Comments

ScorpioProd wrote on 11/18/2007, 11:35 PM
To answer the SpeedEDIT question, I agree it does have a very good stabilizer. It's not really mentioned in the user manual, since it is in the ToolShed, which is a place for a number of utilities that work with the SpeedEDIT NLE. One of them is the video stabilizer.

It can do frame or field based stabilization. You tell it the time range of a clip that you need stabilized. You also tell it if there is intended movement in the shot or if it is a stationary tripod shot. Finally you tell it if you want it to autozoom to hide the edges when stabilizing, use a fixed zoom to hide it, or don't hide the edges, leaving it to the user to do it manually after. There is also a smoothness control to control how many frames you want the stabilization moves distributed over.

Then when you run it, it quickly plays through the area you are stabilizing to analyze it, and then lays down X/Y shifts of every frame or field to stabilize it. It usually gets it correctly, but if it misses or if you need to tweak anything manually after, you can.

I've used it both with shaky hand-held shots and to fix a tripod getting bumped.

It is quite good and quick at stabilizing shaky video.

Frankly, I think it's a feature Newtek should promote more.
Jøran Toresen wrote on 11/19/2007, 4:35 AM
Thank you,ScorpioProd! When I have time, I I will download and test SpeedEDIT.

Jøran
Laurence wrote on 11/19/2007, 5:40 AM
Outside programs have no problem reading the Sony Vegas DV codec. They just can't write to it. Windows has a built in DV codec but it really sucks. There is also at least one free DV codec that is better than the Windows one, but still pretty weak. The Main Concept DV codec is the best one that you can buy that can be written to by a program outside of Vegas.

The Main Concept DV codec is the one that Adobe licenses, so anyone working with Premiere or PP is already used to it. If you are a licensed user of any Adobe product, you probably don't need to buy it. I don't have any Adobe video software so I needed to buy the codec. I bought it mainly so that I could work with VirtualDub without losing quality.

Programs like Vegas and PP don't really care what DV codec they are reading and will even smart-render with different codecs. If you have Main Concept DV codec footage and put it on a Vegas timeline with a couple of crossfades, Vegas will smart-render the Main Concept DV video and just fold in it's own codec at the transitions. It really doesn't matter codec you use compatability-wise. The important thing is that the quality of the rendering codec is good.

Either the Sony or Main Concept DV codecs will look fine even after many generations. The Windows DV codec looks horrible even after just one or two generations.

In summary, it really doesn't matter which high quality DV codec you use, it just matters that it is a high quality one.
Laurence wrote on 11/19/2007, 5:44 AM
One other thing about SD and stabilization:

If you shoot HDV and stabilize the high resolution footage before you downrez it, you'll get stabilized SD that has no noticable resolution loss. If you shoot SD or capture HDV as SD, you'll notice quite a resolution hit no matter which stabilization method you choose.