I had a look at mercalli 5 stabilizer, Resolve and Topaz VAI

Resolve did a great job on default settings as as a stabilizer but it can't detect and fix cmos wobble. Mercalli did not do a good job with cmos fix turned on using various presets. I have not delved into that software beyond presets, it's possible it can do a better job.

This is Topaz VAI. It did the best job, but something looks strange about, some morphing and micro jitter I think.

(Won't upload)

Small important note: I only have Vegas and Boris Continuum, no other fancy plugins.

Resolve free version will stabilize , but as said has no cmos wobble fix.

Anyway this is the Topaz result which I thought was best, but try Resolve, also others may know if there's a boris continuum option.

BCC has an Optical Stabilizer FX in the Image Restoration unit.

Vegas Pro 19's native Video Stabilizer in Expert mode with the grid adjusted to cover just the phone image did quite a good job, but that CMOS jello is perhaps too strong to be able to be corrected very much. But the Topaz result is very good.

You might want to test both of the above stabilisers in VP19 using the original phone footage with the project properties set to vertical 9:16 (i.e. 1920 H x 1080 W if the original video is HD) so that the stbilisers have the maximum video size/quality to work with.

@Former user - Wow, your use of Resolve came out pretty smooth, definitely better than I could expect. Since I don't have DaVinci (free or otherwise), not sure I want to go through the whole install process just to use the stabilizer. Though my 1TB OS NVMe drive still has almost 2/3 of free space... so it wouldn't choke it. :)

@Dexcon - Thanks. Considering what Todd-A0 pulled off (he did do the vertical 9:16), if BCC's Image Restoration does similar, that will be more than sufficient. It's getting close to bed time here, so will give it a shot tomorrow.

@Soniclight-2.0 Hi, BCC Optical Stabilizer, I haven't used this fx before & things are quite as I'd like, 🙈, I screen captured your vid & reduced it to 9:16, BCC doesn't seem to like it but prob user error, I'll have another play later

One of Boris's vids

This is with Auto scale 🤣

This is without Auto scale so you can see why the vid above is why it is

 I screen captured your vid & reduced it to 9:16, BCC doesn't seem to like it but prob user error,

When I tested the video in VP19 yesterday with BCC Optical Stab, there was no discernable difference to the non-stabbed original, but then I was using the uploaded video with the L/R 16:9 fill still in place so that may not have been a good test for the BCC stab - @Former user  ... thus probably not user error if it didn't work well for you also but using 9:16 AR.

@Dexcon Hi, yeah i tried it full 16:9 screen capture 1st too 🤦‍♂️😂

I've had a bit more of a play, the red lines are what I tried changing & so far this is the best result, prob could be refined but it doesn't like that weird jelly wobble of the camera whatever that is, Is that what you refer to as 'CMOS jello' ?

 Is that what you refer to as 'CMOS jello' ?

Yes. I've long used Samsung phone cameras but, IMO, phone video suffers badly from image wobble/CMOS issues, particularly with Samsung phones, in the four corners of the image no doubt due to the small size and type of the image sensor. Presumably other phone brands also suffer the same fate due to having such small sensors. Always using 16:9 framing with phone cameras, the best stabiliser I have used thus far for phone video is daVinci Resolve's stablisier - it leaves Mercalli 5 SAL far behind because Merc can't properly address that wobble (even though DV stab doesn't have CMOS correction whereas Merc does).

In the past, I've used Mocha Pro to stabilise a central section of phone video only to find that other areas of the image wobble at an unrelated rate.

In my experience, using phones for handheld moving shots is an exercise in frustration in comparison to using a camera such as a GoPro. Of course, I've used a phone for video because that's all I had available at the time - which is probably the case for most people these days.

I use my phone because it's always in my pocket, when working I don't want to be fannying around with a video camera, I try to buy the best phone camera i can afford, at the moment I've just upgraded from a Samsung S21 Ultra to a Samsung S23 Ultra, I haven't noticed this jello on my clips, if it's there it's nowhere near as bad as this cat clip.

Yeah sometimes my vids have a bit of shake, either it's caffeine related shake or it's a machine shaking the camera & when I've used Mocha it does a good job of locking down the item of interest but the surrounding can get messed up, Tracking more than one area using the spline with a + so the splines are all in the same layer helps a bit, but it can also jello the image as Mocha tries to stretch & stabilize multiple areas,

I have the trial of Topaz Video AI but i just get an error msg on this 9:16 clip 🤷‍♂️

PS. I just had a really quick go with Mocha but it doesn't like tracking it because it zooms in & the only thing on screen half the time are the bars & a moggy that's moving 🐱‍👤

Tracking more than one area using the spline with a + so the splines are all in the same layer helps a bit, but it can also jello the image as Mocha tries to stretch & stabilize multiple areas

Yes, that's been my experience. Give daVinci Resolve a try for comparison as well as Vegas Pro in expert mode with all the grid settings set to maximum (i.e. 20).

@Former user & @Dexcon - All things considered, I'm going to try doing it in the free version of Resolve, which I just installed. Hopefully I can do as well as @Former user did.
I found a couple of how-to-videos on YT. I just have to get my brain to wrap around the different GUI - my 68 y.o. brain can be a bit laggy or uh, Jello-y on stuff like that. :)

@Soniclight-2.0 I've had Resolve free on my PC for 2yrs, hardly know much about it still 🤣

Ha! I'm in the middle of using the in-Resolve Stabilization and looks like I might do almost as good a job as Todd did. Once done, I'll render and import into Vegas. So thanks to all for this.
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On a totally OT aside, one reason this short segment has a bittersweet meaning for me:

On that fateful day in 2020, I went to an emergency vet for my cat (ZIggy) was periodically howling with pain and I was freaking out for him. Being Covid, I couldn't go into the building, so I waited in a patio area outside, sitting with him in the carrier next to me.

He was so out of it, yet... at one point, he looked at me straight in the eyes through that carrier bars. There was a soft intensity to it, and only later did I realize what may have happened.

Until then, I was still willing to fight for him to take care of him, do whatever it took. Then he was taken inside, and I had to wait until the doctor came out. Verdict was in;

No point prolonging his agony, he'd just have a heart attack within the next 24 hours.

Long story short, even though I was with him as they put him to "sleep", that moment of us looking at each... was the last time we communicated. He was already prone and going-to-sleep by the time I saw him again.

It was like he knew it was over before I or the vet did, and was saying good-bye.
I had a hard time seeing any cat in any video, especially any pix or videos I had for a couple of years.

But he had a good life.

I'd even walk him at night with a harness since I live in a 1-bedroom apt. Estimated to be born in 2001 or 2003, I essentially adopted him from the alley in late 2003. So we had almost 17 years together.

This is what is my home screen on my smartphone as a form of closure. Titled "Ziggy in Peaceful Place" - one of my early and few attempts with Dall-e AI with input of something like "cat watching sunrise in forest".

I chose the best one and edited it to remove artifacts, etc. and added the water reflection to stretch the image resolution to fit my phone.

Funny how life works...