What's your Mercalli workflow?

bravof wrote on 10/6/2016, 12:43 PM

Hi,

Testing Mercalli stabiliser with vegas 14. I must have the workflow wrong because it's driving me nuts.

Mercalli needs to re-analyse each clip if you make any change to the clip: trim the clip and mercalli needs to run again. Drag another clip on a mercalli-analysed clip to create a transition, and mercalli needs to work again.

So Mercalli needs to be the absolute LAST thing you do, and you need to do this clip per clip, trim per trim. You cannot just render your whole video and go have a coffee while MErcalli analyses each clip, otherwise your video will be rendered with a big warning.

So what do you do with Mercalli workflow?

thanks

Comments

Kinvermark wrote on 10/6/2016, 1:21 PM

Yes, it can drive you nuts for sure !

I work one of two ways depending on the footage. If not many clips need stabilizing, then I do ALL edits and apply Mercalli LAST. This avoids most re-analysis, but sometimes you get a clip where you want to cut out a different section to make it smoother, or perhaps mercalli doesn't work great on that clip so you need another, etc.

If there are a lot of clips needing stabilizing, then I rough trim them to get rid of excess footage, then batch apply mercalli using Vegasaur 3.0, then render the clips individually to cineform intermediates (also using vegasaur), and bring those back into vegas for finishing.

malowz wrote on 10/6/2016, 6:47 PM

i edit the "standard way". when there's a clip needing stabilization, i add mercalli, analyze, and use the "render as take" script, so, it copy the video to a new track, render it (so fades are removed prior to render) and then it add the rendered video as take. so the video is now renderized, i can change back to original (and reprocess if needed) and no worries about needing to reanalyze. also, i can see the result "fluidly" before exporting.

i also made a batch that process entire folders (direct in explorer, not vegas) using deshake/virtualdub. so i let it working while i sleep, next day all my videos are processed. so i use the originals, and if needed, i just change with the processed ones.

mercalli stabilization is better than deshake, but deshake preserve the edges better (does not need zoom-in)

bravof wrote on 10/7/2016, 2:38 AM

Thanks Kinvermark and malowz for these great contributions!

Robert Johnston wrote on 10/12/2016, 8:00 PM

Something interesting I just discovered about Mercalli V4 plug-in that might be useful to know if you are short on disk space and don't want to render intermediate files. If you create a project and apply the Mercalli V4 plug-in to each video on the timeline and analyze each, you can then use that veg project as media in another veg project with the stabilization still good. And you can edit the veg media in the second project without disturbing the stabilization or getting a re-analyze message.

Another interesting thing is you can apply the Mercalli V4 plug-in as Media FX to a VEG file being used as project media that hasn't already been stabilized. Normally nothing happens when you click the Mercalli analyze button if it's used in Media FX of a plain video clip. This might be another way to "batch" stabilize videos. From there you could create subclips with the trimmer or chop up the veg media on the timeline.

Just for fun, I tried applying the Mercalli plug-in to an already stabilized veg project being used as media, but that didn't work. The re-analyze message persists.

fr0sty wrote on 10/17/2016, 6:59 PM

I've tried adding it to the track FX, and it stabilized fine, but it crashes when I go to render. Going to try adding to video even fx per clip and see if that helps.

wwaag wrote on 10/17/2016, 7:28 PM

Agree with Malowz. Mercalli stabilizes well but it's implentation in Vegas is really terrible. For one, it doesn't abide by the presets you are using. E.g. I use a preset for best stabiliztion and minimum borders. It always comes back "borders avoided". To apply the correction, you have to open a number of different branches along its option tree, which is very time-consuming for each clip. On top of that, it has a tendency to produce unwanted "analyze video frames" in the rendered output. To date, ProDad has been unwilling to address or AFAIK even acknowledge these problems. I even sent them a YT video demonstrating the problem to no avail. If you do use Mercalli, the safest course is to render each clip to an intermediate. Even the built-in Render to New Track will work. Although tedious, it's much safer than rendering the entire project and find these unwanted frames in your final render.

wwaag

fr0sty wrote on 10/17/2016, 8:52 PM

I haven't had the issue with the pop up analyze frames, but rendering to a new track was an effective workaround to vegas crashing when I tried to render to my final output format.

wwaag wrote on 10/17/2016, 10:03 PM

Here's an example. Just rendered. Frames 2 and 3 look like this. Source HDV.

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y91/wwaag76/mercalli_problem_zpsi2enbehn.png

It seems that this problem ooccurs most frequently at the beginning of a render.

wwaag

GJeffrey wrote on 10/17/2016, 10:18 PM

I have exactly the same problem.

I notice that it happens only for interlaced source, never for progressive one.

wwaag wrote on 10/18/2016, 12:00 AM

I've also had it happen with progressive footage quite frequently as well which is mostly what I now use--some times during a long render. Hence, the reason for doing intermediate renders. What's truly sad is proDad's reluctance to address the problem.

wwaag