Render flashing over Still images in HDV

Question

I was given this project to rescue, the biggest problem is it is full of still images with moves/keyframes and full of subtitles. The images are all JPEGS, of varying sizes and resolutions, some of them are still in grayscale mode. These problems mainly show up on the interlaced HDTV monitor, on the RGB monitor the images suddenly dip 50% in brightness, and flicker slightly.
The flicker filter on MAX and a gaussian blur will not fix this. the only thing that seems to work is converting all these images to TIFFs and re-doing all the moves which in Final Cut is a nightmare. Here is a link, the full visual dissonance problems are washed out by this camera.
http://www.vimeo.com/5590809
What would be a life saver is finding a way not having to convert all these JPEGs to TIFFs.
Moving keyframes, changing opacity, etc does nothing to improve the render flickering.

Answer 1

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 images with great deal of detail with high contrast as well as when when you are engaged in pan/zoom moves on stills.
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.
Before you start any of these steps listed below, make sure you are viewing your material on an appropriate monitor. If you are working in an NTSC/PAL interlaced format (eg DV) you need an external TV monitor - not a computer screen. Without the appropriate device, you are playing blind.
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.
One final thought, 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.
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