Where does MS13 put stabilized video?

Birk Binnard wrote on 2/2/2014, 2:29 PM
So far I'm quite impressed with the results of MS13's video stabilizer. To me it seems even better than Mercali, so I expect I'll be using it a lot.

But where does MS13 put the stabilized video? I've looked all over for it but can find nothing. Maybe there is no stabilized video - maybe it just saves frame location info. But if this is the case, where is that data?

Running the stabilizer seems to create a heavier CPU load than rendering 1920x1080 AVCHD, so my sense is there is an output video stream. But where is it?

Comments

mike_in_ky wrote on 2/2/2014, 2:31 PM
You will need to render the video in order to see a file that has been stablized.
Jillian wrote on 2/2/2014, 3:44 PM
Hi Birk,

This is interesting to hear, since the consensus on the Studio 12 64bit Sony stabilizer was that it was a disaster.

Have you actually rendered a stabilized clip to check it out, or are you going by how the preview looks on the original clip/event with the stabilizer effect applied? In Studio 12 a clip with the stabilizer effect applied "looked" fine, but often rendered worse that the original.

Have you tried the Third Party (Boris) stabilizer effect to compare it with the Sony Stabilizer effect?

I would be interested in what you think of the Boris stabilizer since that is the only thing in Movie Studio 13 that looks in the least interesting to me. Otherwise, Version 13 appears a huge step backwards for Sony and serious editors.

Thanks
Birk Binnard wrote on 2/2/2014, 4:28 PM
This is interesting to hear, since the consensus on the Studio 12 64bit Sony stabilizer was that it was a disaster.

I agree - I gave up on MS12's stabilizer pretty quickly

Have you actually rendered a stabilized clip to check it out,

Yes - and as i said, the results look remarkably good

or are you going by how the preview looks on the original clip/event with the stabilizer effect applied?

No

In Studio 12 a clip with the stabilizer effect applied "looked" fine, but often rendered worse that the original.

Tell me about it

Have you tried the Third Party (Boris) stabilizer effect to compare it with the Sony Stabilizer effect?

No. I am unfamiliar with Boris
Birk Binnard wrote on 2/2/2014, 4:29 PM
Mike - I have rendered a file. The results look great, but I still can't find where the stabilized file is located (if there is one.)
vkmast wrote on 2/2/2014, 4:40 PM
BIrk,
from the Sony Stabilize Help
Click Apply. The video is analyzed, and stabilization is
Birk Binnard wrote on 2/2/2014, 5:54 PM
Very interesting....

But I don't think it means what it says. I checked my original, unstabilized MTS file and it has it's original date stamp, not today's date, which it would have if it had been changed by anything.

In other words, "applied to your media" does not mean MS13's stabilizer is changing your original input file. This is not surprising since MS/Vegas has never changed original files.

It also means the stabilization data, whatever it is, has still yet to be located.
Chienworks wrote on 2/2/2014, 6:10 PM
I seem to recall reading that it's stored in the .vf file.
vkmast wrote on 2/2/2014, 6:27 PM
Chienworks seems right in this. I saved the .vf with stabilization with a different name and removed stabilization, The resulting .vf is much smaller than the one with stabilization.
Birk Binnard wrote on 2/2/2014, 6:42 PM
I've got a lot of .vf files (with no stabilizee clips) and they are all in the 12 - 50 KB range. But NOT the .vf file for the project that has a stabilized video clip - that .vf is 1.69MB and sticks out like a sore thumb when sorted by size.

The unstabilized video clip that I stabilized is 823MB in size.

Given that size it's clear that MS13 is not storing the actual stabilized video stream, but rather a set of parameters that controls how the unstabilized video is to be displayed and rendered.

Very clever indeed.
D7K wrote on 2/2/2014, 7:46 PM
The sony stabilizer seems to be somewhat better than 12, Boris is significantly better, and Mercalli PRO SLT seems to be the best for me. Boris is very good, but requires a lot more work. I would not have bought SLT a month before MS13 came out if I had known that it had Boris stab.
Sherz wrote on 2/17/2014, 12:06 AM
Oddly I've had some very erratic results with the MS13 stabilizer. During playback it seems to do an admirable job, BUT the rendered results are very different. The stabilized segments end up being quite the opposite in fact i.e. very unstable with wild erratic, exaggerated panning etc.

I can't replicate the problem by simply grabbing a clip, stabilizing and then rendering... they all render fine. It was in the context of a full production with multiple video tracks, FX, plugins etc etc that it was consistently rendering the stabilized media badly. It did seem that it was maybe related to render framerates, as I tried at 25fps and had one project render OK, but I'm not sure if I just got lucky on that occasion.

Anyway, I've opened a support ticket with Sony...