Desperately seeking help

[goldpanini]

I am new to video. I have shot footage for our church with the hv20 on 24p and cine mode. Don't ask me why. Well, I've captured the video with sony vegas 7.0 and created the dvd with dvd architect and the footage is very "jerky" with tremendous motion blur. It is a church project and I hate to see it this way. Any ideas on how I could remedy or even improve this situation? The footage is about 90 minutes from a church function with dancing and much movement.

Once I am done with this project I'll try and learn how to shoot correctly in the first place...

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

[24Peter]

I shoot 24p video with or without CineMode from my HV20 and render to DVD in DVDA4 all the time and the footage looks great, so I suspect the problem is with how you're rendering your footage, not with how you shot it.

1. What are the project's properties in Vegas? (file>properties) Make sure they match the native .m2t files that come out of the camera.

2. What are your render settings? You probably want to start with DVDA widescreen NTSC (if you're in the US).

Note: In neither case should you be using 24p /23.97 fps. You must use 29.97 fps in Vegas for your timeline/project properties as well as for your render format (unless you are removing pulldown with another software first and it doesn't sound like you are).

[Doctor F.]

Hi, a couple of questions,
(1) does the footage look jerky when the tape is played back in the HV20 and viewed on the LCD (or on a TV screen) ?
(2) does the downloaded (raw) footage look jerky when played on the PC ?
(3) are you working with DV or HDV, into Sony Vegas ?

If the answers to 1 and 2 are No, then it must be the rendering or creation of the DVD which is causing the problem and all is not lost. I assume this is SD DVD and not HD DVD or Blu-Ray ? Can you create the DVD with some other program, if that seems to be the problem ?

I have recorded in 25P (here in the UK its PAL standard, hence not 24P as with NTSC HV20s) and have not seen this problem, even with fast moving subjects. If anything you should be seeing a motion blur rather than jerkiness.

Just read 24Peter's comments, this is probably the problem/solution.

[goldpanini]

Wow, you guys are very quick to reply. I really appreciate it. For a newbie like myself these forums are lifesavers.
I'll look into the properties and rendering issues. I hope that's it. I am at work now have to wait till I get home. I think the properties are set @ 23.97p. I will render again with the native settings.

Btw, is there a way to reduce the amount of motion blur?

Thanks again for your quick response. Will keep you posted.

[jimbresnahan]

First make sure the excessive motion blur isn't on the original .m2t. When the HV20 is set to 24p/cine, it may drop the shutter to 1/24 when shooting indoors, and this would be the source of your extra motion blur.

[goldpanini]

Thanks. If the excessive motion blur is on the original m2t, would there be a way to remedy or improve that in any way?

[Doctor F.]

Thanks. If the excessive motion blur is on the original m2t, would there be a way to remedy or improve that in any way?

Hi,
I have just checked recording in Cine Mode (and 25P) in a dark room (its getting dark now in England, 21:30 hours) and I am pretty certain it is maintaining 1/50 shutter speed (I have compared the video against TV Mode, locking the shutter speed to 1/50 sec). I am certain it hasn’t dropped to 1/25 sec. (Read 1/48 and 1/24 for NTSC HV20).

I recorded a band a few days back, using 25P, and intentionally set to 1/25 shutter speed, to get a better exposure in poor light. The singer was pretty active/agitated at times, I didn’t perceive much motion blur, in fact very little if any blurring (just re-checked). “Excessive” blurring I would expect at 1/12 or 1/6 shutter speed, but these shouldn’t be possible in Cine Mode and 24P.

If the excessive blur is on the original (tape) footage I don’t think there is much, if anything, you can do to correct it (apart from edit out the “worst” parts). If you are absolutely certain you were in Cine Mode, then from what I have just checked with my own HV20, I don’t see how you could get “excessive” blurring, unless the HV20 had a fault.

Hopefully your problem is with the rendering or DVD creation; let us know how you get on.
(Maybe we will need to see what you mean by Excessive blurring, if it's there in the raw video data).