Ken Burns flicker

I am trying to figure out why there is a flicker on the edges of the video frame when I add a ken burns effect to some images. This doesn't happen all the time. Just once in a while. I can't figure why it is happening and what to do to fix it. The flicker is just on the edges. Anyone has nay idea?

I'm not sure what you're describing. I use stills over generators fairly often and my results are satisfactory.
Certain backgrounds are more unforgiving of compression and with the pan/zoom of the Ken Burns effect, compression artifacts can be exaggerated and more noticeable – particularly with high res images downsized to video resolution and for long GOP codecs.
Could you upload a short clip to a site of your choice and link to it so we can see what you're describing?
Russ

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Here's how to make an iDVD with no flicker using Ken Burns Effect

iPhoto renders the Ken Burns effect as smoothy as can be - no flicker
iMovie does a poor job of rendering the Ken Burns Effect - much flicker
so
1. Make a slide show in iPhoto. Single out only those slides that have the Ken Burns Effect. Each of these slides is turned into a Slide Show of just one slide at a time.
2. Each single slide with the Ken Burns effect is adjusted for time, etc. and then exported into a QuickTime Movie - a movie consisting of only one slide.
3. Save all the individual movies into one folder (for convenience).
4. In iMovie (I use 06) , assemble the slide show - but only include all the slides that have no Ken Burns Effect.
5. Drag each of the single-slide movies into the iMovie clip pane, and then place them where you want between the other slides.
6. Play the iMovie and see how smoothly ALL the slides play.
7. Send the entire iMovie over to iDVD and burn it. Make sure the "Interlace" feature (File Menu -Interlace) is NOT checked.
8. All the Ken Burns slides will be rendered with hardly any flicker.

Like most iLife 08 owners I use iMovie 06.
Do you believe that your procedure will work the same way using iMovie 06 with iDVD 08?

Wavy movement of Ken Burns

I know similar issues have been brought up with the Ken Burns affect being choppy but I haven't seen anyone point out that they're seeing it as 'wavy'.
What I see is that photos with contrasting lines in them (in this case, kitchen cabinets against walls) look like they're wavy when panning with the Ken Burns affect. Its almost nausiating.
Is there ANY way to do away with this? It seems to be much worse once the video is transitioned to DVD using iDVD and played on either a computer or a TV.

You problem is not the same as the link above described (i.e. the old iMovie bug which renders jaggy stills from _non-Ken Burnsed_ images).
You applied Ken Burns so those images should be immune to THAT problem.
I guess what you are seeing is suboptimal subpixel rendering with Ken Burns. Sometimes the images may by TOO sharp so they induce interlace flicker when viewed on a TV. This is caused by the fact that a thin and sharp 1-line vertical object is visible only half of the time and even a 2-line vertical object may seem to jump up and down on an interlaced TV (see interlace flicker):
http://www.lurkertech.com/lg/fields/fields.html
Some applications intentionally slightly blur images to reduce the flicker (Photo To Movie's higher quality setting, for example). Also in Toast Titanium 7 the output doesn't flicker.
You can reduce interlace flicker on a TV with image editing applications. One nice approach is to slightly blur the input still image with 90° (vertical) Motion Blur (use 1 pixel value to PAL/NTSC 576/480 vertical input resolutions -- if the vertical resolution of the input still is larger you have to increase the filter's pixel value accordingly. For example: if the input still is 2048 x 1536, use 3 pixel value in the filter because 1536/576=2.7).
The idea is to cut down on vertical resolution (excess of which causes interlace flicker on an interlaced TV) without compromising horizontal resolution. Another method is to apply a small Gaussian blur to the image. Just using a smaller resolution (640x480) in the input images also prevents flicker but the images may appear slightly fuzzy instead (and you really should not zoom into such low resolution image with Ken Burns).
So: you might try Photo To Movie instead of Ken Burns and see if it is any better. AFAIR there is a Photo To Movie demo.

I made a slide show in imovie using ken burns effect and when i transfer it to idvd the background shimmers. Is there a way around this?

If anyone has done this before and knows how to keep ken burns and lose the shimmer I would appreciate your help.

Add some blur to the image. I know it sounds crazy, but blurring the photo will reduce the flicker on a TV. DVDs are really low res. and by reducing the image detail will help prevent line flicker.

Ken Burns effect

Under Snow Leopard 10.6.8 I am using iMovie '11 version 9.0.4 (1634).
Making for the first time a movie out of iPhoto pictures, with lots of effects (transitions, titles, etc.), I experience in the use of the Ken Burns effect that any zooming ('in' as well as 'out'), or panning, constantly generates a kind of 'moiré' artifact: stones, leaves, steps, rooftiles and in general anything that is rather detailed, start to twinkle and flicker. The duration of those scenes varies between 1.14 and 4.00. On extreme shortcuts, this effect is - as seems obvious - rather not seen.
As the use of the Ken Burns effect in my iMovie project is essential, I love to know how to avoid that detoriation. In iMovie itself it is not too ennoying on my 27" iMac monitor. But on TV, with the DVD burned (iDVD version 7.1.2 - 1158), it is really desastrous to watch...
Is upgrading from iMovie to Final Cut a solution?
Thanks for any help.

The only other thing you can try is to look at your workflow from iMovie to iDVD. There are two possible paths:
1. Share > Share to iDVD
2. Share > Share to Media Browser
For highest quality the second option is the best. It uses a completely different mechanism than option 1. Believe it or not Option 1 actually transcodes to MPEG 2 directly into the iDVD project. Whereas option 2 converts to H.264 then gets transcoded within iDVD itself.
Which way did you get your video into iDVD originally? I don't know if changing the path into iDVD will have any effect on your moiré artifacts.

FLICKERING in SLIDESHOW PLAYBACK IN QUICKTIME OR iDVD w/ Ken Burns togld ON

Hi,
After pressing "Play" in iPhoto and with Ken Burns "Auto" VIEWING PLAYBACK IS OK.
After clicking on "Slideshow" and choosing same options, ie., Auto Ken Burns, VIEWING IS OKAY.
Now happy with slideshow, I click on Export (goes into processing QuickTime), with "Auto" Ken Burns the VIEWING IS JUMPY, SOMETIMES LOCKED UP.
Yet if "Auto Ken Burns" is toggled OFF, leaving a flat still picture view, and then Export File (goes into processing QuickTime file) then PLAYBACK VIEW IS OKAY.
I tried instead to "SHARE" via iDVD but the same results.
So, how do I get to use Auto Ken Burns Effect AND without JUMPY/FLICKER/LOCKUPS in my slideshows this year? A year or more ago everything worked out just fine using the same method as today.
I sure would appreciate your help so I can send out some Slideshows w/ K-B On.
Please help if you can,
THanks,
Max

Hello All,
THIS QUESTION HAS BEEN MOVED TO "QUICKTIME" ON MAC.
There is no prob w/ iPhoto as far as I can tell. It's the file conversion utility processes that are mucking things up for this amateur.
If you wish to help, please see me and my posting dated April 19th on the other Forum: QuickTime (for Macs).
THANK YOU.

FLICKERING PLAYBACK IN QUICKTIME OR iDVD w/ Ken Burns toggled "ON"

FLICKERING in SLIDESHOW PLAYBACK IN QUICKTIME OR iDVD w/ Ken Burns toggled "ON"
Posted INCORRECTLY EARLIER IN iPhoto 6 Forum: Apr 17, 2009 12:27 PM
Hello everyone, and especially QuickTimeKirk if I can get his attention please--->
After pressing "Play" in iPhoto and with Ken Burns "Auto" toggled ON the PLAYBACK VIEWING photos in iPhoto is OKAY.
After clicking on "Slideshow" and choosing same options, ie., with Auto Ken Burns "ON", VIEWING of Slideshow in iPhoto is OKAY.
Now happy with slideshow, I click on Export (goes into processing with QuickTime, or some elements of it I presume),
NOW SUDDENLY the VIEWING IS JUMPY, SOMETIMES LOCKS UP--totally unacceptable.
Yet if "Auto Ken Burns" is toggled OFF in iPhoto slideshow settings, leaving a flat & still picture and then Exporting File (goes into processing QuickTime) then PLAYBACK VIEW in QuickTime and iDVD IS OKAY.
So, how do I get to use Auto Ken Burns Effect AND without JUMPY/FLICKER/LOCKUPS in my slideshows this year? (A year or more ago everything worked out just fine using the same methods as today).
I sure would appreciate your help so I can send out some iDVD's with my Slideshows with the K-B effect "On."
Please help if you can,
THanks,
Max

Mr. "K"
Thanks very much for your rapid reply...this thing has had me in knots for days.
I opened MI and watched it as I played
Slideshow-A with Ken Burns ON
versus
Slideshow-B with Ken Burns turned OFF.
S# A was a several hundred MB in size (wow, how'd that happen?) while S# B was less than 100MB.
S# A jumps, stutters, etc. S# B does not.
The FPS of 30 and Playing FPS of 30 can be seen in a third (Slideshow#C) video that has KB toggled on and that one doesn't seem to stutter nearly so much. It's size is 70MB.
I checked my Codec Pkg using Get Info and found it is Ver. 1.1
My G4 is rated at 800MHz
and has plenty of RAM (if that's where this stuff is cached for playback).
Not sufficient? Please let me know how and if I can rectify that?
Watching with MI engaged is one thing, but What can I do about this disappointing outcome in iDVD or QuickTime playback?
Earlier (2yrs ago) I could create a Slideshow, toggle on Ken Burns, watch a video with no probs.
If you'd be so kind, please offer your best strategies.
THANKS,
Max

Photo To Movie - A solution to Jaggy edges to a moving still? (Ken Burns)

Hello Hello
I know folks have talked about this before ......
I recently received a tip about 'Photo to Movie', and how it improves those Jaggy images (the outer parameter of a photo), that can be seen in both Quicktime (on your computer screen), AND from a burned DVD on your TV.
Well I have to admit that 'Photo to Movie' definitely helps remove the Jaggies.
BUT
Is is just me - or is it true that there is less quality in those panned and zoomed images as compared to iMovie? It certainly looks so to me ...... perhaps less detail .... on the TV screen
Ya know when iMovie HD came out, I immediately saw an improvement in the resolution of burned movies onto a DVD on the TV.
I've read the other posts about the Jaggy problem in Pans and Zooms including these solutions:
Workaround #1 is to turn ON the Ken Burns Effect before importing an image.
(I always do that)
Workaround #2 is to convert still images to good quality video with Photo To Movie. Photo To Movie and Still Life have more features than iMovie's built-in Ken Burns effect. Photo To Movie's High Quality setting renders still images into very good quality video that doesn't flicker when viewed on a TV.
(I just bought Photo to Movie - it works)
But again is there a trade off in perhaps less detail in the images?
Thanx

When you look at movies, or frames of movies, in iMovie, you're looking at the entire frame. So if you import photos into iMovie, and don't use any panning or zooming, you'll see the entire photo ..but - as Karsten and Matthew say - at a reduced quality than the original photo(s), because movie resolution is lower than photo resolution.
To create a zoom out or pan effect across a picture, you obviously have to start with a smaller area of the picture than the area of the full photo. You then travel across the photo, still using a smaller area than the full photo, or you zoom out until you're looking at the entire photo.
If you start with a smaller section that the full photo, then if the photo has only a little higher resolution than video (..say it's a 3 megapixel photo..) then that smaller section has to be automatically enlarged to fill the entire video frame, so the apparent resolution of that smaller area of the entire picture will probably appear to be less sharp than the overall, entire photo.
It's like examining a newspaper photo with a magnifying glass: you'll start to see the detail of the dots which comprise the photo, instead of seeing the overall photo as a whole.
The higher the resolution of the original photo - e.g; 8 or 10 megapixels - the less will seem to be the quality loss as you pan or zoom across a small region of it.
But if you start with a 2, 3 or perhaps 5 megapixel photo, then - depending on how far you zoom "into" it - you may well see a poorer quality image in the panned or zoomed sections than you would see on the overall image.
..As in the film "Blow-Up" ..the more you magnify something, the less clear it can become ..unless maybe you're using an electron microscope..

Ken Burns Crashes FCP X

I am currently on 10.0.7 of FCP X. I have noticed this bug since the last release, but not prior to that. This occurs on my MacBook Pro (2.2 GHz Intel Core i7 running MacOS 10.6.8) and also on my 11" MacBook Air.
Basically, a third of the time that I add in a Ken Burns effect, the program crashes as soon as I go to adjust the START/END boxes. The effect will still run as long as I don't touch the default positions of the boxes. Once this occurs, I can not edit KB on that image, no matter how many times I restart FCP or the computer.
This is a relatively new issue to me that hasn't gone away. I have seen a prior thread from a year ago on this topic (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3707812) but the suggestions all point to a user file size issue which I don't think is the case here. It is clearly a FCP bug that perhaps the Mac application development folks don't see on the combination of hardware/OS that they are using.
Any thoughts on this? Does anyone else see this bug?
Thanks in advance for any tips,
-Todd

Tom,
This happens on most movies I edit, but it may have something to do with size as it is usually after I'm 90 seconds or so into the flick. All my movies are 720P or 1080P and the content is either from a GoPro HD camera (any of the 3 generations) or my Nikon Coolpix S8100 (video and stills).
Today I was reminded that this problem happens with Ken Burns cropping video in addition to stills, so it is not limited to the file type. Seems tied to the KB effect and perhaps (?) the size of my project. I just don't see it on video as often as I rarely use this effect.
Would it be useful to post or email the crash information that FCP provides when it restarts? I always submit it to Apple, FWIW.
I do have my media on an external drive when running FCP. I use a USB slim drive for the Air and a FW GDrive on the Pro. It is possible that I only see this problem when running the USB slim drive, but I can't confirm that (I usually see it on the Air, but currently am using the slim drive on the Pro and see the problem.)

Shimmering of stills when using Ken Burns

I know Ken Burns did not invent panning, zooming, and movement in stills, but I think everyone know what I’m referring to.
I’m using FCP Studio 1, yes, it’s old and not supported by Apple any more, but it is more than enough for me.
On the stills that I set the keyframes for movement, during the movement the faces of the individuals were blurry and the entire still seemed to shimmer.
I have seen that in smaller amounts before, but this particular project there seemed to be much more.
What am I doing wrong?
Hank Kearns

The flickering is an artifact of the interlaced nature of video. It is a result of very thin (often horizontal) elements that exist on one scanline as is common in text or titling. This can also be the case in scanned images with great deal of detail with high contrast.
As the alternate fields play, the flashing element is essentially being turned on/off. The basic strategy is to get the element to exist over two scanlines so it is refreshed every time the field plays or to reduce the amount of contrast so the difference between ON and OFF is not noticeable.
Things to try (In increasing order of image degradation)
• (in FCP) field order>none
• (in FCP or Photoshop) reduce whites by 10% - reduces overly bright areas
• (in FCP) flicker filter - minimum
• (in Photoshop) motion blur>vertical> .2 - .5 pixels - blurs vertically only
• (In FCP or Photoshop) Gaussian blur> .2 - .5 pixels -blurs both horizontally as well as vertically
• (in FCP or Photoshop) deinterlace - throws away half the image and is generally not appropriate on scanned images
Remember: Unless you are viewing your work in the appropriate external NTSC/PAL monitor, you are playing blind. The computer monitor only shows you a proxy image.
If you have slowed your material significantly, and have not used some sort of frame blending/optical flow processing, you may be simply duplicating frames to create the additional material to pad the playback. The flashing you see is the result of this.
good luck.
x

Ken Burns vs Photo to Movie test

I did a quick simple test to see how iMovie's Ken Burns and Photo to Movie manage high resolution, high frequency still images as their input:
I made a 3150x1728 (5 megapixel) TIF image. I chose that particular ratio because it completely fills both NTSC and PAL 16:9 frame when imported to iMovie HD 5-6's widescreen project.
I inserted 1 pixel thin horizontal and vertical black stripes at every 100 pixel. That kind of thin (high frequency) lines tend to flicker on a TV unless they are blurred.
Then I imported the still to a widescreen NTSC (I chose NTSC for Karl, Fred, Kirk and other NTSC-geared geeks iMovie HD 6.0.3 project and applied a 2 second 1-5x zoom to it.
I did a similar zoom with Photo to Movie 3.2.2's High Quality export setting and compared the results...
Well, the iMovie zoom-in was quite interesting: at modest zoom factors many stripes were omitted and the stripes disappeared and appeared as the zoom progressed! Some stripes were rendered grayish, but they were always 1 pixel thin (a recipe for flicker on a TV!). Only near the end of the zoom-in, all the stripes appeared and begun to grow thicker (and non-flickery on a TV).
The Photo to Movie zoom-in was much "duller": all stripes were preserved and they were slightly blurred (which prevents flicker on a TV).
The winner: Photo to Movie.
The input TIF and 2 second output .dv files are below (to my surprise the 15 MB input zipped to only 1.8 MB with this material). I turned ON the high quality display for you in the .dv files, but verify that the setting sticks when viewing them with QuickTime Player Pro. You can advance one frame at a time via the left/right arrow keys.
http://www.saunalahti.fi/~shmhav/kenburnstest.zip

Discussing DVD playback on a TV, Matti said:
The output that used the original TIF as its input
was full of artifacts and lots of flicker with the
moderate zoom factors. Gaussian blur was also quite
bad while the 875x480 downsampled TIF was very
peaceful. Of course the 875x480 was somewhat fuzzy
with the extreme zoom factors.
Photo To Movie's Higher Quality setting was very
peaceful with practically no flicker on the TV.
I admit that this is an artificial and a very
difficult test image. But I have seen the same
artifacts with real JPGs as well if there are hard
lines in the image (buildings, wires, waves, fine
patterns etc).
I've seen similar results here too, burning perhaps a hundred DVDs in the last few weeks. The goal was to compare DVD slideshows created by iMovie, Photo to Movie and FotoMagico. Matti's conclusions look familiar.
My tests used photos that are the most difficult for iMovie to handle, lots of hard lines, buildings, wires, fences, roof lines, etc.
When the goal is to burn a DVD, Photo to Movie consistently delivers good quality with a variety of source images. The quality is good across a range of image sizes and content. If you like working in Photo to Movie, you can be quite confident you'll get good results.
But I like working in iMovie, so the goal of my tests was to find a way to make iMovie work better. The solution was to downsize the image before importing it to iMovie.
As Matti suggested, iMovie delivers good results if the source image is downsized before importing to iMovie. Virtually all flicker is eliminated by downsizing to 640x480 (NTSC) or 768x578 (PAL). (Downsize less if you plan to use a 2x or greater Ken Burns zoom.)
Downsizing is easily done with iPhoto's File > Export command. It takes just a few seconds to export new copies of photos at the new size.
So is Photo to Movie "better" than iMovie for slideshows? Sometimes Yes, if you don't want to resize problem images. But often not, at least from my tests. iMovie can deliver fine results too. And to be fair to iMovie, it has other advantages.
Note: Our tests may have little in common with the pictures you often shoot, the people pictures, the landscapes, the other "soft" images. They are WAY easier for iMovie to handle, and may not require downsizing. It depends on the photo's content.
Karl

How do I get rid of the Ken Burns effect on my photos

I would like to get rid of the Ken Burns effect on my photos I addes to my video. How do I do that

When you create a New Project and give it a name, the next thing you should always do is go to File>Project Properties and make sure in 'Initial Photo Placement you have selected either Fit or Crop. It seems the default setting is the Ken Burns annoyance.

Cannot get rid of Ken Burns effect on slideshow

I have turned off Ken Burns effect when creating slideshow on my Mac Mini (the one that I share iPhoto libraries with Apple TV). I did the same in Apple TV.
Still I have these funky effect that may fit some documehtaries, but is inappropriate to some other content... and one has to realize that (e.g. if you present photos from someones funeral you do not give some fancy effects to upset audience, right?)
Isn't it a bug in software? Anyone had the same issue? Under what circumstances the checkboxes to turn it of in APPle TV and iPhoto are ignored by Apple TV?
Thank you.

I figured out how to do this.

Preview of Ken Burns effect doesn't work with some pictures

I just recently installed a new graphics card (ATI Radeon 7500) on my Sawtooth, 1.2 GHz, so I could utilize the Ken Burns effect in imovie HD. It works but only partly. It works great but with some pictures the preview pane doesn't show the photo. What I see is a what looks like bad reception on an old TV (fuzzies and the picture is distorted so bad you can't even make it out). With other pictures the preview shows up fine. I'm sure I've loaded the drivers. What else can I do?

Hi Tonyy13.
I am presenting the same problem. I can set the Ken Burns' effect while I am with the pictures before placing them in the Clip or Timeframe viewer. After placing them there, if I try to edit the picture (either by right clicking and choosing -edit picture or by control clicking and doing the same, I ended up with a black background. If you change the setting in this black ackground and update this changes they will be effective. So, you can change the slide duration, and everything in the sliders but without an image.
I was running System 10.3.9 and I thought this was the reason. Today, I went and bought Tiger but it didn't sove the problem. I do believe it is a bug in the program. According to Apple's Help and David Pogue's "The Missing Manual" this shouldn't happen.
If you solve this problem reply to this posting. If I did I will reply to your posting. Thank You.

Preview of Ken Burns Effect is a black screen!!

So, I am doing a movie for my parents, and I have 102 photos that I have loaded into IMovie. I loaded them in to the clips section, as I am not a huge fan of iPhoto personally. At first, no problems, but later, as I dragged photos into the playhead area, my photos wouldn't allow me to preview the Ken Burns Effect. I would drag them into the playhead, click on "Meda" button, and then select the Show Picture Settings button. The preview screen goes black as the effect scrolls through the process, disallowing me to see the preview. I have deleted the pictures from IMovie, re-inserted them, and started over (AAAARRRRRGGGGGG!), and it happened again.
Any Ideas? Thanks for the help!
Oh, and I have made no modifications to my machine (no new graphics card), and the pictures are all in .jpg format.

Hi Tonyy13.
I am presenting the same problem. I can set the Ken Burns' effect while I am with the pictures before placing them in the Clip or Timeframe viewer. After placing them there, if I try to edit the picture (either by right clicking and choosing -edit picture or by control clicking and doing the same, I ended up with a black background. If you change the setting in this black ackground and update this changes they will be effective. So, you can change the slide duration, and everything in the sliders but without an image.
I was running System 10.3.9 and I thought this was the reason. Today, I went and bought Tiger but it didn't sove the problem. I do believe it is a bug in the program. According to Apple's Help and David Pogue's "The Missing Manual" this shouldn't happen.
If you solve this problem reply to this posting. If I did I will reply to your posting. Thank You.

Ken Burns flicker

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