Jittery Anafi video!

[Krusty Geeza]

Hey folks,

I tried creating a Flight Plan for the Anafi yesterday, but unfortunately, I kept getting an error message saying that the drone wasn't calibrated, so I couldn't fly it using the mapped out flight path. Instead, I spent some time free flying the Anafi around a local wetlands. This is a few minutes of that flying as I flew in one go, I just sped up a few spots of it in creating the video, but didn't remove or change anything, you can see where I have paused momentarily as it freezes for a split second.

This was recorded at 24 frames per second & in P-Log format, which in iMovie lacks intensity of colour, even after punching the heck out of the colour, contrast, exposure & saturation. It's also got an annoying jittery nature to it. Looks like I'll stick to 4K at 30fps in Natural format with manual exposure until I can get a better video editing program.

Is this an anomaly or an actual thing? I have only previously recorded at 30fps & never got this jitteriness at all with that frame rate in iMovie, but the other day someone here shared a video which suggested recording in 24fps for a cinematic feel, so I thought I'd try it out, but this is really disappointing & unusable really.

Thanks for all insights shared.

 

[Dirk_ANAFI]

Question:
You/Anafi seem to move quiet fast...
Did you fly in standard video mode or faster?

 

[Darth Mensor]

Just a thought, but have you tried a different computer?

I had some jittery video from a practice/ getting to know the Anafi, thought it was where I was flying in sport mode and the filming couldn’t keep up, but watched on a different computer and there were no jitters.

 

[Czolgy]

This link may provide some insight
iMovie and Parrot Anafi Videos - Apple Community

 

[Landbo]

Hey folks,

I tried creating a Flight Plan for the Anafi yesterday, but unfortunately, I kept getting an error message saying that the drone wasn't calibrated, so I couldn't fly it using the mapped out flight path. Instead, I spent some time free flying the Anafi around a local wetlands. This is a few minutes of that flying as I flew in one go, I just sped up a few spots of it in creating the video, but didn't remove or change anything, you can see where I have paused momentarily as it freezes for a split second.

This was recorded at 24 frames per second & in P-Log format, which in iMovie lacks intensity of colour, even after punching the heck out of the colour, contrast, exposure & saturation. It's also got an annoying jittery nature to it. Looks like I'll stick to 4K at 30fps in Natural format with manual exposure until I can get a better video editing program.

Is this an anomaly or an actual thing? I have only previously recorded at 30fps & never got this jitteriness at all with that frame rate in iMovie, but the other day someone here shared a video which suggested recording in 24fps for a cinematic feel, so I thought I'd try it out, but this is really disappointing & unusable really.

Thanks for all insights shared.

P-LOG is a flat format designed to run through a LUT table to get the colors back. By changing the table you can manipulate the colors just as you want them. I do not know anything about iMovie and therefore do not know if it can use a LUT table.

Jittery, as you call it, is a side benefit you get from the H.264 encoding because the image contains more information than you can write to the bandwidth you have chosen for your video file. If you look closely, you only see it jittery when you move the camera fast. You can reduce/remove jittery by reducing the sharpness in the camera setup.

Finally, jittery can also come from a bad encoding/recoding in the software you are using !!!

Another drawback of H.264 coding is that you can also get what is called water color washout in the most detalierede areas of the image. It typically occurs in grass and trees that have many close-fitting branches. You can reduce/eliminate this in the same way as in jittery.

Here is a bit of self-study in how H.264 works. A warning about being a very comprehensive study will only be fair.

H.264/MPEG-4 AVC - Wikipedia

PS. I can only watch your video clip in 1080p !

Regards Leif.

 

[ufosaboveus]

Krusty, cant offer much insight into the issue but wanted to say I enjoyed watching the video. I especially liked the part with the old dead tree. Very cool angles you did flying around and over it. I will just offer that I have flown cinema mode with my Anafi and when I do flat turns, it doesn't look choppy but I am flying in film mode and pretty slow.

 

[Krusty Geeza]

Question:
You/Anafi seem to move quiet fast...
Did you fly in standard video mode or faster?

@Dirk_ANAFI I was in film mode, I just sped up a few sections of the video in editing.

 

[Krusty Geeza]

Just a thought, but have you tried a different computer?

I had some jittery video from a practice/ getting to know the Anafi, thought it was where I was flying in sport mode and the filming couldn’t keep up, but watched on a different computer and there were no jitters.

Unfortunately I don't have access to a different computer that could cope with video editing!

This was captured in Film Mode.

 

[Krusty Geeza]

This link may provide some insight
iMovie and Parrot Anafi Videos - Apple Community

That was interesting, but they were all using their phones or tablets! I'm on a desktop computer. Thanks anyway!

 

[Krusty Geeza]

P-LOG is a flat format designed to run through a LUT table to get the colors back. By changing the table you can manipulate the colors just as you want them. I do not know anything about iMovie and therefore do not know if it can use a LUT table.

Jittery, as you call it, is a side benefit you get from the H.264 encoding because the image contains more information than you can write to the bandwidth you have chosen for your video file. If you look closely, you only see it jittery when you move the camera fast. You can reduce/remove jittery by reducing the sharpness in the camera setup.

Finally, jittery can also come from a bad encoding/recoding in the software you are using !!!

Another drawback of H.264 coding is that you can also get what is called water color washout in the most detalierede areas of the image. It typically occurs in grass and trees that have many close-fitting branches. You can reduce/eliminate this in the same way as in jittery.

Here is a bit of self-study in how H.264 works. A warning about being a very comprehensive study will only be fair.

H.264/MPEG-4 AVC - Wikipedia

PS. I can only watch your video clip in 1080p !

Regards Leif.

Thanks for the detailed & thoughtful response Leif!

When I watch the video that has been output I see the jitteriness about every half of a second all through it. It's like there is something wrong with the display rate or something like that. There's definitely a really pronounced jittering on the sweeps though. I'll slow that down in Film Mode & then speed it up in editing.

So far, I am only exporting for YouTube sharing at 1080 dimensions.

 

[Krusty Geeza]

Krusty, cant offer much insight into the issue but wanted to say I enjoyed watching the video. I especially liked the part with the old dead tree. Very cool angles you did flying around and over it. I will just offer that I have flown cinema mode with my Anafi and when I do flat turns, it doesn't look choppy but I am flying in film mode and pretty slow.

Thanks UFO's! That dead tree is always my first port of call when I go there for some bird photography. You never know who is going to be in it! Yesterday when I arrived there was a Spoonbill up high, a Night Heron almost opposite it & a Black Cormorant down lower. They were all gone by the time I walked to the shade & had the bird in the air...

I have shot in Cinema Mode before & didn't have this choppiness to the output video. I'm thinking that iMovie had a brainfart or something like that. The input or raw video doesn't have the jitteriness to it at all, so I'm looking at a different editor & I'll post in or create a different thread about that in a second.

*** Update 14/01/2019 ***
It turns out that the input video does have the lagging & stuttering to it, which is partly the filming at 24fps & partly my flying & turning too fast.

 

[Krusty Geeza]

Well I got back to this video in a different video editor to see if it was a problem with iMovie & it's not. It's a problem with me piloting too fast! Dang newbies! Lesson learned, take the curves & corners really slow if I'm going to film at 24fps...

This is what I was able to create in my first use of Shotcut, which I think I'll be using as my video editor from now on. I'm not pleased with the sky colour though, but the grasses & trees now look correct using an Anafi LUT I found on the interwebz, instead of looking all vibrant & green. It's pretty hot & dry Downunder at the moment, so this is much more realistic in this regards, there's also more definition to things in the output here, without any sharpening being applied. I'll have to learn about colour grading, as it's very different to using Lightroom & Photoshop.

It turns out that the input video does have the lagging & stuttering to it, which is partly the filming at 24fps & partly my flying & turning too fast.

 

[Kilrah]

You shot 24p but you apparently did not edit in a 24p timeline. That's what causes the uneven stuttering. Also the fact that 24p will never look smooth on a 60p computer display.

 

[Krusty Geeza]

You shot 24p but you apparently did not edit in a 24p timeline. That's what causes the uneven stuttering. Also the fact that 24p will never look smooth on a 60p computer display.

Both were edited in 24fps environments, as both editors are set to automatically set the frame rate from the first imported clip.

The 24fps not looking smooth on 60 Hz refreshed screens I was just investigating a short while ago! You're correct there!

Just out of curiosity, is there any real-world difference between editing in the 23.9 or the 24 fps environments? The Anafi is capturing at the 23.9 fps rate according to the data of the transferred clips.

Video is all new to me at this level. I have only ever edited clips from my iPhone, which were 4K 60 fps & so showed no lagging/staggering.

 

[Kilrah]

Just out of curiosity, is there any real-world difference between editing in the 23.9 or the 24 fps environments? The Anafi is capturing at the 23.9 fps rate according to the data of the transferred clips.

Well you need everything to match, so as the clips are 23.98 you should do everything in 23.98.

Your finished clip seems to be 24.
Maybe that's the reason, but there's definitely something wrong with it, if you look at it frame by frame every 6th frame or so "jumps" a frame, which is exactly what happens with mismatched framerates and causes the stutter.

 

[Krusty Geeza]

Well you need everything to match, so as the clips are 23.98 you should do everything in 23.98.

Your finished clip seems to be 24.
Maybe that's the reason, but there's definitely something wrong with it, if you look at it frame by frame every 6th frame or so "jumps" a frame, which is exactly what happens with mismatched framerates and causes the stutter.

Yeah, I did export the initial one at 24 fps, but the second one is exported at 23.98 & still has that stutter effect to it.

I'll have a re-do of it from scratch, & see if it comes out better tomorrow.

Thanks so much for your tips to a newbie! I'm slowly learning what to keep in mind for future efforts.