Flicker-free rolling titles in Premiere?

[Andreas Wideroe]

Guys,
This isn't exactly a super8 question, but for me it's relevant. I just finished a super8 short film and I've added a rolling text (or a vertical scroll text) to the end of it. It's white text on black background - pretty standard stuff. Nevertheless, I'm soon going to go completely mental due to the text flickering bigtime!

My question is: How can I get a flicker-free rolling title in Adobe Premiere 6.0 ? I'm on a PC using rather small fonts and aprox. normal scroll speed. I've checked "video options-flicker remove"), but still it plays back jerky on a TV.

Help!

/Andreas

[Guest]

Hey there Andreas.

It seems Premiere, Final Cut Pro, Etc all have crappy internal title editors that all similarly produce a poor flickering title, most obvious when they scroll. I recommend you make your titles as stills in Adobe Photoshop (add a little gaussian blur to the final title to soften the edges) and then either use Adobe After Effects (if you have it) or import it into Premiere and then use the image pan filter to scroll throgh the title. I highly recommend you try anything but using the title maker that comes with these programs. If anyone else knows of a better method, please feel free to add your information. I also think the bigger the titles the less the edge flickering you will get.

[jessh]

Guys,
....Nevertheless, I'm soon going to go completely mental due to the text flickering bigtime!....

what does the flicker look like? I had lots of fun last night with flicker because the stupid video kept getting a reversed field order. Does it look like it is jumping up and down as it goes?I haven't played with rolling titles in premiere but static ones have worked well for me, they looked horrible on my computer screen(and im not sure why) but they looked great when I output to video. Might want to try making the text bigger if possible, small text and NTSC don't seem to go well together

~Jess

[MovieStuff]

Hi, Andreas!

There are several things that will make type flicker on video. If you use a sarif type face, the sarifs are often thinner than the horizontal raster lines of the screen, therefore they "blink" on and off as they travel up or down.

Try using a sans-serif type face.

Also, use a bold type face as opposed to something that has thin lines.

Avoid type with varying horizontal line weights.

Also, make sure that your aren't clipping on the whites. It is best to use an off-white so that the transition from black to white is more subtle. In fact, you can almost use a grey and it will still read as white against the black and that will go a long way toward ridding yourself of chatter.

And finally, the "flicker removal" will only work on something that has already been rendered. So, do all the things I just described and render out the end titles. If they still chatter slightly save that render as a separate video clip and apply the "flicker removal" to the new clip. That will remove the residual chatter but will soften the image a bit.

The problem you are experiencing is not limited to Premier or any other edit program. Often when movies play on TV, the end titles will jitter all over the place for the very reasons I outlined above.

Roger

[S8 Booster]

Hello Andreas, what framerate do you use for the edited film/title? If you use frame rates of less than 25 fps the text animation will be at least less than smooth running and if you use a different framerate on the edited film from your original raw movie (25 raw to 15 edited) uneven movement may occour.

Do you superimpose the text on film or on a static single colour background
or is it a "clean text" animation?

My experience is that black or white text is prefferable to most colours, especially if the result ends up on a anlogue video tape format. Red is poison.

Do not know if this is the problem you run into but it still is factors to be aware of.

Can you post a sample film of the problem you run into on your upload site here to see exactly where you get stuck?

Might be easier to see exactly what the problem is.

RGDS

[Nicolai]

Hi!

There is a simple but effective solution....you have to de-interlace the clip. I suppose that you work with DV. The field order should be"lower field - upper field". If you want flicker-free scrolling text, you have to set the clip properties to "de-interlace" and export it without rendering fields, too.
After it you can multiplex the film (which is interlaced) and the credits (non-interlaced) with Virtualdub [url]http://www.virtualdub.org[/org] (open video->set everything to direct stream-copy->add video stream....-->save as)[/url][/b]

[Andreas Wideroe]

Hello Andreas, what framerate do you use for the edited film/title? If you use frame rates of less than 25 fps the text animation will be at least less than smooth running and if you use a different framerate on the edited film from your original raw movie (25 raw to 15 edited) uneven movement may occour.

I use 25fps, standard PAL in Premiere.

Do you superimpose the text on film or on a static single colour background
or is it a "clean text" animation?

Just clean text from Adobe Premiere's text tool.

Can you post a sample film of the problem you run into on your upload site here to see exactly where you get stuck?

Well, the problem isn't related to computer versions of the film, Ie. mpg and so on, but it's primarily visible when the film is played back on a TV or a (TV) monitor.

I know from others that they use specific timings to obtain a text scroll that is as good as possible. I would be interested in some numbers here.

/Andreas

[Andreas Wideroe]

And finally, the "flicker removal" will only work on something that has already been rendered. So, do all the things I just described and render out the end titles. If they still chatter slightly save that render as a separate video clip and apply the "flicker removal" to the new clip. That will remove the residual chatter but will soften the image a bit.

Hi Roger!

I've actually had great success with checking the "flicker removal" option on any still-text clips. It works great for me without saving it as a seperate file. However, you still need to render the clip after this has been added.

/Andreas

[Andreas Wideroe]

I was at a Premiere and After Effects seminar a few days ago and the guys from Adobe told me the text-tool and flicker-thing is something they will improved greatly in the 7.0 release of Premiere which will be out soon.

Still, I want to make it with my 6.0 too!

[mattias]

here's the solution: make sure the text moves an even number of pixels every frame, keeping the edges in the same field. all the other suggestions are good too. especially the off-white and blurring suggestions...

/matt

[MovieStuff]

And finally, the "flicker removal" will only work on something that has already been rendered. So, do all the things I just described and render out the end titles. If they still chatter slightly save that render as a separate video clip and apply the "flicker removal" to the new clip. That will remove the residual chatter but will soften the image a bit.

I've actually had great success with checking the "flicker removal" option on any still-text clips. It works great for me without saving it as a seperate file. However, you still need to render the clip after this has been added.

Hi, Andreas!

Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. The flicker removal will work on stills and still type as you mentioned; I use it myself all the time. However, the flicker that you are seeing when you create rolling text doesn't "exist" until AFTER the moving text is rendered; not before, because the chatter is created by the movement. Therefore, the flicker removal won't "see" it, even if you apply the flicker removal during the render of the roll.

However, if you render out the credit roll using the methods I mentioned above (off white type, even letter weights, etc), that will minimize the chatter to a point that the flicker removal can take care of the rest but only AFTER the rolling text has been exorted as a new clip. That is because the new clip will have the "chatter" built in to each frame due to the differences in pixel count from field to field, as Mattia pointed out. THEN when you apply the "flicker removal", it will smooth out each frame of the credit roll.

I know this all sounds counter-intuitive but I've done this many times and it works perfectly for probleml type that the client insists on using. If it's my project, I just choose a type face that meets all the criteria for not producing chatter!

Roger

[Andreas Wideroe]

Anyone know what the field order for Pinnacle StudioDV PAL should be set to?

[rhcvatni]

Not really helpfull what I wrote here, so I romoved it. Sorry!

[S8 Booster]

Hi Andreas.

Found this info at Adam Wilt´s VERY EXTENSIVE WEB pages on DVfilmmaking. I belive that anything worth knowing about DV is explained in detail here. Recommend everybody to make a visit there.

I posted an extract about the CG titling. If you follow the link and scroll down the page you will find the GC titling part. In that text there are many highlighted links in the text to samples that shows/describes the various details described.

As far as I can see all of your problems and how to avoid them is described here.

http://www.adamwilt.com/Tidbits.html

Character Generators & Titling:

I spent almost four years writing software for the Abekas A72 in the early '90's; I learned a lot about what works and what doesn't work when putting text on a video screen.

Doing good CG in interlaced video is trickier than you might think. Doing it right in compressed interlaced video (such as DV) is even harder. With interlace, you can have problems of line twitter on static or moving text, as well as roll-induced "crawlies" and distortions. With compression, you add problems of codec pathologies. And there are always pitfalls associated with colors and bandwidth.

Line twitter occurs when you have fine, single-line detail that appears in one field but not in the other. The detail so rendered will flicker at the frame rate, while the rest of the image updates at the field rate. The frame rate (29.97 Hz in 525-line NTSC; 25 Hz in 625-line PAL) is slow enough that your eye notices the flicker, and it's very annoying.

First, make sure that the fonts you use don't have fine, single-line horizontal strokes that will show up as line twitter. Llook at heavier fonts in the same family: instead of light or roman, look at bold, extrabold, or black variants. But bear in mind that instead of using Coronet or Script Light, you might have to switch to Helvetica or Times Bold. Often I find that the delicate typefaces I prefer in print work just won't translate properly to video, and I have to find something else instead.

If you're dead-set on using a fine, light typeface, try building a font that thickens up the strokes: use outline, soften, glow, or extrusion (solid drop shadow) effects in a similar color or brightness. Sometimes a soft drop shadow in a similar color with a minimal offset can be used -- even Premiere 4.2's limited text capabilities will give you that much!

The problem with interlace and rolls is that as the text moves up the screen, its position with respect to each field's line structure can either change, or stay the same. If it stays the same, your text will look as good moving as it does when it's still. If it changes, the text will lose resolution and may flicker, disort, and crawl around as it rolls.

Imagine characters in a screen font with a height of 10 lines. When placed on a page at its starting position, the even scanlines in the character all fall on the even video field, while the odd scanlines fall on the odd field. As the text sits there, the even fields show lines 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 in the text, while the odd fields show lines 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9. All ten scanlines in the text are seen over the course of any two fields.

Now start a roll. Any decent CG updates the roll on a field basis; after one field is displayed, the text is moved up a certain amount for the next field, up the same amount for the next field, and so on.

Let's say that the director wants a nice, slow roll, to kill some time. You've selected 60 lines/second (CGs that allow you to set the roll rate usually use scanlines per second as the measure, and in NTSC-land the 59.94 Hz field rate is rounded to 60 Hz to keep operators from getting bogged down in fractional math. If you're in PAL-land, assume you're rolling at 50 lines/second for this example), and pushed the "go" key on the CG.

Now in the first even field, character scanlines 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 are shown. Next the text is moved up one scanline because at a nominal field rate of 60 Hz, one scanline per field results in 60 lines per second. So when the odd field is displayed, the text, being up one line from its even-field position, has lines 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 displayed again -- and lines 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9 don't get put onscreen! The next vertical interval comes along, and the text is moved up one line again, so that the even scanlines once again appear in the even field. The next vertical interval arrives, and up goes the text again -- one line! -- so that the next odd field, like all the even and odd fields before it, shows the even scanlines of the text. The odd scanlines in the text never appear onscreen!

The result is half-vertical-resolution text that looks awful. Thin horizontal strokes will either appear about twice as thick as they should, or twice as thin, depending on your luck (sometimes you get the evens, sometimes the odd scanlines, depending on the CG you're using, the initial position of the text, and the field timing when you press the "go" key).

Now go back and double the roll speed, to 120 lines/second (or 100 lines/second if using a 625/50 CG). Now, the first even field shows the even scanlines. Come the vertical interval, the text is moved up two lines (two lines per field times 60 fields per second gives 120 lines per second); the relative positioning of the text with respect to the field structure remains the same, since the even scanlines are moved up two lines to the next higher even scanline, while the odds are moved up to the next higher odd line. When the odd field is displayed, the odd scanlines in the text are shown, just as they should be! The full vertical resolution of the text remains.

You may have noticed a pattern here. When the roll rate (in lines/second) was the same as the field rate (in fields/second), the roll looked awful. When the roll rate was twice the field rate, things looked fine. As it turns out, this relationship holds for all integer multiples: roll rates that are odd multiples of the field rate look awful. Even multiples look great. Thus for 525/59.94 (or 525/60, more or less) video, good roll rates are 120, 240, 360, and the like. In 625/50, the good ones are 100, 200, 300, 400, and so on.

Unfortunately, in 525/59.94 the only two decent rates that are slow enough to be read are 120 and 240 (and the latter only on a good day!). 625/50 video is better -- not only are the roll rates about 20% slower, there are almost 20% more active scanlines in a frame, so in 625 you can roll at 100, 200, and 300 lines/second without straining any eyeballs.

What about roll rates that aren't integer multiples of the field rate? As you might guess, as the text moves, its positional relationship to the field structure no longer follows an integral structure, but changes on a field-by-field basis. This leads to two things:
1) Unless the CG you are using offers sub-pixel positioning, the roll won't be able to execute smoothly, and the text will stutter or judder up the screen.
2) The roll motion will "beat" with the field structure, as the scanlines themselves appear to roll through the text (at a rate proportional to the difference between the roll rate and the nearest integral multiple of the field rate), causing time-dependent rippling distortions of the text (the "crawlies") that look really horrible.

What real CGs do to avoid this is to offer only the "good" rates by default; extra work is required to set arbitrary roll rates. When you select timed rolls (the total time is set, rather than the speed), better CGs will fiddle things to wind up with a good rate. Some may just pick the rate that comes closest to meeting the desired time; some Chyrons run part of the roll at one rate, then "shift gears" to finish at a different rate to get the desired total duration; the A72 (and probably the Texus) "adaptively spaces" the text in the roll, stretching or compressing the vertical line spacing to allow a good roll rate to be used and still meet the time target.

What crummy CGs offer in the way of speed control is none at all. For example in Premiere 5.0, where they've finally understood that folks want to roll credits, there are no tools for setting or even reporting roll rates in the titler: one just has to adjust things by trial and error. This stinks: if you're stuck with such a CG and need to produce for interlaced video, complain loudly to the vendor about their lousy non-video-aware tools, and then go look for a CG that does things right (Inscriber Technology's CG is one of the few that does; you might also check out Pinnacle's TypeDeko on the PC, McRobert's Comet CG on the Mac, and Boris Graffiti on PC or Mac. These may offer proper controls... and there may be others out there as well. Let me know what you come up with and how well it works -- or doesn't).

RGDS