Flicker, aliasing, jittering issues with Inspire footage?

Figbar · Feb 24, 2015

Norbert58 said:
Hallo from Germany,
my name is Norbert and I`m a professional TV Producer and drohe Pilot since years. I`m one of the first owners of an Inspire 1 here in Germany. And unfortunately I have exactly the same problems with the Inspire material, when I import the material to AVID media Composer and Aviv Symphonie. my material looks exactly the same like Figbars material. To be honest, I can not use this material at the moment for TV, it looks horrible. And I can not understand an accept this, that a 3k copter makes Wörter pictures then all my former Phantoms with the good old GoPro. I reported this problem to the General german DJI Dealer and they reported this to the Chinese guys. They said to me that the tech gyus are thinking over to implement a 1080i mode.
I tried already evething, filme in 4k, filme in 1080 50p 25 p (PAL). Everytime the same result, ******** pictures.
The issue must be in the camera with the codec. There must be a mistige in the firmware or whatever. The flying with the Indossiere 1 is totally great. I hope there will be a firmware upgrade for the camera, or a different gable with a GOPro on.
So cross my Fingers.
Norbert

Norbert...I'm not sure what is going on with all of this...when I look at the footage imported in my media composer on a good, broadcast monitor, the footage looks fine...I'm not getting these jittering lines with fine objects in the picture. The monitor I was having issues with is a consumer grade Panasonic piece of crud...but that is what most people are viewing on. I did not have these issues with my Phantom / Go Pro kit. I'm thinking these issues...and I'm not really sure what they are, exactly...will be worked out. I really like so much about the Inspire package, but we are doing all of this for the great quality images.

Norbert58 · Feb 24, 2015

That is exactly wright. we have played out the pictures on a PDW disk, and the we have seen the material of this disk on a Tv and it looked terrible, and that is what people at the end of the hole chain will see on there TV and that is unexaptable t the end of the day.

Rainbowers · Feb 25, 2015

Hi, also a avid symphony user. I think we absolutely need more info in the file, higher baut rates. The more treatment on these file, the more it becomes ugly. Pushing the color correction, you really discover the poor info in the file.

Kilrah · Feb 25, 2015

Norbert58 said:
That is exactly wright. we have played out the pictures on a PDW disk, and the we have seen the material of this disk on a Tv and it looked terrible, and that is what people at the end of the hole chain will see on there TV and that is unexaptable t the end of the day.

Looks like there is an issue during conversion.

We've been doing aerial shootings for several years now which often meant using the newest cameras with their new formats, and broadcast clients' systems would often not be able to read the native source files or they would come out absolutely crud.

We took a bit of time with one client to find out what format would come out good on their Avid system, then subsequently did the conversion to that format and checked the result when we delivered footage to them, or when another customer called with the same problem.

Pro/broadcast stuff often lags one or 2 generations behind "mainstream" formats.

DRONEONER · Feb 25, 2015

Someone Should Post some import/exportSetting they are using that is working for them. FOR AVID, FINAL CUT PRO X and PREMIERE.. I have not really been editing my footage yet as we have just been flying to learn the Inspire so far and I haven't actually imported into our FCPX yet, just been watching the Raw footage in Quicktime, I have noticed some Moire effect thats a litle bad, as well some noise but ill try some stuff into our Editing bay in the next few days and see how it goes.

Rainbowers · Feb 26, 2015

for avid I do:
recording in 1080p50, log, sharpness +1, contrast and saturation -1. Having lower setting I have impression not having enough detail in the file to push up what gives ugly bandings, etc.
Media Composer session setting: 1080p25, before importing footage in DNxHD 185, I write "IgnoreQTRate True" in console. So I have a slow motion at 50% (from original) what I speed up where necessary. 100% in avid is in reality 50%. When I do time warp at 200% => real speed of recording.

Rainbowers · Feb 26, 2015

by the way: the exported file looks better as in Avid playback

MikWal · Apr 6, 2015

In my work I Edit in Avid Symphony every day. Importing/ama linking Inspire 1 4k material and transcoding it to 1080P makes the video look really bad.I don't know why Avid can't handle the video straight out of the DJI hardware. My work around is to simply take it through Premiere and export it in Prores or DNxHD and then import the new file in AVID. Now avid handle it like it should and it looks great!

Ferdi · Apr 6, 2015

Hey guys. I'm filming in 1080p 50 most of the time, but sometimes do the 4K 25 thing. No matter what format I film in, when looking at my Waveform Monitor in FCP X I can see luminance flickering in my shadows (the waveform jumps up and down throughout the entire clip). Any of you seeing that? Also getting lots of moire and alliasing from an over sharpened image. -1 Sharpness looks out of focus, so I have to shoot at 0 Sharpness. Hope DJI gives us a firmware or camera upgrade soon...

DRONEONER · Apr 6, 2015

Figbar said:
Norbert...I'm not sure what is going on with all of this...when I look at the footage imported in my media composer on a good, broadcast monitor, the footage looks fine...I'm not getting these jittering lines with fine objects in the picture. The monitor I was having issues with is a consumer grade Panasonic piece of crud...but that is what most people are viewing on. I did not have these issues with my Phantom / Go Pro kit. I'm thinking these issues...and I'm not really sure what they are, exactly...will be worked out. I really like so much about the Inspire package, but we are doing all of this for the great quality images.

Ill try in the next few days to post some of my results but i tried out our footage into the avid, FCPX and Premiere. all newest versions and up to date, our FCPX system handled the 4k the cleanest in my opinion, but it was also on the new mac pro, avid was on the mac pro as well. adobe was on a last year version of a pc but best video card and ram ( not my computer,but one in our edit bay). avid was a little slow and premiere was pretty good but was noticing some playback issues with the 4k footage. but the rendered looked good from them FCPX and adobe. avid seems a little more pixalated . loved the 4k results on fcpx in my opinion.

Figbar · Apr 6, 2015

MikWal said:
In my work I Edit in Avid Symphony every day. Importing/ama linking Inspire 1 4k material and transcoding it to 1080P makes the video look really bad.I don't know why Avid can't handle the video straight out of the DJI hardware. My work around is to simply take it through Premiere and export it in Prores or DNxHD and then import the new file in AVID. Now avid handle it like it should and it looks great!

Thanks, I will give this a try. My AVID system is on PC...I can't make Prores files but will try converting to DNxHD and see if this works. Thanks for your help!

Rainbowers · Apr 6, 2015

MikWal said:
In my work I Edit in Avid Symphony every day. Importing/ama linking Inspire 1 4k material and transcoding it to 1080P makes the video look really bad.I don't know why Avid can't handle the video straight out of the DJI hardware. My work around is to simply take it through Premiere and export it in Prores or DNxHD and then import the new file in AVID. Now avid handle it like it should and it looks great!

I have same experience with Avid. So changed workflow: first color grading etc. in Davinci and export as you want in prores or dnxhd for editing in Avid. This works fine. But also I do not understand why Avid can not handle the video file straight out, a mystery for me and disappointed as Avid fan.

Pete Gould · Apr 19, 2015

One thing that will cause the kind of flickering you're describing is if the Inspire's camera is in auto mode. Since it's a fixed-iris lens, luminance is adjusted by altering ISO or shutter speed. In either case this is done in stepwise fashion - it's not continuously variable the way a broadcast lens's iris is. So if it's in auto mode, it's going to hunt continuously for correct exposure. Being fairly new to the Inspire platform myself, it took me awhile to learn that if I put it into manual mode, made exposure adjustments, and then tapped the manual-mode onscreen gadget to clear the manual settings window - DUH! - I had just put it back into automatic mode. The manual settings button has to remain highlighted or it's not in manual mode. To get rid of the settings window, just swipe to the left, starting next to the window. This will clear the window and leave you in manual mode. See if that makes the luma jitter go away.

gruvpix · Apr 19, 2015

Interesting notes in this thread being that our company only cuts on Avid. We haven't had any issues with actual degradation of the clips when AMAing/viewing in avid, but it does not play back smoothly at all and good luck scrubbing through long clips, not gonna happen.
If I had my druthers we'd shoot everything in dnxhd. Even prores files work better than these H264s from the inspire... And it's a PITA to transcode everything before bringing it into the NLE.

Ferdi · Apr 19, 2015

I

Pete Gould said:
One thing that will cause the kind of flickering you're describing is if the Inspire's camera is in auto mode. Since it's a fixed-iris lens, luminance is adjusted by altering ISO or shutter speed. In either case this is done in stepwise fashion - it's not continuously variable the way a broadcast lens's iris is. So if it's in auto mode, it's going to hunt continuously for correct exposure. Being fairly new to the Inspire platform myself, it took me awhile to learn that if I put it into manual mode, made exposure adjustments, and then tapped the manual-mode onscreen gadget to clear the manual settings window - DUH! - I had just put it back into automatic mode. The manual settings button has to remain highlighted or it's not in manual mode. To get rid of the settings window, just swipe to the left, starting next to the window. This will clear the window and leave you in manual mode. See if that makes the luma jitter go away.

In my case it's definitely not and auto issue cause I loath and despise all things auto when it comes to filming. It's just my shadows that flickers minutely. Very peculiar.

kiwia · Apr 20, 2015

Yes I'm seeing the same results, shooting 1080 50p with exposure locked, dark areas seem to sparkle, looking at footage on FCPX. I really hope DJI do something about the over-sharpness of the camera. Apart from that (unfortunately a big that) I really like the Inspire.

Ferdi · Apr 20, 2015

kiwia said:
Yes I'm seeing the same results, shooting 1080 50p with exposure locked, dark areas seem to sparkle, looking at footage on FCPX. I really hope DJI do something about the over-sharpness of the camera. Apart from that (unfortunately a big that) I really like the Inspire.

I'd suggest doing some tests comparing sharpness settings after updating to the latest firmware. Another member reported that DJI seems to have worked on the sharpness settings in the last firmware update and from his footage I reviewed it did look like it. I still have to do my own tests though. Just thought I'd mention it incase you want to test and report back.

kiwia · Apr 20, 2015

Ferdi said:
I'd suggest doing some tests comparing sharpness settings after updating to the latest firmware. Another member reported that DJI seems to have worked on the sharpness settings in the last firmware update and from his footage I reviewed it did look like it. I still have to do my own tests though. Just thought I'd mention it incase you want to test and report back.

Hi - yes I did some foliage footage tests with the new firmware today, it maybe marginally improved but still too sharp with the sparkle in the dark areas, its an unusual shimmering effect still happening.

Ferdi · Apr 20, 2015

Bummer! Thanks for reporting back kiwia. I was soooo hoping from the other reports that DJI got that sorted! I HATE that over-sharpened look, and flickering in the shadows are just not acceptable... I'll be flying tomorrow, so will run some tests too...

jlo · Aug 20, 2015

Hi to all I'm posting this here because I think is the same problem you guys discussed before the last entry here before the last entry on this thread was back in april I wonder if any one has find a solution to my knowledge DJI has not implemented interlace on the Inspire 1 yet.

here is my problem:
Im working on a project that uses a well establish and experience post house in Germany they are having serious issues for broadcast from the Inspire 1 footage,
bellow is the explanation from the senior editor

Post House reply to me:
The issues is the camera recording system not the HD progressive codec or the frame rate-transformation.
The camera records in (true p) not in (psf). AVID Software can not rebuild a clean prog (psf) HD-TV-Format PAL standard picture.
All clips get a flicker because the pictures are to sharp (desharp dosent work) and have to many/undefined lines.

I recorded a small video so you can see what I mean (please download it for a better detail view):
https://www.dropbox.com/…/aykmnr…/AAB8skwMk_QWlzqqmuU4ItWBa…

Note the problem occurs not at a normal pc screen. Only the output system from AVID (which is psf (p)) show us the result at the reference Monitor.

Thats the result for the TV-station.

I checked the DJI-transcode program sended in the last E-Mail . It is not useable for the footage because:
1. If we transcode the footage 2times (first in ProRes than in DNxHD) we loss quality.
2. The color space change completely because the program works logarithmic in the Gamma setting: DJI Inspire1 and even in Linear.
3. After the reimport in AVID the flicker is still there.

I really really want this problem resolved I love the inspire 1 a lot any new light or solution from some smart members would be greatly appreciated