keyframe flickering

Hello folks,
I am having a problem with keyframes in my project. I am running FCP 7. I am using a photoshop image of a toy plane and moving it across the screen. Seems real simple except the object flickers as it passes through the screen. I have tried all the flicker filter, deinterlace, shift fields, etc in the effects video menu with no luck. I thought it might be the size or format of the image so I went back to photoshop and checked all those import parameters. I thought it might be that the render process wasn't totally complete but that's not it. I've read through all the keyframe tutorials and am still stumped. I know this is probably something really simple that I've missed. Any suggestions you folks have would be greatly appreciated!

Could you post a screenshot or a short video so we can see what it might be?

There's lots of variables that could be contributing here - what codec is your timeline? DV is particularly bad for flickering, especially when seen on a computer monitor instead of a broadcast monitor. Try cutting in a more graphics friendly timeline like ProRes, and viewing on a TV or broadcast monitor.

Fine lines, areas of high contrast, colours that are out of safe and images that are a lot larger than your timeline settings can all appear to flicker when moving.

Hi Jude,
Thanks for your message.
I have a perfect storm of problems here! The timeline is DV, the object is bright gold on black background, the object also has fine lines on it. And I'm looking at it on the computer monitor. I can't figure out how to attach a screen shot here. maybe this will work. /Users/franbenton/Desktop/vessel.jpg

Sorry Jude, one more question, if I change my timeline to pro res at this point (project almost complete) am I going to have a lot of rerendering and other problems?
Fran

Yes, you will have to re-render. And that's a lot of pain in one image! If it's too much hassle, try these things, which sound counter-intuitive, but can help a lot.

1. If the colours are extremely bright, make them less so. Turn on your safe colour guides and keep reducing the saturation until it shows as safe.
2. Add .5 gaussian blur to the image. This knocks off the sharpness of the fine lines and reduces flickering.

Thanks Jude, you are the best!

As Jude mentioned it is hard to know exactly what is up without seeing the problem.

If you are working on a single shot, rather than turn your entire timeline to a different format try making a timeline just for the VFX shot. Make THAT timeline something like ProRes and try the composite. Then export a rendered version in the format that your show is in and cut that back into your main timeline.

If you can and know how, or have the time to learn a bit, Motion is great for this kind of thing. That may give you a better result.


-Vance

problem with that is you'd probably still get the atefacting that DV produces.
best to solve it in the DV timeline, or swap the whole thing over to Prores.

the shout sounds problematic for DV, with it's limited colour sampling

what is the delivery format, BTW?


nick