Mercalli SAL 3.0 - service pack released

gripp wrote on 5/15/2013, 10:34 AM

Just received an email from Mercalli saying there is a service pack update for Mercalli SAL 3.0 "to further enhance the product and compatibility".

Anybody know what these enhancements are?

Have they fixed the problems of desaturation of .MOV files which was the subject of much discussion a few weeks back?

Comments

dalemccl wrote on 5/15/2013, 12:59 PM

I own SAL 3 but I didn't get the e-mail. However, after reading your post, I checked their website for updates. The latest one shown is dated May 1. I copied and pasted the update history log below. They mention improved compatibility for Quicktime in an April 23 release. It's unclear whether that relates to the desaturation of .mov files.

Date Version Information
01-May-2013 3.0.215 Bugfix: Export of a rotated clip works now.

23-Apr-2013 3.0.214 Compatibility to QuickTime improved. Export with broadcast bit rates.

11-Apr-2013 3.0.210 Typo corrected. Support for Raw-AVI files

21-Mar-2013 3.0.209 New Features from V2 Batch processing - Instead of stabilizing videos one at a time, users can now load an unlimited number videos into Mercalli V3 SAL for automated batch processing. Automatic profile selection - Mercalli V3 SAL can analyze a video clip and automatically select the most appropriate stabilization profile, thus streamlining the stabilization process
Support for 4K and 2.7K video clips
Export stabilized video in industry standard formats, including MP4
Improved video import, including MP4, MOV, AVC, AVI, MPG, M2T, MTS, etc.
32 bit and 64 bit version

Laurence wrote on 5/15/2013, 1:22 PM

Not everyone here agrees with me, but I am quite sure that Mercalli never has in fact been desaturating the levels.

What is actually happening is that certain codecs expand the level range when played back with VFW rather than DirectShow. Mercalli reads video in these codecs with DirectShow and writes it to an mp4 format that shows the same level ranges through both VFW and DirectShow. The result of this is that there is a difference in level ranges between pre and post Mercalli processed footage in some formats on a Vegas timeline, but it is in fact the pre Mercalli footage that is displaying incorrectly.

Thus while the levels after being processed with Mercalli appear desaturated on a Vegas timeline, they are in fact correct. What Mercalli has done is to remove a Vegas VFW level expanding error that was there before Mercalli processed the footage.

This only happens with codecs that display differently with VFW and DirectShow. This includes MOV format footage from Nikon and Panasonic as well as mp4 GoPro video.

Grazie wrote on 5/15/2013, 2:42 PM

If you want an update, use the original download access email you were given.

G

dalemccl wrote on 5/15/2013, 3:31 PM

>>If you want an update, use the original download access email you were given.

Unfortunately, I did not keep that e-mail, not realizing I would need it (it may have said so in the e-mail, but I missed that. I don't think I have ever had a program before that required keeping the original download e-mail in order to do updates.

I have found though that I can download the demo and when I run the installation program, it seems to recognize that I have a serial number and it installs the full product (export not limited to 2 seconds). It doesn't ask me to enter a serial, so it may be finding it in the registry or somewhere in the file system from the original installation.

bdg wrote on 5/15/2013, 9:42 PM

I find their website is awful, it's probably that it is designed with a logic sequence that is not supported in my mind. Or is it the other way around?

I once got an error message in German to an error on my part filling in a form to tell them that I was stuck in a Catch 22 situation and couldn't get to the upgrade of Mercali 3 - this despite the form being clearly on an English page.
So then I was stuck in a double Catch 22. I couldn't get my upgrade and I couldn't tell them that I couldn't get my upgrade.
Joseph Heller would have a big grin on his face.

However, I like their products!

Laurence wrote on 5/15/2013, 10:32 PM

I have mixed emotions about their products. On one hand Mercalli 3 is absolutely brilliant. On the other, it is inflexible. There are a bunch of hybrid cameras that shoot 30p in a 60i wrapper. These include Panasonic G and GH series and the Olympus Pen cameras. Mercalli 2 let you set the interlace manually if the auto settings made a mistake. Mercalli 3 only has the auto interlace mode, so any 30p footage in a 60i wrapper is going to be threaded as interlaced footage. This loses about half the resolution and adds interlace artifacts in the process. I have sent multiple emails to their tech support along with a detailed PDF showing screen grabs which showcase the problem. No luck with a fix so far.

What this means is that as brilliant as the Mercalli 3 is, I can't actually use it. It's too much of a quality hit. In the mean time, Mercalli 2 (both the stand alone and plugin versions) work fine. It is frustrating though because I paid for the update and would love to be able to use the batch stabilize function.

Robert Johnston wrote on 5/16/2013, 1:10 AM

I submitted two bug reports to Prodad, both were fixed within 48 hours. One above is about rotation, the other is not listed and has to do with Kodak Playtouch audio causing rendering to crash when nearing the end of the clip. That happened on every single clip. That's fixed.

Laurence, I'm loving that batch processing. Thousands upon thousands of clips stabilized while I'm sleeping. I'm kidding about the sleeping.

Grazie wrote on 5/16/2013, 1:45 AM

Laurence, I just checked my Canon 23.976 1920x1080p footage and it comes back in the MP4 and MOV correctly. It would appear from my results it's just that 30p>60i wrapper is being the issue for Prodad then?

G

Laurence wrote on 5/16/2013, 7:01 AM

It's just 30p wrapped as 60i and it isn't even always bad. For instance, if you are outputting to Bluray (which also wraps any 30p you include in a 60i wrapper) any quick pans you do will actually look much smoother after Mercalli because it will add extra in between fields which do a lot to smooth out the judder. For Youtube or Vimeo progressive output though it means that you now have interlace artifacts to get rid of that weren't there before. The same thing with my movie theater ads. I don't want interlace artifacts and I lose resolution if I use Mercalli 3.

With my GH3 I'm kind of stuck right now. If I shoot in the MOV format, Vegas will stretch the color range of any shots that I don't run through Mercalli or Handbrake first. If I shoot AVCHD, I get interlace artifacts added if I use Mercalli 3.