Title flicker re-visited...

[rvrkids]

[wmvvideo]http://muvipix.com/cpg/albums/userpics/18163/8_grade_sec_1_.wmv[/wmvvideo]

Hello experts - I have a problem with title flicker that I asked about several months ago, never resolved the problem, and now I'm back.

The link above is an example of what I am having a problem with and actually the AVI file that I am creating shows the flicker even worse which makes me wonder why is it worse in an AVI file than this WMV file?

I have the anti-flicker property now set to its max of 1.0, all pics are 1000x750 and I am getting so much flicker in the titles that it is driving me crazy...whether it is just a title moving from off screen to a static position on screen or crawling titles. I also tried the field options "flicker removal" which I realized probably does not apply but thought I would try anyway.

The title that I am specifically referring to in the link is in the beginning...."class of 2011" that moves in from the right.

I have another section of the same project that has crawling titles that flicker so much that it is hard to read as the titles crawl.

Any suggestions at all? My project settings are standard dv widescreen.

[momoffduty]

On rolling credits there will be some flickering, at least in my experience. Font size does make a difference. The class of 2011 title is small. If you want the school to zoom in at the beginning, have it zoom almost to full screen and then you can make the class of 2011 larger. You may want to use bold text and add a slight gaussian blur at 1 or 2 to smooth the font edges.

The same for the rolling text: enlarge the background and enlarge the text, add gaussian blur & bold font. You may have to use less words per line. Slowing the rolling may help too.

I saw some flickering on the photos....using the anti-flicker at 1.0? That should have taken care of that. Normally my settings are between a minimum of .5 to about .8 per photo and rarely have to use 1.0 Not sure why you still have flicker. Slow the zoom down of the photos and lengthen the transitions. I usually add 13 or so frames onto the transitions except the dip to black/white.

[Bob]

That's not flicker. Flicker occurs when a thin horizontal line appears in one field of an interlaced frame but not the other -- it flickers on and off as the fields are consecutively displayed. You do have flicker on the upper edge of the photo as it moves in.

Here's what your text looks like as it's moving in:

NotFlicker.jpg

That looks like some kind of weird interlacing artifact produced by a combination of the text scrolling and being interlaced.

What project preset did you use?

Just out of curiosity, if you select the text clip and change the field options to reverse field dominance, does it make it better, worse, or no difference?

[RJ Johnston]

Yeah. Is the avi file interlaced that's playing back on this web site? If you play it back on a computer, you need to to use the "always deinterlace" field option on that part of the video where you see the combing. The whole video doesn't have to be deinterlaced.

[Chuck Engels]

Good luck deinterlacing in Premiere Elements 9, I can't get it to work.

[rvrkids]

Thanks to everyone for trying to help.

I am at work right now and will look at your suggestions / questions more in depth when I get home. The only field options I did try changing were the "flicker removal" option and that made no difference. My project setting is the Flash standard definition widescreen because some of my sections have video from my hard drive camcorder.

In re: to what Bob said, I have noticed the different issues (i.e. flicker vs interlacing artifacts) on the photos and text. I will try to post a second section of my project that has the crawling text because it is different than this "class of 2011".

Also, the linked file is a WMV and not an AVI and the problems are worse in the AVI file, BUT, my final project will be burned to disk and not for computer viewing so is it possible that these problems might go away when the AVI file is burned to disk?

Thanks again.

[RJ Johnston]

Good luck deinterlacing in Premiere Elements 9, I can't get it to work.

In that case you can use the "Fast Blur" effect. Set it to "Vertical Only" and to the lowest value of 0.1 (1/10th). If that value doesn't do the job then increase it to 2/10ths, and so on.

[rvrkids]

Okay - I tried just about everything (including reversing field dominance with and without other options selected) in the field options all to no avail.

Here is the second section of my project where the text at the beginning is bad too.

[wmvvideo]http://muvipix.com/cpg/albums/userpics/18163/8_grade_sec_2_misc_pics.wmv[/wmvvideo]

In this example, the text doesn't look too bad until the crawling overlaps but in my AVI file (which I can't upload here) it looks the same from start to finish but it is not as bad as on this WMV file. What's really weird is the scrolling text in my first example (where the kids are reading it) looks great. What is the difference between those text clips besides fonts/sizes and it's weird because the scrolling text is smaller.

I will try burning a dvd tomorrow to see if that changes it too.

Any other ideas?

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

This could be an idiot question.

I am assuming that the text giving the problem is on a different timeline(?).

Have you used the same text size on all of the titles or have you used one of the Video Effects (Motion>Scale) to change the size of one of the titles?

[momoffduty]

This could be an idiot question.

I am assuming that the text giving the problem is on a different timeline(?).

Have you used the same text size on all of the titles or have you used one of the Video Effects (Motion>Scale) to change the size of one of the titles?

My thoughts too. Was the scale changed in the titler or the the motion properties. And maybe a bad track if that is possible?

My previous post was that the greater the velocity the more the flicker. That includes scale & motion properties.

This is a puzzle, not sure why the text is behaving that way.

[rvrkids]

Good thought about changing motion properties so I deleted that title, and created a new one making sure not to change the size/scale with the motion properties, only the position to move it onto the screen.

That didn't work so then I tried changing the font, size, and all the field options again with the new title. Nothing is working.

Last thing I will try is to move is to a different track. Will let you know.

[rvrkids]

So moving the title to a different track didn't help either.

My last attempt will be to burn to dvd and see if that helps at all.

Any other ideas?

[RJ Johnston]

Did you try the Fast Blur effect?

[rvrkids]

I did try the fast blur and have it up to .4 right now with no change except the letters are more blurry once the movement stops.

I have burned the dvd and again there was no change in the letters. The only thing that does seem to help at all is slowing the movement down but in order to get rid of the text distortion I would have to slow it down alot and then it's so slow it doesn't look right.

I also noticed the flicker that momoffduty mentioned and I see it mostly in the transitions. I would love to slow things down but I am actually trying to speed things up. This project has 8 different sections and it encompasses all of the kids in my daughter's class (60 of them) and I don't want the end result to be too long that people lose interest but I have alot of stuff to get in the video.

I guess I will just have to live with the distortion which does disappoint me.

[RJ Johnston]

I think I know how to get around it.

Let's say your project preset is 720x480, then first export/share to the same resolution, DV-AVI 720x480. You shouldn't see any tearing of the text flying in. Put that DV-AVI on the timeline in Premiere Elements and share to a lower resolution 320x240 WMV.