what is your take on smooth cam in Final Cut Pro 7
 

I have 2 very big problems with it.

1. It is dog slow
2. It creates very soft images because it crops way more than you expected when trying to remove the shaking from the camcorder.

I have done the following video that show what i mean
‪smoothcam-finished.mov‬‏ - YouTube

The video was recorded with my Canon XH-A1 mounted on a Vinten Vision blue tripod, which was it self mounted on a manfrotto 114MV dolly. You can see the shaking in the first part of the video, but it is not that bad compared to the result after smooth cam has done its "magic"

Re: what is your take on smooth cam in Final Cut Pro 7
 

I use lock and load which is significantly faster. They seem to provide similar results but the speed was worth the price.
Lock & Load X - The Worlds Fastest Video Stabilizer for Final Cut Pro

Re: what is your take on smooth cam in Final Cut Pro 7
 

I guess I'm just jaded - to me, SmoothCam is a Rescue. I'm thankful it's there to use on footage that SHOULD have been stable in the first place if I had been doing my job properly.

Re: what is your take on smooth cam in Final Cut Pro 7
 

Lol! Yeah...but it's handy for stuff like car-mount footage and times when you have to deal with other people's mess!
It also did wonders on some in flight footage I took handheld in the nose of a B-17! Couldn't fit my Glidecam in there!

As nice as Lock and load is, you're still losing a bit of resolution since it scales up. Not my favorite thing but sometimes ya just gotta do it!

Re: what is your take on smooth cam in Final Cut Pro 7
 

I have learned the following today. The reason for the bad result was my daughter moving in and out of the frame. I looked at the smooth came settings and it showed a zoom factor of 330% scaling that down to 125% showed a sudden move to the left when my daughter entered the frame from the right and to the left but the rest of the video was of a considerable better quality.