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.

Similar Messages

Non-linear moves in Ken Burns effects

Pans and zooms tend to ramp up in speed. This doesn't happen all the time, but enough that it is a problem. Anyone else dealing with this?

this is not a bug, but a feature of iMHD... ;-))
to be serious, iM Grandmaster Karl Petersen had mention this often in this forum and gave some alert to Apple... because, in many cases, a non-linear movement look much better, in some absolutely not...- so, there should be some check-box.-
only workaround so far: make the movement and the time a little longer; cut off the unwanted exaleration..- :-/

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..

Importing iphoto 09 pictures into imovie 09 with ken burns movement!

Im making a video on imovie 09 using still images i took and imported to iphoto. Then i import those iphoto pictures into imovie, BUT all the pictures have moving "ken burns" crop effects on them after i import them to imovie!!! i know how to fix it, by going to the "crop tool" and "ken burns" adjusting the start and end effect of this movement but my question is....
how do i change this setting so I dont have to tediously use the cropping ken burns tool on every clip which will probably make all the images appear shaky??????

Go to FILE/PROJECT PROPERTIES and you can set the default behavior when importing photos to the project.

Can I slow down the rate of movement at end of a Ken Burns?

And can I bring up a still, then have the burns effect begin aftyer a second or so?

John Kernan wrote:
And can I bring up a still, then have the burns effect begin aftyer a second or so?
Just add the same photo with no KB effect before the photo that you are adding the KB effect to.
Basically you will be adding the photo twice. one with the KB effect one without. The key is to make sure your KB effect starts at the same spot as the preceding image.... otherwise there could be a little jerk
yes....
To slow down the rate of a Ken Burns effect simply add more time that makes the movement much slower...

Converting slideshow from .mov to iPod loses the Ken Burns effect

I've been trying to make slideshows from iPhoto that will work on my iPod/iPhone. So far the only process I've found is to export to QT from iPhoto, then take that .mov and "convert for iPod". This works fine, however I noticed the nice Ken Burns effect is now gone.
Any thoughts?

Use a different app to make the movie.
But, if the destination is an iPod screen, then it's always going to be compressed heavily, so quality is always going to suffer. The same thing happens when your high quality photos are burned to DVD and folks wonder what's gone wrong - but it's the format of DVD itself that's the problem.
Other than that:
iPhoto's export options are pretty thin. Using something like PhotoToMovie or Final Cut Express in conjunction with Quicktime Pro will give you exported movies up to HD quality.
Regards
TD
Message was edited by: Terence Devlin

"Ken Burns" applies to entire movie rather than to individual clips?

I am using iMovie '11 on a Mac Air 10.7, and I tried to "Ken Burns" a clip in a simple 3-clip movie. But the effect seems to apply to each of the 3 clips in the same way. If I edit a different clip in the same movie with different KB setting, then those all apply to each clip in the movie, over-riding whatever KB or crop affect I might have used there originally. This does not seem right. If it is right, then it makes the KB feature nearly useless. What might I be doing wrong?

Thanks very much for your rapid response. I think one of the difficulties in using the help menus in FCP is that you almost need to know the name of the thing you're looking for before you can find it, but if you don't already know what it is that you're looking for, it makes it hard. All the best.

Ken Burns movie clips (not still photo)

How can I apply ken burns to movie clips. I know that the ken burns button only appears when we edit still photos, not movie clips. Is there any method to achieve an effect similar to ken burns? Or at least remotely similar?

iM's Bigger Brother FinalCutExpress allows such an effect by 'key framing' ..

Pasting Ken Burns Into Clips Moves clip

This has only happened a few times. To save time, I paste the ken burns attributes into multiple selected clips. I use the paste attributes command. At times when I to that the clip itself is moved out of the visible movie frame. I have only noticed this with FCP X 10.1. Yes I can work around this but I was just wondering.

This has only happened a few times. To save time, I paste the ken burns attributes into multiple selected clips. I use the paste attributes command. At times when I to that the clip itself is moved out of the visible movie frame. I have only noticed this with FCP X 10.1. Yes I can work around this but I was just wondering.

Exporting slideshow to .mov file using Ken Burns looks low res?

I've created a slide show using the Ken Burns effect exclusively, and after I export as an .mov file and pull that into iDVD (or watching it in QT player) the moves look like a very low resolution image was used instead of the high res files that I know are there. Any ideas of how to fix this? or is this just the way iPhoto handles the files when using Ken Burns FX.

Have your tried the procedure that seems to solve a variety of problems for the iLife applications? Quit iPhoto and delete your iPhoto preferences. To do this, go to your username> library> preferences> com.apple.iphoto.plist. Delete this file. Then reopen iPhoto; it will create a new preference file with all of the default settings.
Ken Burns also...images do not fit to screen any more.
I am not aware of an option to make the Ken burns effect "fit to screen". This effect is applied in a somewhat random fashion, so what you see on one playing of your slideshow can be slightly different when viewed again. You can avoid undesirable changes, like cutting off the tops of heads, by manually applying the KB effect to photos in question. The control is at the bottom of the window when in the slideshow mode. When you are satisfied with the way the slideshow looks, export it as a QuickTime movie.
I hope this helps.

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 can I modify the Fit, Crop, or Ken Burns effect for the entire movie?

How can I modify the Fit, Crop, or Ken Burns effect for the entire movie? I've been having to go through them all individually which takes forever.

You could try Edit > Select All then click on the crop button and change the setting from Ken Burns to Fit.
I find that this only works if you do not have the Automatic Cross Dissolve transitions in place.
If you do, File > Project Theme and uncheck the transitions and remove them.
After you have changed from Ken Burns to Fit, you can re-apply them.
Easiest way in future is to set up your project (File > Project Properties) before you start adding photos.
z.

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.

How Can You Disable Ease-In and Ease-Out Of Ken Burns

It seems that along with everything else that has changed with iMovie version 10, when you add photos to the timeline it automatically places an ease-in and ease-out to the Ken Burns move. For those of you who have been on a Mac for a while, this was how iMovie behaved in version 6 and earlier, and it feels rather dated.
If you are putting together a video slide show with multiple photos back to back, having the zoom ease in and out for every image is incredibly obnoxious. I can see situations when you are providing a narrative that it might be important, but often photos are just being animated to music. Is there a way to disable the easing or am I just best keeping to iMovie 9.0.9?
Thanks!

Hi Douglas,
Thanks for visiting Apple Support Communities.
It does look like this is the default behavior for imported pictures in iMovie 10, and can't be disabled from the iMovie preferences. The best workaround is to select all of the pictures in your timeline and turn off the Ken Burns effect using the Adjust menu.
iMovie Help
http://help.apple.com/imovie/mac/10.0/#mov26d3f6a6c
Modify a crop, rotation, or Ken Burns effect
In the timeline, select the photos you want to modify or restore to their original state.
Click the Adjust button in the toolbar.
The adjustments bar appears above the clip in the viewer.
To show the cropping controls, click the Cropping button.
In the cropping controls, change Style from Ken Burns to Fit to display the pictures in their original size. From there, you can crop them individually as needed.
Best,
Jeremy

I'm looking for a High Definition Ken Burns effect

I put together an hour-long DVD every year of the best photos of my daughter. Every year I've used a program called *Still Life* to add the ubiquitous Ken Burns effect to about 25% of the stills. I've been very happy with the results.
But, lo and behold, we've upgraded this year to an HD television, and suddenly everything changes.
Now it is painfully apparent that *Still Life* can no longer do the job, as its output is noticeably non-HD.
I see how I can do the same basic movement in FCE itself using keyframes, but this movement is static. The thing I liked about *Still Life* was that it started the movement slowly, built up speed, and then slowed the movement at the end. It was smooth. I can't make FCE perform as smoothly. I get visual whiplash when it starts and stops.
I've found some other similar programs-- Photo-to-Movie, MovingPicture, etc.--but none of them output in the same high quality HD that FCE express does. I even tried *iMovie HD*, but it isn't flexible enough (you can't change the start or stop movement times, so that when I transition the clips in FCE, I lose the second before the Ken Burns effect kicks in, and so the overall effect is herky-jerky).
Does anyone have any suggestions for a software solution that exports high quality HD Kens Burns movement for a still photo?
Thanks for any help you can give.

Hi(Bonjour)!
I see on photo to movie spec page that you can export in full 1920 X 1080 H.264 codec, a high quality format usable in FCE.
http://www.lqgraphics.com/software/phototomovieoverview.php
By the way, how do you deliver your HD sequence from your mac to your HD TV set ?
Michel Boissonneault

Wavy movement of Ken Burns

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