Prodad Mercalli is the best. My favorite setting is not to remove all the shake but leave a little gentle motion as to attract the eye & keep the footage quality high because there is less zooming into the clip caused by extreme stabilizing. Try the demo. It makes life so much easier.

I always need to preface my comments with a "to each his own" disclaimer, but DeShaker is really great. First, it's trivial to use. It runs as a script so you can put a button on the toolbar. You have clips on the timeline, select one or multiple clips, then hit the DeShaker button. Then go away for a cup of coffee or lunch. When you come back, all the clips selected have been DeShaken as takes on the timeline, on top of the original clips. Want the original clips back for comparison? Just select the clip and hit T.

The second nice feature of DeShaker is the flexibility, with the ability to get into the inner workings of the software and tweak to your heart's content. You can stabilize based on a portion of the image space. You can zoom in as much as you want, or not at all. You can adjust the stabilizing effect from nothing to a lot. You can manually go into the actual log files created and adjust the movement for even individual frames.

The third great feature of DeShaker is it's unique ability to mask edges pretty effectively (for most stuff) without any zooming at all. This is my default method, as I hate the loss of image sharpness inherent with zooming. DeShaker does this by looking ahead and looking back a certain number of frames and then tries to patch the black edges with portions of those frames. It works a lot better than you might think.

I do a lot of walking-around video. I have DeShaker set for modest stabilization and no zooming and with edge-frame-filling. On my final render I always run the whole project through a 3% Cookie Cutter black frame, which eliminates pretty much any leftover artifacting--and no one notices a 3% frame, especially since many display devices (i.e. TVs) do a heavier crop than 3% anyway.

So, that's my routine. I am only generally familiar with alternative stabilizing programs, so maybe in the right hands they could do a better job--I just don't know. But DeShaker for me is extremely powerful and trivial to use--click on a clip inside Vegas and hit the DeShaker button (this scripting feature, incidentally, is due to the hard work of a couple of folks here in the Vegas Forum community). The fact that it's free is, to me, a minor plus. It just works great.

Does deshaker work with Vegas 64?

RZ

@ riredale - could you please point / link to deshaker script.

thanks

I too liked deshake, but I remembered that it didn't support .mov and m2t files. Is this still the case?
Also, I'm interested to know more about this script button...any specific threads that talks on how to set it up?

Yes, it did work on 10e 64 bit when I was using it.

yes, please post. I just tried searching back for 2 years here and didn't find a script for that.

"What are some of you guys doing to reduce shake?"

Easy. We're trying to keep the camera stable WHILE shooting. Might sound obvious, but too many people think they can simply fix everything in post, and then they're disappointed when it looks bad. That carnival footage would have been pretty sweet if you had a handheld stabilizer (i.e. Glidecam).

Stabilizing software will only yield good results IF the shake is minimal. Anything more jerky and you're simply making sacrifices in quality.

Sony Stabilize? Work in Progress.

1st Choice - DeShaker

2nd Choice - Merc.

However, at present, I haven't reinstalled DeShaker on my new 64bit biter!!!

Any links or news of its fit with 64bit would be welcomed too!

So, at present, Mecalli. Just did a compare with Sony Stab. eh . . not so much.

So, latest word? "Nothing".

Grazie

NewDeshaker works fine on Win7 64bits.
However, use VirtualDub 32 bits.

I,m working with .MTS 1920x1080 50p.

I have some footage with a camera car mount that just wasn't working out, i.e. too much vibration. Tried to stabilize it in AE no luck. Just tried Mercalli. Worse, wouldn't waste my money.

Mainly because AE can do a decent job on most things. Just not this one. My time will be better spent shooting it over.

I've ALWAYS used Deshaker with m2t files. Vista Business 64bit OS. No problems.

Anyone use it with .mov files?

I just tried it again and it doesn't play well with mov. I get image all distorted.

For the script, I found this link:
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=650939&Replies=47

It's a very long post..

Okay, I just tried opening a m2t file in V10c 64 bit. I get this error

"VirtualDub cannot decode mpeg-2 video stream"

VirtualDub V1.9.11


How did you guys get it to open??? I only have a deshaker.vdf file that is the plugin for Virtualdub.

I'm missing something eh?

@Julius

If you look at the original Deshaker script, and most likely NewDeshaker by Andy E, you will notice that the field order of the event is used in some of the decision making. For some reason Vegas does not report any Field Order for a mov clip (at least not for any of the mov clips I tried). Hence the script will fail for such mov files.

The link you quoted deals with the development of the NewDeshaker script - hence the length. It is a great way to do it but unfortunately it does not work correctly with the latest versions of VirtualDub or deshaker. You need to use the versions recommended with the script on Andy's site. I do not know where to get the original Deshaker script made available by John Meyer, but can post it if someone wants it. Do, however, remember it needs changing to work with the current versions of VirtualDub and deskaker.

Both the Deshaker and NewDeshkaer script works fine with 32 or 64 bit versions of Windows and Vegas. The only requirement in Windows 7 is to use a folder with full write access for the log and output files, definitely not in Program Files or Program Files (86).

Willem.

You also want to set Deshaker to output to a separate drive as the files pile up real fast.
JJK

I agree I needed an actual stabilizer. Sadly, I own the Opteka Stabilizer Pro (which I highly recommend for those on a budget and too lazy to build one) but didn't have it with me because I wanted to have a good time, not shoot video.

Was stunned to discover my State Fair footage was SOO HORRID because it is a new camera to me and apparently way more subject to shakiness with "rolling shutter" and wide open iris for night shooting even with the lens having a stabilizer in it.

Yes, shooting as smooth as possible is the BEST answer, but not always possible.

From what I see in my YOUTUBE STABILIZED video, looks to me like they are using the MERCALLI version in the background.

I didn't watch the entire YouTube video, but the stabilization (itself) did not look too bad to my old eyes. There was some rolling shutter, but it wasn't horrible. What I did see that didn't look good was extensive motion blur which is very unnatural appearing in stabilized video. In a couple of words, that can be reduced by capturing at a faster shutter speed (might be pretty tough in a night scene like your YouTube).

Here's reading material: http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=789597Effect of Low Shutter Speed on Stabilization[/link]

...Jerry

btw: I'm an Iowa State alum - go 'clones!!