Today, we are going to learn another essential skill in 360 video post-production.
I will teach you how to solve the problem commonly found in consumer and professional
VR cameras - flicker.
Flicker is very common in 360 videos.
You can find that even in the official Insta360 commercial, for example, Brandon Li's One
Day In Hong Kong, right here.
In general, there are TWO kinds of flicker - global full-frame flicker and local partial
flicker.
We will take a look at the global flicker in the Insta360 ONE X and how to solve it
and also a more professional setup with the Kandao Obsidian R with a partial local flicker
in the frame.
We will apply techniques like rotoscoping to get the best result for professional VR
footage.
Flicker is one of the key reasons why people get sick in VR headsets.
But also the most underrated one.
You know that feeling that some 360 videos just look better even with the same camera
and you can't really figure it out why.
Well, after this tutorial, you will know why and how to get better.
Let's dive right in.
Hey, what's up everybody, it's your boy Hugh here from CreatorUp - the #1 YouTube channel
dedicated to 360 Virtual Reality Filmmaking for everyone.
This is the second video focusing on how to improve your 360 video image quality using
Post Production magic.
You can not really deflicker until you remove small sensor noise from your 360 camera.
If you have no idea what I am talking, please check this denoising tutorial first before
watching this video.
Since lots of pro-level users subscribed on this channel, I want to go a little bit deeper.
Let's talk about professional input and consumer input.
If your video is shot on an Arri Alexa or RED in raw, from a consumer's perspective,
they actually look more noisey compare to a consumer input like from any 360 camera
or even some DSLR.
Why is that?
Well consumer camera like the new dji osmo pocket, or your insta360 ONE X has internal
denoising to make the footage "look good" even in low light - for marketing purposes.
But it is not really good if you are a Professional who films with the blackmgaic, Alexa or RED.
There is a workflow in POST to remove those predictable noises with DaVinci Resolve or
Neat Video and make the footage look cinematic.
But for consumer cameras, b/c of this horrible, unwanted in-camera denoising, it makes the
POST workflow hard to judge what is sensor noise anymore.
You see by-product like flicker and jitter in these consumer cameras - which is one of
the reasons give 360 video a very bad reputation.
It is our job as content creators to learn how to fix that and it is camera manufactorure's
responsibility to turn that horrible in camera denoising off
Just like all my in-depth tutorials, I will first help you to spot the issue in your own
footage, then the reason why it happens, and then how to fix it.
Identify the problem usually the first win toward solving the issue.
Not all flickers need to be fixed depending on your post-production budget.
And there are many ways to fix it.
First, we have global flicker.
Let's take a look at this sunrise footage I shot at London, United Kingdom with the
Insta360 ONE X.
There is something wrong with this footage, but you can't really pinpoint the problem.
Let me help you here.
Bring up your RGB Waveform in Lumetri and play the footage, now you see the problem.
The video suddenly changes in brightness and detail every 8th frame.
This is because the video codec inside ONE X, or any small sensor 360 camera treats these
groups of frames together, in order to achieve better compression.
However, the effect is the jarring change in brightness and jumps of details that we
recognize as flicker.
Sometimes it’s almost invisible, other times – very distracting.
Global flicker is usually mixed with local flicker as well with small sensor 360 camera.
Let's take a look at this walking shot in Mix lighting, again, captured with the Insta360
ONE X.
It is a great emotional shot with Miller - part of our Special Olympics docuseries.
It will not have the same emotional impact if I film this moment with a rover and a
professional camera like the Insta360 Pro 2.
But, as you see, the flicker will prob give my viewers a seizure and send them straight
to the hospital.
How to fix that.
Again there are many ways to fix this.
The most effective ways I found is using NeatVideo version 5.
Let me show you how...