Credit flickering

[plugues]

So, I'm not a compositor, I only dabble a little, but I'm helping out a friend to create an end roll credits for his documentary short. We got a great vertical roll sequence ready. This is 2K, and he's getting it printed on film as soon as we're done. However, when I export this to pretty much any video format, I get some amount of flickering on the text. Typeface is neither too thin or too thick (Optima 24px at 2K)

I've done some research, and got a mixed bag of answers. Some people say we have to use a pixel/second speed that is numerically compatible with either NTSC or PAL. However, this isn't just NTSC, it's also going to film... Do we need two separate credit rolls?

I've noticed the flickering gets nastier if we shrink the video player window. However, the same does not happen if I'm playing a Hollywood movie, even in tiny 640x480 windows and smaller. Is it typical to blur out text on credit roll? I'm experimenting with Gaussian at 2.0, but I think it's too degrading.

All we got is AE, btw. Any help appreciated!

[alexandru]

ok .. let's set straight some guidelines, after that you'll be able to supply more details.
resolution is 2k. the pixels should be sqaure (aspect ratio 1). your footage should be progressive, so 24p. after that, if you'll just export as dpx sequence, there will be no flickering on the film print. if you want to preview it on your computer, make sure the format you export in is: progressive, has square pixels, has the same framerate as the original comp (24 per second), is not using any unheard codec or smth. as a suggestion, just try to export it as an mpeg2 with good settings if you're on windows or a quicktime with photo-jpeg compresion and quality set to 10 if you're on mac.

[jeremybrown]

what compression are you using and at what quality? you said that it gets worse if you scale the video player down? it seems to me like your problem isn't the frame rate or anything, but rather the way you're viewing it.

[alexandru]

what compression are you using and at what quality? you said that it gets worse if you scale the video player down? it seems to me like your problem isn't the frame rate or anything, but rather the way you're viewing it.

a dpx sequence shouldn't have any problems on film printing, do you agree jeremy? so there isn't any real problem, just a preview one.

[plugues]

Square pixels check, 23.976 fps. I've exported using ProRes 422 HQ, Animation and Tiff sequence, all with same results. If I use Gaussian Blur I get somewhat decent scrolling text. It makes sense that it won't flicker on film, but will it be too sharp?

[alexandru]

first of all, on film it should be 24fps, not 23.976 ... there is no dropframe on film.
too sharp? are you kidding me? if you don't want your text blurry, if you want it readable, just leave it as it is. if it's scrolling to fast to achieve some sense of realism don't add gaussian blur, but check the motion blur button in AE on the layer and on the comp, though i suggest NOT USING blur at all. it's a text, it's credits, it should be sharp and readable.
third, don't use prores 422 that TV stuff. that basically means that on 4 pixels of luminance value it stores only 2 for the first chrominance value and 2 for the second one. translation: when using COLOR footage, you'll get some color spilling due to compression. so .. if you're on a MAC .. just go with quicktime MOV -> at codec choose Animation and leave its quality to MAX. this will result in a huge file. if you're computer can't play this realtime, no problem. export again quicktime MOV -> at codec choose Photo JPEG and choose a good quality (9/10 should be enough) ... export and playback.

[plugues]

I'll do that and get back with results. Thanks!

[jeremybrown]

chiming in a little late:

i thought it was a playback problem, but it now sounds more like you need motion blur as alexandru has suggested. and it seems like you're going to try everything he said, all of which sounds like a good idea.

my post seems useless now, lol.