Project made from .MOV files - jerky pans

willydeluxe · Post by **willydeluxe** » Mon Mar 16, 2009 10:57 am

Joining together some .MOV files from my trusty Panasonic DMC TZ3 I am getting inconsistent results.
In some finished projects I am getting jerky pans, even tho the original files are smooth.
In other projects everything is smooth.
I have tried all three of the "Field" options, saved as "same as Project" and "DVD PAL", etc, and get the same results.

All clips are recorded on the same camera, all edited in the same way, but I get some finished projects with all jerky and some with all smooth pans.

Any ideas welcome
Thanks
Nicholas

(Intel E8500/nVidia 8800GTS/4Gb Corsair/650w PSU/7200rpm Sata)

DVDDoug · Post by **DVDDoug** » Mon Mar 16, 2009 9:07 pm

I don't know what's going on or why some files work and others don't. But, weird things can happen with MOV files (as with most other highly-compressed formats)...

Try saving your files as DV/AVI (13GB per hour) before any editing. Then use the DV/AVI files for your project. DV/AVI is the most trouble-free format, so if you can make that conversion without getting "jerky pans", everything should be OK.

NOTE - In general, you'd like to avoid extra "lossy" conversions, but DV/AVI is less-lossy than most formats. And sometimes when you have a problem, the work-around requires it.

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 2:02 am

And if your camcorder dos not record/save in DV then convert your .mov files first with a free piece of software\:-
Super
This piece of software converts almost any video format into almost any other video format. Very useful if you've downloaded DivX Xvid or MPEG4 files off the internet and then find you are having difficulty editing them due to their highly compressed nature.
http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html

2Dogs · Post by **2Dogs** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 4:16 pm

DVDDoug wrote:I don't know what's going on or why some files work and others don't. But, weird things can happen with MOV files (as with most other highly-compressed formats)...

But the TZ3 video, like the video from many Panasonic digital cameras such as my own FZ8 uses relatively light mjpeg compression, resulting in a file size about 20% greater than say an 8000kbps mpeg2 video file made from it.

I find that VS11.5 works better with my FZ8 .mov files than VS12, but neither do a good job.

Note however that the colour gamut for mpeg2 is less than for mjpeg.

With VS11.5, I had some success using a freeware program to convert the .mov file to a .avi file. That seemed to resolve some audio issues, but I have not tried using it in conjunction with VS12. Might be worth a shot, and it is free.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/mp4cam2avi/

I can encode my FZ8 clips to x264 resulting in virtually no loss of picture quality and with no audio problems, and less than 10% of the original file size, even whilst retaining the full 848 x 480 resolution, with another application. It's just a pity the application does not allow me to edit any footage!

I think that most consumer video editors do a poor job of supporting digital camera video. Whilst many cameras have highly compressed mpeg4 clips unsuited to editing, mjpeg compression is usually an edit-friendly format.

willydeluxe · Post by **willydeluxe** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 10:46 pm

Thank you all for the advice. I will look at converting the original files.

Dahl · Post by **Dahl** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 6:45 am

Hi sjj1805,
I when to the site and downloaded the software. After installation it took me to their site where it wanted money.
Looks free until you try it! Don't like that. Will not be buying.

Post by **Ron P.** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 7:56 am

Dahl wrote:Hi sjj1805,
I when to the site and downloaded the software. After installation it took me to their site where it wanted money.
Looks free until you try it! Don't like that. Will not be buying.

Did you download Super or some other software advertised on that page? You need to scroll down to the bottom of the page where it states Download and make full usage of SUPER © for FREE. This opens another page, and you again need to look for a link to download. Finding the download is rather difficult. Super is a free, fully functioning utility.

Dahl · Post by **Dahl** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 9:01 pm

Thank you so much vidoman. I have just downloaded it and will let you know how it goes. It was very hard to find the download link but it was there.

Dahl · Post by **Dahl** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 11:05 pm

I have installed and used Super to convert a number of mov files to AVI and MPEG and have burnt a DVD using VSX2 Movie Wizard. Truly awesome result. Thank you so much for the info.

willydeluxe · Post by **willydeluxe** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 12:02 pm

Interesting that since started this thread I have upgraded to X2Pro which doesn't even recognise .MOV files.
Previous versions ( 9 and 10), although giving inconsistent results, at least allowed me to import .MOV.
Oh well, I guess I will have to convert the original files.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 2:36 pm

The problem is that .mov files, like .avi files, can hide a multitude of sins i.e. different formats which happen to use it as a wrapper. Unless you know which particular flavour you are talking about, it's difficult to know what is going to work.