Guides

Phone and screen recordings stutter in the edit

Smartphones, screen recordings and recordings of video calls are often made with a variable frame rate: when little is happening in the picture or the device is busy, fewer frames per second are recorded. In the edit this has to fit a constant frame rate – single frames are repeated or dropped along the way. The result: irregular hitches, and in longer clips sometimes audio that slowly drifts.

How to recognise it

• Single stutters without a fixed interval.
• The footage comes from a phone or is a screen or call recording.
• Picture and sound drift apart over longer clips.

Whether a clip has a variable frame rate is shown, for example, by the free program MediaInfo (“Frame rate mode: Variable”).

Fix: convert to a constant frame rate before editing

1. Convert the clip to a constant frame rate that matches the sequence (for example 25 fps) – with Adobe Media Encoder (set a fixed frame rate) or HandBrake (“Constant Framerate” option).
2. Replace the clip in the project with the converted version: right-click → Replace Footage.
3. Check the edit, export again and check the file.

If frames are already missing

Premiere cannot bring back frames that were lost during recording. In After Effects, duplicate frames can be replaced with calculated in-between frames – with Time Remapping and Pixel Motion, see Repair a finished file. Last resort in Premiere: cut out the duplicate frame with the Razor tool (C) and remove it with Edit → Ripple Delete; the shot becomes one frame shorter.