and slowly pan to the left and then steadily increased the pan rate. Yes I did adjust apature while panning on one of the videos, but that should not have such a big effect.

Judder
4K 24FPS -

No Judder
2.7K 60FPS -

Note that the Youtube processing made it slightly worse, but only minimal.

 

[canadian drone videos]

So I've been contracted to do video footage of a construction project and I want to deliver the best possible quality footage so I threw my Spark out and got the M2P.
The settings I used here in Europe PAL system were:

• 4K (3840x2160) Full Wide
• 25fps (I'm told its less heavy to edit than 24fps)
• 1/50 shutter speed
• Sunny white balance on sunny day
• ND 16 filter from DJI
• ISO 100
• Appature as low as possible without over exposing, but typically around 2.4-5
• H.265 D-LOG

And yet I get substancial clear judder on slow pans. Even if I take Premier and speed up the footage 2x and go to 50 fps it still looks bad.
I use a windows gaming computer with a GTX 1080TI GPU and 32GB of DDR4 2600 and i9 9900KS 4Ghz CPU that can run 4K video without breaking a sweat. Also played it off my LG 4K TV and had same effect.

So I went out to test a bunch of settings to see what I could do to improve this:

• 1080p 24/25/60fps
• 2688x1512 (2.7K) 24/25/60fps
• 4k 24/25 and both HQ and Full Wide

Always keeping shutter speed at 2x the frame rate (on 24fps I still used 1/50) and all other setting the same.
As a result, only the 60fps in either 1080p or 2.7K were silky smooth no matter how fast I panned and the rest was literally garbage unless I panned extremely slowly (no real difference between 24 or 25 fps)
Taking the good 60fps footage down to 24fps in post resulted in judder again...

So I'll stick with 2.7K 60fps 1/120, but am disapointed that I can't get nice 4K footage out of this drone nor 4K/60fps....am I doing something wrong or is this as good as it gets in 4K?

Any thoughts on what I might be doing wrong here?

Thanks!

Shutter speed is too slow, kick the frame rate up to 60 fps and 120 shutter. This will also allow you to get rid of the ND filter, never use one unless you need to. Try to hit the sweet spot, aperture 5.6. If your editor is FCPX use frame blending or optical flow to clean up any jitter you still have. Or turn slower then speed it up in post.

 

[CanadaDrone]

Shutter speed is too slow, kick the frame rate up to 60 fps and 120 shutter. This will also allow you to get rid of the ND filter, never use one unless you need to. Try to hit the sweet spot, aperture 5.6. If your editor is FCPX use frame blending or optical flow to clean up any jitter you still have. Or turn slower then speed it up in post.

1/50 shutter speed is just fine for 24/25fps footage. If his footage is jittery, it's not from that - too fast of a shutter speed will make everything even more jittery, especially any smooth motion. Too slow of a shutter speed and things get blurry, not jittery. Both examples he posted were equally jittery when I viewed them - often times it is because the refresh rate of the display cannot precisely match that of the footage - for example 24/25fps is not divisible into 60fps, which most displays operate at. 25fps is also not perfectly divisible into 120 or 240hz. 60fps is divisible into 60/120/240hz and is probably why it looks better for him. Another thing that can cause jitter is exporting the video in a different frame rate than it was captured. Panning too fast can also look bad, but his examples don't look like they're too fast other than when it appears he is doing so intentionally.

I've also noticed sometimes videos are choppy on YouTube even if they are 100% smooth when played back in the editor - not much you can do about that.

The best aperture for the M2P is F4 - a 20MP 1" sensor becomes diffraction limited beyond F4, so you don't want to be using F5.6 unless you have to, assuming maximum image quality is the goal. DOF is also not an issue as you are at an F11 equivalent and everything is in focus anyway.

 

[Not A Speck Of Cereal]

Oh no, it's canadian-drone-videos vs CandianDrone — Canadians collide!

;-)

 

[izometric]

You are trying to watch a footage shot in 24 fps on a computer screen that displays 60 fps (60 Hz).

This means that the player will skip 1 frame out of 3. (60/24=2.5) -> horrible judder.

In order to get smooth footage shoot at exact frame rate of your computer display (modern TV's will adjust the frequency according to the video source). Or at least have a clean division between the frame rates of the video file and the screen frequency. For instance if you shoot at 30 fps and visualize it on a 60 Hz screen it will still be smooth since 60/30 is a natural number.

 

[canadian drone videos]

1/50 shutter speed is just fine for 24/25fps footage. If his footage is jittery, it's not from that - too fast of a shutter speed will make everything even more jittery, especially any smooth motion. Too slow of a shutter speed and things get blurry, not jittery. Both examples he posted were equally jittery when I viewed them - often times it is because the refresh rate of the display cannot precisely match that of the footage - for example 24/25fps is not divisible into 60fps, which most displays operate at. 25fps is also not perfectly divisible into 120 or 240hz. 60fps is divisible into 60/120/240hz and is probably why it looks better for him. Another thing that can cause jitter is exporting the video in a different frame rate than it was captured. Panning too fast can also look bad, but his examples don't look like they're too fast other than when it appears he is doing so intentionally.

I've also noticed sometimes videos are choppy on YouTube even if they are 100% smooth when played back in the editor - not much you can do about that.

The best aperture for the M2P is F4 - a 20MP 1" sensor becomes diffraction limited beyond F4, so you don't want to be using F5.6 unless you have to, assuming maximum image quality is the goal. DOF is also not an issue as you are at an F11 equivalent and everything is in focus anyway.

Clash of the Canucks eh lol. But when recording back bacon on sizzle... lol

I don’t know, I never record on slow frame rates, and I never have any problems regardless what screen Im watching my video on.

I just watched his video again, that’s absolutely from a frame rate that’s too slow, I can reproduce that same issue if you want. Just use 24 FPS and pan quickly, is easy to do. Go ahead try it, you will get the same result using any drone.

Of course, the real problem on that piece of footage is the piloting. You never see quick pans like that in a nice drone video because it will always look bad. Slow smooth turns is what you want, spinning the drone quickly will never give good results. 24 FPS is a very slow frame rate that will not do well in fast pans or turns. That drone is spinning several degrees per second, at only 24 FPS the footage can’t keep up. The faster it spins the worse the video will look. This is why things like sporting events with lots of fast action with lots of fast camera movements are never shot at 24 FPS.

In the end the pilot is using cinematic settings to capture fast action. Faster the drone spins the worse it looks, and that is why.

 

[CanadaDrone]

Clash of the Canucks eh lol. But when recording back bacon on sizzle... lol

I don’t know, I never record on slow frame rates, and I never have any problems regardless what screen Im watching my video on.

I just watched his video again, that’s absolutely from a frame rate that’s too slow, I can reproduce that same issue if you want. Just use 24 FPS and pan quickly, is easy to do. Go ahead try it, you will get the same result using any drone.

Of course, the real problem on that piece of footage is the piloting. You never see quick pans like that in a nice drone video because it will always look bad. Slow smooth turns is what you want, spinning the drone quickly will never give good results. 24 FPS is a very slow frame rate that will not do well in fast pans or turns. That drone is spinning several degrees per second, at only 24 FPS the footage can’t keep up. The faster it spins the worse the video will look. This is why things like sporting events with lots of fast action with lots of fast camera movements are never shot at 24 FPS.

In the end the pilot is using cinematic settings to capture fast action. Faster the drone spins the worse it looks, and that is why.

I've shot countless clips at 24fps, I never see judder. If you purposely try to cause it by panning ridiculously fast, you can probably coax it out, but in the OP's samples he isn't panning very fast most of the time and it's still obvious. With 1/50 shutter speed, it will usually get blurry before it will stutter if you pan too fast. If your shutter speed is too fast, that's what makes footage look extremely jittery, especially with fast motion.

In this case I suspect it's the fact that most displays cannot properly playback 25fps, or YouTube - like I said before, I have uploaded videos that are 100% smooth everywhere except on YouTube.