How to improve footage "smoothness" ?

[Stan Jelavic]

I used one of my wolverine clips and extracted the key frames.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folde...usp=share_link
check the wolverine_fps folder
As you can see the keyframes are also quite compressed. So no point in trying to get the "originals", not for this type of transfer.
Another subject. Would flicker be lower if Wolverine output was at 18FPS. Not sure but modern displays use sample and hold between the frames. May be even worse. Not an expert here. There are some newer displays with a black pulldown or something like that. That would in some way emulate the projector blades, wouldn't it.
Regarding the optical flow artifacts.
I tried running the enhanced/medium mode and it was quite good except for scene transitions.
On way around it is to split the video into clips, you can do that in DVR and then run optical flow for each clip separately.

[Stan Jelavic]

Looks like Resolve has a bug. If you set the timeline fps to 60 it will still stay at whatever the clip FPS was. To fix that, right click on imported clip and set the fps to 60. Then create the new timeline. It will be 60 FPS.
Now try optical flow.

[Nantawat Kittiwarakul]

Before this spirals out too far here's my take.

Of course we're somehow creating COPIES from ORIGINAL material, which will never be EXACTLY identical as the original is the physical media. Therefore it's best to create the most faithful replica of the original. The better hardware/software (and the skill) used, the more faithful of the outcome compared to the original.

How "good" is "enough" for the copy really depends to individuals. But my short list would be...

Scan resolution - 1080p/2K seems already enough, although someone else would say even 6k isn't enough.
Physical imperfections (dust/dirt/scratch) removal - use pre-scan physical process (film cleaning/wet gate) if possible. But if post-scan (software based) process is that good to the point that you really can't see any side issues...then maybe.
Color correction - with skilled colorist, then yes.
Image stabilization - tough call... Not sure if I really want to turn amateurish-shaky home movies into gimbal-stabled shots.
Frame rate conversion - with today's technology?...nope. Maybe in the next few decades to come.

Once again, this is me and me only. Others would probably have thought otherwise.

[Stan Jelavic]

Good points. My only issue is the original frame rate that is hard on my eyes as I said before.

[Stan Jelavic]

Here is a note on FPS change.
Say we create a video with 90 images at 20 FPS. The video duration will be 4.5 seconds and all original images will be unchanged.
Now we do the same thing and create the video at 18 FPS. The video duration will be 5 seconds and all original images will be unchanged.
If I sent you the video created dat 20 FPS and you change the FPS in VirtualDub to 18 you would get 5 seconds of video and and all original images will be unchanged. No, no frame changes, insertions and deletions here.
The point is that there are several ways of changing the FPS. One of them (and a good one) is to change the interfrarme timing without touching the frames. In DVR it can be done by changing the clip duration I believe.
In VirtualDub it is FPS change...
Another way, as an example, is to change the speed in DVR. That will mess around with the frames.
There is also a twist to it with the MP4 files. Changing the frame duration in DVR could impact the keyframe sequencing, possibly.
So Luigi if you wanted to change from 20 fps to 18 fps do it in DVR via clip duration change and that in theory will keep the originals if you can call them that.

[Luigi Carniel]

Hi guys, due to absence during the last few weeks I had missed some of your latest posts of this thread for which my best thanks. Although in the meantime I had achieved pretty good results in improving smoothness of my footages especially after processing with DVR (great software! thank you Stan for suggesting) , I am facing a pretty annoying issue concerning a heavy distortion (I call it this way, if there is a more appropriate technical term in English pls advise) related to persons walking up and down some concrete steps of a church . Pls, if you can, have a look at the short footages of the link below. There are 4 footages # 1-2-3-4. Footages # 1-2 are processed with Cyberlink Power Director, choppy, not smooth but no distortion of the steps. Footage # 3 has been processed with DVR without optical flow on: bad. Footage # 4 same as 3 but with optical flow enhanced faster on. This one is absolutely the best throughout the full length of the complete footage which is about 20 minutes long, except for this part with that awful distortion of the steps. The same problem occurs on other parts of the footage but always and only where steps appear such as a church or an ancient Roman Amphitheatre. I have tried all possible adjustments in DVR in terms of Fps (25,30, 50,60) , speed, Bitrates, resolution, optical flow, blending, standard and enhanced but no change at all. So pls do not focus too much on the different features of these specific posted footages, as I have tried so many options and none of them changed anything. Cyberlink Power Director does not show this problem but the final footages are choppy, DVR would be good (at least seen on my pc and tv) except for this distortion, which is really bad. The distortion appears in DVR in real time right on the timeline, whether with or without optical flow on, and BEFORE rendering. Recap, the original Super 8 footage got scanned with a Wolverine clone and I had obtained a 1440 x 1080 res. footage at 20 fps which I had to adjust in post processing. Any idea how to solve this? I have Windows 11 Pro, and the cpu is good enough for this kind of processing , and I have a dedicated Video Card Radeon 550 rx 4gb, which helps even if not at full capacity due to some compatibility problems with video editing softwares (but DVR detects it) .
I understand from various sources that it might be a bug in DVR but not sure if this is referred to my specific problem or others. Sorry for this long post and thank you very much for your support.
Luigi

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gFc...usp=share_link
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1C1F...usp=share_link
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1viP...usp=share_link
https://drive.google.com/file/d/19r1...usp=share_link

[Stan Jelavic]

The stairway issue can be fixed.
In DVR slit the video into clips (check online how to do that) so that the stairway clip is isolated. The run stabilize on that clip only, select perspective and then hit the stabilize button.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NGB...ew?usp=sharing
The issue is with the camera shake.
Generally off the top of my head, there are 3 types of jitters:
fast panning (you already addressed that one) - use optical flow
frame shake due to the scan process (it is not bad in your case) but fixed with a deshkaker
camera shake - run stabilizer

The stabilizer perspective option recognizes the scene and detects the camera movements and then shifts the frame so that the scene does not change. The issues is that the edges will be jittering. This can be fixed by cropping or when setting up the stabilize option check off the zoom box. In that case the borders will be adjusted to be the same size by automatically zooming in and out. If camera shake is excessive the zoom may result in lower resolution on some frame. In that case cropping may work better. I am definitely not an expert here, just sharing what I know so far. Hope this helps.

[Luigi Carniel]

Thank you Stan, your prompt feedback is really appreciated and looks very very promising🙂 . Allow me a couple of days to get familiar with these functions and let you know the outcome. Thank you again and Enjoy your weekend ! 👋

[Stan Jelavic]

Thank you Luigi. You too.

[Luigi Carniel]

Stan, 1 more small question:

“frame shake due to the scan process (it is not bad in your case) but fixed with a deshkaker“

What do you mean by ‘deshkaker’ ? Thanks

[Luigi Carniel]

Ah ok now I got it : ‘deshaker’ 🙂

[Joerg Polzfusz]

A „deshaker“?

[Luigi Carniel]

A „deshaker“?

Joerg, what else could "deshkaker", as originally written by Stan, mean ? Maybe I got it wrong ... Still newbie...

[Luigi Carniel]

Here is what I ve found "http://www.guthspot.se/video/deshaker.htm" , Think I got it right

[Stan Jelavic]

That is what Ii meant Luigi. My typing skills are pretty "shaky" hehe.