I'm pretty new to video and I'm trying to figure out what is causing a strange wobble/swimming effect in my recordings.

In the attached original clip, parts of the image seem to shake or deform. It is easiest to see in the vertical blinds on the left side but it affects the entire video.

This is not playback stuttering or an audio-sync issue. The actual geometry of the image appears to move/wobble, particularly around the blinds.

Setup

• Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra
• Rear camera through a teleprompter
• DroidCam connected to the PC by USB, not Wi-Fi
• DroidCam OBS source in OBS
• Recording locally, not streaming
• OBS canvas/output: 1920×1080
• 30 fps
• DroidCam video format: AVC/H.264
• OBS recording encoder: NVENC H.264
• Continuous lighting
• Separate PDX400 microphone

The phone/teleprompter assembly is mounted on my desk in front of me. The phone/teleprompter assembly appears stationary during recording.

I'm sitting a couple of feet away and don't touch the desk, microphone, keyboard tray, phone mount, etc. while recording. There is no fan or air conditioning running, and the blinds themselves aren't moving.

My computer is underneath the desk but does not physically touch it. Nothing with any moving parts is on or touching my desk.

Camera details

DroidCam gives me two rear-camera choices: 0 - Back and 2 - Back.

I verified which physical lens each one corresponds to by covering the lenses with my finger:

• 0 - Back = middle large camera in the vertical stack
• 2 - Back = top large camera in the vertical stack

I'm not positive which camera I used for the problem recording, or exactly what zoom level I was using.

Because of the teleprompter opening, I sometimes have to zoom in enough that the edge of the teleprompter is no longer visible in frame.

One other oddity is that the way the phone sits in the teleprompter mount causes the mount to press against the phone's power button. It does not appear to trigger the button or shut the phone off, but the phone is physically being pressed there while mounted.

Things I've tried in post

I've tried several stabilization and rolling-shutter correction tools, including CapCut, DaVinci Resolve, and Premiere.

They generally made the problem worse by causing the entire frame to move, drift, or warp.

I'm mainly trying to understand what is happening at capture so I can prevent it in future recordings, although I'd also be interested to know whether the existing footage is realistically repairable.

Questions

• What is actually causing this wobble/swimming effect?
• Is there any realistic way to improve the footage I've already recorded without making the whole frame move or warp?
• Which S23 Ultra rear camera would you recommend for a fixed indoor talking-head setup like this, and why?
• Is there anything else about my setup or recording settings that you would change?

The attached sample is from the original OBS recording with no stabilization or correction applied.

If another specific DroidCam, OBS, phone-camera, or mounting setting would help diagnose it, tell me what to check, and I'll add it.

I have aphantasia, which means I have no mental imagery or inner voice. When I tried IFS, I could never see or hear any of my parts, no matter how many times I called out to them.

One day, when I was overwhelmed with sadness, I assumed I might be blended with a part. I had no sense that anything was there, but I sent a thought out into the void anyway, asking whatever part was with me to stop sending me more sadness than I could handle.

I didn't get any response or confirmation. But over the following weeks, I realized the sadness had stopped overwhelming me.

I made a short video about the experience in case it's useful to anyone else who struggles with the visualization aspect of IFS.

https://youtu.be/xOd5dBK-TqA

I've been at this for about 5 months. 126 subscribers, 22 longforms, around 132 shorts. And most of my videos sit at roughly 30 views.

I'm not here to vent. I'm here because I genuinely can't see what's wrong from the inside, and I'd rather hear something uncomfortable from a stranger than keep guessing.

A little about what I make: I talk about perception, communication, relationships, and emotional clarity. How we misread our own internal signals and treat our interpretations as facts. I also talk about my aphantasia (I can't visualize anything mentally) and SDAM, a condition where autobiographical memory doesn't form the way it does for most people. That's not the whole channel, but it's part of my story and part of where my perspective comes from.

My one SDAM video has 515 views and brought in exactly 30 of my 126 subscribers on its own. Every other longform averages around 30 views. I've tried making more SDAM content but the follow-ups didn't land anywhere near as well. I think the original captured the experience so completely that there wasn't much left to mine.

The rest of my content is talking head, clean background, good audio and lighting. I put real time into scripts, thumbnails, titles, and metadata. I make clips from my longforms into shorts. The feedback I get from people who do watch is consistently positive.

But almost nobody finds it. And I'll be honest: it's a little deflating when I see posts here about 300 views being a disappointment. That would be a runaway success for me right now.

Screenshots of my video list below so you can see what I mean.

I'm open to hearing anything. Maybe it's the pacing. Maybe it's the framing. Maybe it's something in how I'm presenting myself that I just can't see from the inside.

If you want to take a look, I'll drop the channel link in the comments.