its a tough sell that the free one doesn't work and if I pay is magically will

"Stabilize seems to do almost nothing."It works, but I've had better stabilization with less zoom using the ProDad Mercalli V2 stabilizer. Here's a test I made with the Vegas internal stabilizer some time ago.



...Jerry

I have the full 2.0 Mercalli product and occasionally use it. Right now it isn't stabilizing my new camera output (Canon HF G10); always asking that the analysis be run again. The links they sent me for updates when I bought the product fail and their web site seems broken in that they go from the English to German site when you click on the Support tab and the download link again is bad (it gets the so-called Download Manager but it has an error when it looks for the file to manage a download of).

I sent them the errors and asked how to get maintenance (service) releases.
[Uwe from ProDAD support just answered and I will try the download a bit later with some suggestions from him.]

All this is on Vegas Pro 10.e 64 bit. A while back I gave up on trying to download an update to the Stand Alone 64 bit version. Generally I am not accustomed to being hassled this much to get a service release, but I do believe you benefit from version 2.0 over what is bundled into Vegas.

"Right now it isn't stabilizing my new camera output (Canon HF G10); always asking that the analysis be run again. "Chip, Can you put clip in a place that I can download? Dropbox? I've run into some similar problems and have some "tricks" that might help.

btw, what format are you rendering to?

...Jerry

If you got that good of results with "the Vegas internal stabilizer " I must be doing something wrong.

basically, I selected the clip and run the default settings (and tried various presets that all had no effect or made the video warble)


do I have to prep the clip in some way?

"If you got that good of results with "the Vegas internal stabilizer " I must be doing something wrong."Again, can you put a clip in a place that I can download it? Dropbox? I'll fiddle with the settings.

...Jerry

Prodad haven't updated the standalone version of Mercalli for some time. Unfortunately they don't tell you what the version numbers are when you go to download. The only sure way I know of is to download, start an install and look for the version number displayed. They do have a list of updates and the issues addressed, but it is not always up to date. The most recent updates aren't relevant to Vegas it would seem. The latest versions are 2.0.3931 for the standalone and 2.0.93 for the plugin.

Thanks for that Peter.

I've got Merc Plugin working but NOT the Standalone. 

The plug works and deals with the files, but the SA version is telling me that Merc doesn't recognise the files; I need to download a CODEC pack and another thing, something called "Matruska".  I find the whole download this to downloadedl the other and so on a PITA! Life doesn't have to be this difficult. The "English" directions don't help either and I realise that they are a German firm, but understanding the level of product downloading requirements, when those same directions are a bit opaque do nothing for my angst!

Mercalli Plugin works.

Mercalli Standalone doesn't.

Grazie

grazie, whatever you do, DON'T mention the war.....

I see what you mean. I haven't used the standalone version, because I couldn't get it to work and had no need for it.

I just tried it and loaded an MPEG2 SD file and got this error message:
The current used Video-Codec decodes the video with abnormalities regarding playback speed and/or field order.
This will affect the quality of stabilization as well as the Rolling-Shutter compensation for results which can be much worse than with the use of other Codecs.
A possible solution could be to install a free available Codec-Pack such as following:
1. First of all please install this package*
<http://www.prodad.de/support/files/MatroskaSplitter-32bit.exe>

2. Then please install this package*
<http://www.prodad.de/support/files/ffdshow-32bit-sse.exe>

If the above fails, the each package can be uninstalled using the each enclosed uninstallers. Further similar packages can be found for free at the Internet, e. g. at <http://www.free-codecs.com/> .
* Freeware by <http://ffdshow-tryout.sourceforge.net> respectively <http://haali.su/mkv/>
Please note that the above products are not proDAD-products for which reason proDAD can´t overtake warranties or liability for any possible failures.

Limitations are known with following Codecs:
. !!! CyberLink Video/SP Decoder (PDVD10)


I then loaded in a .m2ts AVCHD file and got this:
Mercalli Runtime Error
'Nero Video Decoder' decoding video failed!
Please contact support@prodad.com for more details.


It would appear that the standalone version requires some third party codecs and the ones I have are not suitable.

Note that I am doing this on my hack computer, not the one I use for video editing.

"I've got Merc Plugin working but NOT the Standalone"I agree with the posters who have have success with the plugin, but not the Standalone - at least for AVCHD source. I installed ffdshow & Matroska Splitter at recommendation of ProDad support, with limited success. There next step was to intstall the K-Lite codec pack - which I refuse to do because of the many references to problems in this forum.

Since my only issue with the Standalone is with the "export" (render) and it is more user-friendly for tweaking the parameters, I sometimes use it to get the params and manually copy them to the plugin.

As I mentioned in a post above, even the plugin can be picky, but once you've figured it out, the finally render can be very, very good. For example, I almost always run it problems unless I exactly match my event properties, project properties and render properties. For example, in one instance, I had to set my render framerate to 59.940060 fps in order to get it to work see: Mercalli and rendering

...Jerry

Jerry, Peter I'm not going to install any further CODECS nor any other s/w to make the SA to work when on my XP OS it worked fine. Software warehouses need to get their ducks in a line before I go "proving" that it will working. This goes for SCS too. And, rest assured, SCS know this from me and I reinforce this with them as often as possible. Look, Bugs I can deal with, and I can be patient. But be being invited and needing to go to a 4th party options that AREN'T part of the original download? Nuh-uh! That's the way of madness and I'd become a BETA tester for checking IF something cures an issue, WHEN it works as a Plugin. Suggesting this, IMO, sounds desperate. It's a real pity as I liked the way the SA worked and now on my Win7 64bit it's a different story.

Grazie

I took this up with ProDad as I thought it might be useful to use the SAL version but couldn't find a way of doing this either directly or by transferring a rendered clip from Vegas and was told that I did not need this as I can achieve exactly the same effect using the Plug In in the timeline. I then mentioned that I wanted to use the red markers to show how the borders were being dealt with and was told that I could add this in the Plug In as well. Finally when I suggested that this seemed to make the SAL version redundant, ProDad advised me that the SAL version is for users without Plug In functionality.

Incidentally, I did download the two additional programmes mentioned on their screen but had to delete them as they seemed to cause a freeze on my PC. ProDad did not comment when I mentioned this to them as part of my original question to them.

Hope this helps. I have to say that I have found the Plug In to be very good and have not in fact seen any need to use the SAL.

Richard

Richard, thanks.

I'll stop concerning myself with the SA.

Grazie

Thanks for the offer, Jerry. After I downloaded version 2.0.93 of the plugin, it seemed to get through my test clip. Right now I am finishing up a show and probably don't need to stabilize due to our fine camera work.

Normally my material is rendered to DVD (DVDA template) but we are starting to see a tiny bit of demand for Blu-ray. I also do some excerpts to Sony mpeg4 for upload to Vimeo and Youtube.

"Normally my material is rendered to DVD (DVDA template) but we are starting to see a tiny bit of demand for Blu-ray. I also do some excerpts to Sony mpeg4 for upload to Vimeo and Youtube."Chip, As I mentioned in a post a couple up, to get best results, my experience is to match project properties to clip properties to render properties. If you need to render to different properties, I'd suggest setting up a separate, temporary project, stabilize it and render to an Intermediate - then use the intermediate in your main project.

Good Luck!
...Jerry

PS: Someone else recommended that you can temporarily change your project properties for the analysis and then change them back, but it seems to me that rendering to an intermediate is safer.

i created a dropbox account (couldn't see what the size limit is)

i think I would need your dropbox account name?


also, do you know if I have to install the software or can I just use the browser?

"i created a dropbox account (couldn't see what the size limit is) "If you chose the free account it's probably 2GB.

"also, do you know if I have to install the software or can I just use the browser? "If you install the software, you can merely drag your clip to your local Dropbox Public folder. Then, right click on the file and chose Dropbox->Copy Public Link.

Return to this forum and paste this link in your reply.

I made the following YouTube tut to explain how to use Dropbox & Snagit to post images to this forum. While we're not talking about SnagIt & posting images, the part about the Dropbox Public folder applies here.



...Jerry

OK great

does anyone know how to split m2t files?

i did it last year using Mpg2Cut2 but I just tried that app again and got an error opening the file.

UPDATE: I bought Apples QuickTime MPEG-2 Playback Component for Windows and also installed http://www.squared5.com/svideo/mpeg-streamclip-win.html and it seems to be working well chopping up the m2v files. I will post a link in a min...


UPDATE2: dropbox seems like a great app - see if this link works:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/39562814/HV_SS_1sm2.m2v

Okay, got the clip. I'm not sure this was the ideal candidate for stabilization, but I think you'll see the stabilization in the YouTube embed below.

Here's what I did:
1) Right click on Video Event.
2) Choose Stabilize Media
3) I chose the "General Footage, Intensive Analysis" template, but you can experiment with the options.
4) Click "apply"

You might notice there is some disturbing blurring in the stabilized media. This is probably the result of camera movement and now that the event is stabilized, it looks odd. This effect probably can be minimized if the original footage was recorded at a higher shutter speed.

Also, there is quite a bit of zooming here. This may or may not be a problem. Purchased plugins, such as Mercalli V2 (or the free DeShaker Script) seem to do a better job of minimizing zoom.

In any case here goes:



...Jerry