Poor quality @ 1080 120fps (pixelated)

here you go

https://sjcam.com/sj7-v1-15/

https://sjcam.com/community/threads/unable-to-update-firmware.2122/page-2#post-3965

 

Also, if you can give the settings of the camera when you took video that will help as well.

 

Okay i downgrade to 1.15 and it looks better i think. so i will test tomorrow under good light conditions.

thanks for the moment

all settings was default or auto.

 

My impression with FW 1.20 at 30fps in all resolutions picture is acceptable but @60fps is far better. So my preferable resolution/fps is 1080p or 2.5K @60fps.
720p @60fps also looks very good but changing to upper framerate @720p, 120 or 240 fps picture is bad, pixelated and there is no audio part. In file information what is interesting it shows 30fps nevertheless I chose 120 or 240 before recording.
[email protected] looks ok showing more pixels but picture in general looks better in FHD or 2.5K @60fps.

 

A lot of factors drive the choice of resolution and frame rate. [email protected] fps looks really good when working at relatively low speeds (drones at altitude, walking with a gimbal). I guess 2.whateverK is a compromise between 4K and 1080. At least it doesn't fill up an SD as fast as 4K. IMHO, it doesn't have much value past that point.

For anything other than "pretty pictures", 1080 gets the job done unless it's shown on a huge screen. 120 fps has its value but still fills SD's fairly quickly. A 128 Gb SD will do for about a day and a half of riding when shooting [email protected] fps. 720 and below take up much less space but don't look very good on anything beyond a phone or tablet. Even in a 15 or 17" laptop, the jump from 720 to 1080 is hard to miss.

30 fps for any real speed, from drones making low passes to much higher speeds, is going to have a lot of motion blur. Whether that's desirable is really a director's choice. In a sense, 60 fps seems to slow things up a bit because of the reduced blur. 30 fps can give a strong sense of screaming along, but will be short on detail. Again, it's the director's choice.

A thought about pixilation... there's blurring due to resolution and then there's pixilation, which is generally considered to be large chunks of an image in blocks that have little or no color variation. Jump from 4K to 720 and the image just gets fuzzy. Compress heavily and play back 4K, and it won't look anything like the raw footage - the blocks show up.

ADDED: See my comments about my Swamp Creek video that's linked in an earlier post on this thread.

 

Agreed. At the moment the percentage of people with 4k screens is low in comparison to 1080 screens. The higher the frame rate the faster the shutter which means less motion blur per image and a crisper look which is needed in fast action like sports (remember the Beach explosions in Saving Private Ryan? These were made with a shutter faster than normal to give a crisp stark reality, although the frame rate in this case wasn't increased). At the moment frame rate is the only way to adjust shutter speed.

4k does have other uses other than delivery on 4k screens - although not everyone really wants to do that much post processing (these can include reframing, digital zooming, digital pan or downscaling to a 1080 4:2:2 intermediate codec).

Depending on your subject and rendering software 1080 can provide good results when upscalled to 4k (ok, not as much details as true 4k)

 

Transcoding 1080 or less to 4K will never, ever add new data to the video. I do it to work around YouTube compression. Putting transcoded 1080 on a big screen will only show 1080's limitations more clearly.

For anyone thinking about transcoding to 4K, about 30 minutes of 1080 video will take about 8 hours on a relatively fast, non-gaming machine. Uploading to YT will take at least a couple of hours on a fast Internet connection using fiber optics (e.g., FiOS in the US). YT can take upwards of a day to process the file to 4K (380 shows up fairly quickly). Over weekends (heavy use) the process could be closer to two days. It's not for the impatient.

 

With the FW 1.15 the videos are in better quality. Do all users have problems with the FW after 1.15? Or is it because of different hardware in the cam?

 

I don't know that the cameras released with V1.20 have any significant hardware changes. There may be small production changes, but I don't think anyone has said the found any important changes.

Can you post some of your 1.15 and 1.20 videos (see my not above for the best way to get really good results on YouTube).

 

I am not too sure if this is the right topic for what I am about to say/ask, so sorry in advance.

When my SJ7 arrived I played about filming video, first in 4k, then in 1080/120, 1080/60 and finally in 1080/30.

All the other settings were in auto apart from the quality which was set at fine.

4k was a complete no go on my Mac, although I expected this as it is a 2007 model.

Now what did come as a shock was that even the 1080 videos were not playing right, only the 1080/30 plays without any jittering and pixel blotching.

As I am a bit of a newbie when it comes to filming videos etc, I was wondering if it was due to my old computer. I then tried all the videos apart from the 4k on my wife's 2017 Mac, but the same happened.

My Mac , as I have said above is old, but my wife's has all the newer stuff apart from not being a 4k version.

What are the min requirements to be able to watch 1080 at the higher fps rates?

 

I’ll jump in here as I’ve got a MacBook too, late 2011.

What did you use to view the videos?

I have playback problems with VLC player where my videos are blocky and jumpy, however, watching them back using the native QuickTime app I don’t have any playback problems.

 

Aha, yes, VLC is what I was using, LoL.

OK, I shall give QuickTime a go. Does it make any difference if it is QuickTime Pro (that is what I have) Damian?

 

I wouldn’t have thought so, although I don’t have the pro version, just the standard install that comes with macOS.

 

In general, despite having many good features (and literally refusing to add some) VLC is can be a very cranky app. Which is a pity because of the good stuff it can do. Bottom line: try some other video playback apps that are MacOS specific.

The key metric regarding video playback is the video bandwidth (don't sweat the meaning - just take as a "figure of merit"). Apps like MediaInfo will show that value. Anything above about 150 Mbps will need a serious machine (e.g., good to high end gamer). NTL you shouldn't have trouble playing back 4K MP4's recorded on the SJ7. VLC, on this Win10 machine, struggles with 4K occasionally, too.

 

Hi Guy's. I'm a new Sj Cam user and a first time action cam shooter.

I had the same issue when recording at higher resolution at higher frame rates ( >or = 60 fps ) while keeping the cam stationary with slight body movement of subject. My version is 1.8.

But I get acceptable or good video quality at 1080p, 720p or 960p at slower frame rates like 30 fps. I also changed from NTSC to PAL on the TV setting.

Is this normal or should I also downgrade like others to get better video quality at higher frame rates ?

 

Actually your lower frame rate video looks better with less pixelation.

 

First, upgrade the firmware to 1.20 - the current release version.

Where are you located? If you have 60 Hz power, stay with NTSC. If you have 50 Hz power, PAL is the better choice. The frame rates will be keyed to either 60 (30, 60, 120 fps) or 50 (25, 50, 100 fps).

Regardless of that, [email protected] 30/25 fps should give sharp, crisp images - if the camera isn't moving very much. If you're shooting from a bicycle, car, etc., 60/50 fps is needed.

Can you post a sample of your pixilated 4K video - or at least a single frame from 4K video.

 

Per evidenziare la scarsa qualità delle riprese video con risoluzione 1080p 120fps allego un video di confronto fatto con SJ7 stella v.1.20, impostazioni standard. .

 

Can you put the two clips ([email protected] and [email protected]) where they can be downloaded? The [email protected] doesn't look as though it's really 1080. I want to inspect it with MediaInfo to find out what it really is.

 

i have same problem with 1080 120 fps. very bad pixelation and artifacts. pretty much useless mode to use at my sj7