why is my video doing this?
 

I just noticed that my footage, when I am doing a pan or tracking shot, shutters and is not smooth. I am using a decent Manfrotto tripod with a 503 head so I know the shot is smooth, it's just when I capture it and play it back, no matter how I render it (mp4, wmv, mov) it looks bad. Even the raw footage does it when I just play it on the computer.

I hope you all can see what I'm talking about. Its like a weird digital image shutter, like it cant keep up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6o_xne2Rdn8

Here it is again but only in the shots that I pan on. (you can see it REALLY good when I pan on the records):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0uALGBG9rs


Any ideas?

I see the video tearing.

A couple of questions:

1) What kind of camera and did you shoot it in interlace or progressive?

2) Did you have any built in Optical Image Stabalization turned on?

Shot in a Canon XL1s / Interlace (I think...) In normal shooting mode the camera reads in interlaced mode right?

Optical Image Stabilization is turned on.

Also my heads are dirty, could that cause it?

It might be dirty heads, but since it only seems to happen when you pan quickly, it may not be.

Try turning off the OIS and shoot a bit more video with panning. See if the problem still exists. I've read a few times that if you move very quickly with the OIS, strange things can happen...especially if you are shooting in 24f mode. It's worth a shot and if it still happens, at least that eliminates one possiblity.

Also clean the heads. But do each one separately and shoot some video so if it does clear up, you'll know what caused it.

Thanks Marcel, I will try that and let you know.

Oliver, does the footage do this when you play it back on TAPE? and you view it on a TV or the camera monitor?

To me it looks like the MP4 encoder is dropping frames.

Dylan, I just watched the same footage directly from the DV tape with my camera hook up to my TV and it looks the same. It's not AS bad, but it
is definitely not normal and smooth like it use to be.

The best way to describe it is how Marcel put it, it looks like it's "tearing" or jagged, almost like the video cant keep up. I'm really hoping I just need to clean the heads.

Well see...

Well ... I didn't have time to look at the footage in detail, but I just loaded it in for a second and noticed you're panning REALLY fast. The XL1S has a "Frame" mode which was canon's method of achieving progressive video back in the day (well, 24f is basically the same thing I believe) at the cost of some resolution. So, you just have to control the speed at which you pan. You probably had the camera switched to that setting.

With film and 24p (and, 30p) you can only move the tripod head so fast before you start noticing weird juttering.

Something I learned on my first time out with the camera.

Always, always, always have Optical Image Stabilization turned off when on a tripod.

As you pan, the camera only sees sideways movement and the OIS tries to stop the movement. So you'll see the footage lag a bit at the start of the pan, then jump into place, then stutter through the rest of the pan.

I shoot with an A1 and had this problem early on. Same for the XL-2.

OIS = Off

I tried it using a head cleaning cassette, turning the OIS off, a new DV tape (fw and rw to pack it), nothing seems to work.

The only thing I can see is a difference in the way the footage looks AFTER capturing it to my computer VS watching it on my TV directly from the camera. It still "tears / shakes / blips" but not how it looks after capturing it. On the TV its more of an even shutter, on the computer its more jerky and abrupt.

I have cleaned the heads about 5 times: once for 20 seconds, and then 4 more times in increments of 10 seconds. No change.
I'm stumped...

Here is some more footage to show you that shows the problem right away (its just not smooth at all):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1BV2bs0Ubg

please excuse my messy studio!

Well its starting to look more and more like some type of circuitry issue.

I don't think its dirty heads or bad heads because when the camera is not panning, the picture looks fine. It's only when you move the camera...almost as if the movement is overloading the circuitry and it can't compress it fast enough to put it on tape. I remember in the early days of reel-to-reel video tape seeing something similar when heads went bad but it would be there regardless of whether the camera was moving or not.

I'm assuming that the picture doesn't do that when you look through the view finder. Can you hook up a tv or monitor and view the camera output live without recording? Just wondering if the picure looks fine from a live output.

One last thing. Are you recording in automatic mode? You might try turning everything to manual and see if it makes a difference. Also, try recording in "movie mode" (I think that was available on the XL1s). Just trying the process of elimination to see if we can narrow it down to something specific.

Unfortunately, It might be time to pay a visit to a Canon authorized repair shop.

Through the view finder it looks fine, I will test it as a live output on my TV and see what it looks like.

I am recording in manual as of now, maybe I should turn it to automatic and see what happens...I am not sure if my camera has "movie mode" but I will look into that.
* I just looked it up and "Frame Mode" is the same as "movie mode" and I am shooting in frame mode.

Thanks for your time and help Marcel.

Well, as I said before, if you're shooting in "Frame" mode that's probably the reason its juttering.

I have always shot in frame mode and its never done this. This is a new problem. I will take it off frame mode and shoot some footage and see what happens.

* Just did a test on automatic using normal mode and it still doing it.

In my experience, that isn't normal...even in Frame mode. Look at the second footage that Oliver posted. The video tears even on slow pans. The only time the video is clean is when the camera is not moving.

I still have an old GL1 (rarely used anymore) which is essentially the same as the XL1 as far as electronics and video goes and I used to shoot only in Frame Mode. It never did that, even on fast pans.

The only time I ever saw anything was when I had it in Frame Mode with OIS on and a super fast pan. And that was a slight jump to position in the video, not tearing.