Vegas 10 DEMO: Stabilize Media (anti-shake) video

Kevin R wrote on 10/11/2010, 4:15 AM

A demonstration of the "Stabilize Media" feature in Sony Vegas 10 which reduces camera shake.

Scene 1 - Original "raw" video.

Scene 2 - Manually stabilized scene in which each frame has been painstakingly panned to a single common centerpoint. Necessary zoom is manually chosen. Notice lots of lens distortions are still visible despite that the center of the scene is stationary.

Scene 3 - Vegas 10 "Stabilize Media" feature automatically removes shake with much less visible distortion. Necessary zoom is automatically chosen by Vegas. Vegas does a very impressive job in removing shake AS WELL AS the lens distortions that are not removed by manual frame-by-frame stabilization.

Comments

dxdy wrote on 10/11/2010, 5:22 AM

wow

Massimo Rossi wrote on 10/11/2010, 5:42 AM

VERY GOOD !!!

Nice sample to show this new features.

Earl_J wrote on 10/11/2010, 6:04 AM

Very impressive, indeed . . . thanks for sharing Kevin...

kkolbo wrote on 10/11/2010, 6:14 AM

Here is another sample. This is the worst stuff I could throw at it. I did not tweak any settings. I just used a stock setting.

Earl_J wrote on 10/11/2010, 6:27 AM

Appears to be very well worth the upgrade, for the degree of shake demonstrated by both of you ... which is not very far above what I would consider acceptable for my purposes (not broadcast or commercial) ...
I might download the trial just to throw my worst at it. . . that'll be a real test... (lol)

Until that time ... Earl J.

Kevin R wrote on 10/11/2010, 7:42 AM

kkolbo, thanks for demonstrating why one would want to correct "Roll" -- I couldn't figure out that one until I saw your clip and realized if the camera op was waddling around there would be quite a bit of roll! LOL!

I'm throwing my tripod in the trash can today. j/k.

elvindeath wrote on 10/11/2010, 7:53 AM

Wow. Nice demos - thanks for sharing. Stablization wasn't even why I was excited to upgrade, but this feature looks incredible. Considering most of my home movies are shot handheld walking around on family trips, this feature is going to be well worth the upgrade price.

Kevin R wrote on 10/11/2010, 7:54 AM

I'm wondering what this will do for my motorcycle helmet cam clips!

malowz wrote on 10/11/2010, 11:14 AM

my initial tests, it works amazingly well, but others where movement is large (like "circling" camera around, it tries to zoom all the way in to have area for motion compensation. this make some of my videos to zoom to a very small area (about 10% of the frame) making them useless.

will test more options later to see if this improves.

the good thing is i didn't see interlacing artifacts like others softwares.

Kevin R wrote on 10/11/2010, 11:18 AM

malowz,

With all the settings available, I gather one can be found that would work for the situation you describe. I look forward to your testing!

essami wrote on 10/11/2010, 11:21 AM

I just did a little test and was very impressed as well!

malowz wrote on 10/11/2010, 11:37 AM

well, im tested almost every possible combination of settings, and the results are the same.

it tries to make smooth parts of the scene that "can't" be fixed, and screw up all the stabilization.

so, its very usable depending on the video.

it is very effective on shaking video, but not on video where the movement is large.

mercalli if i recall, these "unfixable" scenes it just tries to smooth inside the possible range, and do a good job. v10 make a jumpy video all over the place.

a zoom control would be nice, cause the problem is the range of the zoom it use for stabilizing. like "fix, but don't zoom more than 20%"

DGates wrote on 10/11/2010, 11:58 AM

Of course, what looks good on the internet doesn't always translate well to the plasma in the living room.

DGates wrote on 10/11/2010, 12:00 PM

I will let you all in on a secret. When I want a steady shot, I hold the frikkin' camera steady to begin with!

Too many lazy butts who want to do everything in post that they should be doing in acquisition.

Kevin R wrote on 10/11/2010, 12:00 PM

"what looks good on the internet..."

Search out my clip on YouTube. It's 1080, just like your plasma; and, no, it's not perfect.

monoparadox wrote on 10/11/2010, 2:50 PM

Just played with some hand held footage that was pretty ugly. I'm thoroughly impressed.

VanLazarus wrote on 10/11/2010, 4:23 PM

I'm impressed too.... but I'm disappointed they didn't have a setting to prevent the auto cropping of the frame to prevent borders from showing up. With Deshaker in VirtualDub, one can choose to show all borders. This allows one to pick and choose when and where I would like to zoom to avoid the black borders that would show if the stabilized video wasn't cropped..

Cropping as much as it does really cuts down on the resolution!

Maybe I'm missing something and will try a few different settings.

amendegw wrote on 10/11/2010, 5:36 PM

Okay, here's my quick and dirty test. I think the Vegas 10 Media Stabilizer does a better job than New Deshaker. However, it seems that the Media Stabilize zooms in on the clip and does not build the borders based on prior & future frames (or at least I don't know how to configure it to do so).

First the New Deshaker test:

Next the Media Stabilizer test:

...Jerry

Melachrino wrote on 10/11/2010, 5:50 PM

Interesting.
I seem to see some residual jello effect on the V10 stabilized clip. In Deshaker, invoking Rolling Shutter gets rid of that nuisance.
Is there a similar setting in V10 to get rid of the jello effect in stabilized clips ?

Melachrino wrote on 10/11/2010, 6:00 PM

Found the answer in another thread.
There is a Rolling Shutter setting. Very good.
Seems like a winner for quick straight forward stabilization.
Then there is always the Deshaker alternative for trickier situations.

amendegw wrote on 10/11/2010, 6:24 PM

Melachrino,

You have very good eyes (on a pretty old/poor quality video). Here's another version with the Rolling Shutter box checked:

...Jerry

Melachrino wrote on 10/12/2010, 9:45 AM

Actually, I did not see the jello effect on your clips. I saw it on Kevin's first demo, maybe because of the wider framing.
In any case, it is very good to have the Rolling Shutter option in Veg10 because those of us who use a Canon HVxx need it when stabilizing our shaky shots. In my case, the improvement is enormous (removing the jello effect).

Kevin R wrote on 10/13/2010, 1:02 AM

Melachrino,

The "jello" effect (artifact) is lens perspective distortion. Stabilization is easy compared to correcting pincushion and other distortions. My clip was framed full wide, but was also a cheap camera (Canon S10) with cheap optics.

Byron K wrote on 10/13/2010, 2:55 AM

Reply by: DGates, Date: 10/12/2010 3:00:10 AM
I will let you all in on a secret. When I want a steady shot, I hold the frikkin' camera steady to begin with!
I fully agree which is why I purchased a video cam w/ better stabilization and it makes editing so much more enjoyable.

The thing is, at least for me, I feel it's a good move for Sony to finally include a stabilizer because I get a lot of video and media from friends and family and the occasional client who by no means have proper camera technique w/ shaky footage. Though Deshaker script is very good, IMHO it's nice to finally have a built in stabilizer.