Motion tracking and stabilization

[TonR]

No Thanks,

I self work only whith SD footage, and when you play a little whith the settings i get a pretty good result.

When the result is a little to soft I put the shrapness filter on it, and the result looks for SD allmost the same as the original!

Ton

[mrobaj]

Hi Ton!

Thanks for the tip. I tried it and it did a good job.
Unfortunately I don't have money for it lately.
Maybe if somebody buys it I'll try to borow it ...? :)

Thanks again!!!

[pjsssss]

I was impressed enough to buy it. If you read the pdf, it gives some clues on how to get the best results. It certainly is not going to magically make all bad shots steady, but it will save some shots. I have not tried it on HDV yet.

[Angelo]

No Thanks,

I self work only whith SD footage, and when you play a little whith the settings i get a pretty good result.

When the result is a little to soft I put the shrapness filter on it, and the result looks for SD allmost the same as the original!

Ton

That's what caused the softness, the zoom. I've emailed support if there was a way to totally disable zooming.

Thanks...Angelo

[Angelo]

I was impressed enough to buy it. If you read the pdf, it gives some clues on how to get the best results. It certainly is not going to magically make all bad shots steady, but it will save some shots. I have not tried it on HDV yet.

I bought it for the same reason as I do mostly hand held.

...Angelo

[John_Glantz]

Try this one out! http://www.2d3.com/html/products/ste..._overview.html

[xmanflash]

That's what caused the softness, the zoom. I've emailed support if there was a way to totally disable zooming.

Thanks...Angelo

The zoom is pretty integral to how the system works though - it allows you to have some spare edge to crop off, avoiding having to rebuild the missing areas all the time.. I dont think this can be avoided unless there is a perfect zoom system somewhere that can make an image look as good at 90% zoomed to 100%..

However I am liking the idea of HDV > SD option.. where zoom is able to retain much better quality..

[Solitaire]

Hi,
Another alternative is a two part programme. 'Virtualdub' and a plug in 'Deshaker'. BOTH these programmes can be downloaded FREE (legally).
One big advantage is that you don't have to zoom in as the programme will infill the borders by looking at the last and next 30 frames or whatever you set it for. This works very well for normal shake but like all the others a really big movement like tripping over the tripod or being nudged is not so effective. I have found that you can put a clip through and if not fully corrected put the adjusted clip through again and the clarity is extremely good. It works well with tilting and panning and can be used raw footage with the different takes one after the other.
Downside:
The programme uses the first 30 and previous 30 (default value) frames therefore you lose these frames in the final output.
It is slow as 2 passes have to be made, however if the output is not good enough and you havent closed the programme the slow first pass can be reused.
It doesn't plug into Edius
There are instructions also on the web. Well worth a try as it is totally free.
Keith

[Solitaire]

Hi again,
Just a little thought:- As the programmes in my last post are free it might be an idea for GV to possibly approach the programme writers and licence them and re-engineer them to plug into Edius making Edius one of the few editing programmes to have a built in stabilisation facility.
Keith

[Fred Dwyer]

I've got to add a vote for the quality of Deshaker. It's a pain in the neck to use since it's a separate process (not a plug in) but it comes awfully close to working miriacles. My wife's grand-niece got married and the ceremony was video'd by a person who had never before used a video camera, NEVER BEFORE!! The footage was as bad as you might expect, but using Deshaker I was able to produce a reasonable 1/2 hour video of the event. The degree of correction and the quality is outstanding.

[xmanflash]

I've got to add a vote for the quality of Deshaker. It's a pain in the neck to use since it's a separate process (not a plug in) but it comes awfully close to working miriacles. My wife's grand-niece got married and the ceremony was video'd by a person who had never before used a video camera, NEVER BEFORE!! The footage was as bad as you might expect, but using Deshaker I was able to produce a reasonable 1/2 hour video of the event. The degree of correction and the quality is outstanding.

I have always had lots of problems trying to get it to work properly.. When I did it was great..

[mattmatt]

"After Effects has a stabilisor as well. I wonder how they compare?"

After FX stabaliser is very flexible and very powerful (only on Pro versions I think). You have infinate control on the resulting stabalised footage, because each movement is keyframed.

I export canopus lossless from edius timeline, stabalise with after fx, render canopus lossless and import back into edius, its great.
As for the quality of zooms, I'm sure after fx would be better than Edius's layout zoom - but I'm basing this on the blur comparisons. Edius's blur is horrid compared to after fx.....

Andrew Kramer (www.videocopilot.net) has some great tutorials on stabalising and tracking.

[wags]

Hi Guys
Here is a before and after 1280/720 wmv I did with it from the EDIUS HDV timeline.

5 megs each

http://www.hdvunderwater.com/prodad/shaky2a.wmv

http://www.hdvunderwater.com/prodad/shaky2.wmv

Very easy and quick to use....works rather well.

[vortigern]

That s very impresssive just inverted the picture and the shake had gone. When I do the same with SD however of an open carriage taken from a walking (non steady) cam shot of the occupants I got horrible artefacts on the edge of the picture. What setting did you use.

[Angelo]

That s very impresssive just inverted the picture and the shake had gone. When I do the same with SD however of an open carriage taken from a walking (non steady) cam shot of the occupants I got horrible artefacts on the edge of the picture. What setting did you use.

Are you using the demo? I heard about others having the same problem with the demo.

I didn't test the demo the web sample sold me and just bought the Expert version and I've tried many different settings and never seem any artifacts.

My only complaint was softness. I've ftp a 80MB HQ 720p 13sec file to proDAD for testing. But I have to say Mercalli is the best stabilizing software that I've used and all within Edius!

...Angelo