Jumpy Footage, Skipping frames
I have been having skippy jumpy footage issues with both my 5D and 7D. All the footage from Asia has skips in it. I can’t tell you how much angst this has caused. When I was opening the h264 files in Quicktime, they skipped, sometimes very badly. Converting to ProRes in StreamClip or Compresor and opening in Final Cut got the same results. I tried different card readers, a USB reader, different cards, different hard drives, everything short of an exorsism. I uploaded the h264 captures into Smug Mug and they were better, but there was still skipping, now in random places. I checked all 3 of my Macs, the skipping varied, but it was always there to some extent. No one had an idea what was going on, not Canon, not Apple, and I could find nothing on this on the web. Then on call number 3 to Apple, I was lucky enough to get a great tech support guy on the Final Cut line. The deal is that there is something slightly off in the CODEC of the files straight out of the camera. Why, I have no idea, especially since it is happening in every possible configuration. The solution is to open a new project in Final Cut. Open a new bin and place the clips into it. Then batch export the clips to a new folder on the hard drive. Close that project, open another new project and import the converted clips. I used ProRes 422 1920×1080 30p. They play just fine now. If anyone has any idea why this is happening out of the camera I would very much appreciate knowing.
Oh geez, I feel for you David. I was wondering why you hadn’t blogged lately! I know, it’s too much to expect video to be like using a toaster, but these kinds of things only work out well for the hair dye manufacturers… Glad you were able to resolve the issue.
Thanks. It is sort of crazy the h264 corruption. No one has any idea what is going on. I am now in touch with the wizards at Canon, who should be in touch next week. The main thing is, except for the pain in the butt FC transcoding time, all the images are fine. In FC, the transcoding doesn’t work in the background, like StreamClip or Compressor.
I don’t know. I am having it even playing back in the camera. Now why would it be able to record at that speed but not playback – at the same damn spot every time? I bought this paper weight 3 weeks ago and realize that all the video I was passing to my editor was crap? I am….
The work around I describe seems to do the trick, but I would rather be using StreamClip, much faster workflow. I am going to do some tests on a couple of other 5Ds tomorrow, and depending on the results, I am planning on sending the 5D and a card of files to CPS to see if there is a problem. My experience with the 5Dll, is that it is sort of great, but it really requires some work to get it to behave properly. I hope you stay with it, for me the hassels have been worth it.