Video stabilization software at DVinfo.net

Randy Sanchez · April 30th, 2010, 01:08 PM

Does anyone know any software which will stabilize jittery video ? I have some footage which was recorded at a loud concert and one of the cameras is really affected by the bass frequencies.. Everytime the drummer hits the bass drum it makes the footage jittery because the vibration on the floor was affecting the tripod.. Ive seen some tutorials for After effects but they focussed on fixing a shakey hand.. whereas this effect is much finer vibration

Is there any software out there that can stabilize this smaller vibration ? it would be great if a reputable company made something specifically for this.. The problem is theres lots of zooming in the footage also so can you seperate and fix the jittery aspect from the zooming and pans etc ?

Don Bloom · April 30th, 2010, 01:10 PM

Mercalli has one

NewblueFX has one

After Effects

give search a try-this has been talked about many times

Dean Sensui · April 30th, 2010, 02:08 PM

After Effects CS5 has Mocha, which is a powerful tracker.

However, if you used a slow shutter speed, such as 1/60 or slower, that won't solve the motion blur problem. So while your image might get nicely stabilized, you'll still have an odd "motion blur" problem constantly plaguing your footage.

Randy Sanchez · April 30th, 2010, 02:27 PM

I used a Z1 to shoot it, its done as PAL 50i.. Ive seen the tracker in After effects where you manually select points and it tracks those pixels from frame to frame but i dont think that would work for me... what ive got is very small vibrations that last for a split second then stop and then start again.. Everytime the bass drum in a song is hit is when it happens.. So its frequent, but the upshot is its freqency is fairly low.. Do you think the stabilization programs that exist are going to be able to deal with this type of problem ?

Dean Sensui · April 30th, 2010, 02:46 PM

I used something called Silhouette to stabilize a shot that was with the camera in high winds. The slight vibrations were nicely removed.

I don't know if AE's basic tracker can do that, and I went straight to the Silhouette plug-in to handle the task. I know that Silhouette is a better tracker even if it's slightly less convenient than AE's built-in tracker.

Mocha should be able to do it even better. I can't say for sure as I just got AE CS5 last night and hadn't been able to test it yet.

Randy Sanchez · April 30th, 2010, 03:17 PM

i just downloaded the newblueFX plugin for Vegas and its really not doing what i need.. Unless im way of with the settings it doesnt seem to be detecting the minor vibrations and is just doing something completely different..

Dean Sensui · April 30th, 2010, 04:28 PM

Randy... If you can provide a few seconds of the problem footage I can see what I can do with the tools available here. That way you can see if stabilizing it makes it any better or if it's even possible to stabilize it at all.

Perrone Ford · April 30th, 2010, 07:12 PM

If these guys can't help you, send me a sample and lemme play with it. I've done miracles with lots of footage for folks. But what Dean said was right. If the shutter speed was slow, you may be up a creek even if we do get the motion stabilized.

Randy Sanchez · April 30th, 2010, 07:54 PM

If i upload a sample and you guys manage to get it looking better, would you then tell me what you have done or would you want me to send all the footage ? I wouldnt be able to do the later thats all so ultimately i need to try and work out how to overcome it at my end.

But i would really appreciate the help and could upload a short clip if thats suitable ? Thanks

Dean Sensui · April 30th, 2010, 08:23 PM

Randy... No problem giving you the details of what was used and how it was done. If you happen to have similar software then you can apply the same techniques to help fix what you have.

I don't think I'll have time to do all the footage as I'm in post production mode right now and have other projects in progress.

Perrone Ford · April 30th, 2010, 09:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Randy Sanchez

If i upload a sample and you guys manage to get it looking better, would you then tell me what you have done or would you want me to send all the footage ? I wouldnt be able to do the later thats all so ultimately i need to try and work out how to overcome it at my end.

But i would really appreciate the help and could upload a short clip if thats suitable ? Thanks

If I end up doing it, I'll get you the downloads for what I use and send screenshots of the configurations. I've done this numerous time for others here on this forum and elsewhere.

YouTube - Stabilization Demo

YouTube - Stabilization test of tracking shot through the woods.

That's a basic idea....

Randy Sanchez · May 1st, 2010, 12:54 AM

i uploaded a short clip.. Its an M2T file straight from the Z1.. Its not very long and there might be worse areas in the recording than this but its a fair example of how it looks through most of the shoot..

Here is the link.. password = dvinfo

RapidShare: 1-CLICK Web hosting - Easy Filehosting

size around 80meg

By the way we take our sound from the mixing console so the audio off the camera is hugely distorted but we dont need to use it so we generally dont worry about it..

The other camera is on the opposite side of stage and in front of a similar speaker but (strangely) didnt seem to get any vibration at all ? Which makes me wonder about the nature of vibration itself.. Because of the hit and miss nature of this at louder concerts it would be great to find a solution in software.. If not a perfect fix just something to clean it up cause its almost unusable otherwise..

I had a thought, this kinda doesnt make much sense but i'll mention it... Do you think its possible that the Z1 picture was being affected because the audio levels were too high ? Could such high volume through the internal mics have been an issue ? I know that doesnt typically make sense but because the camera on the other side didnt get it at all it makes me wonder why only one camera was affected under very similar conditions.

Thanks for the help.

Dean Sensui · May 1st, 2010, 09:29 PM

Randy...

You uploaded a .RAR file which my Macs don't recognize. Stuffit tried to open it and asked for a passphrase.

If you have time you might want to upload something more universal like a .AVI file or something that doesn't require decompression to open up.

Randy Sanchez · May 1st, 2010, 09:51 PM

When it asked for the pass phrase did you put in "dvinfo" ? Thats the password i put on it.. If you tried entering the password and it didnt work i will upload another file.

Perrone Ford · May 1st, 2010, 10:13 PM

Yea, the RAR file wasn't the best idea. I got it opened and had a looksee, but was on my way to set this morning. I'll have a good look at it when I get a moment.

April 30th, 2010, 01:08 PM	#1
Randy Sanchez Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Sydney, Australia Posts: 109	Video stabilization software Does anyone know any software which will stabilize jittery video ? I have some footage which was recorded at a loud concert and one of the cameras is really affected by the bass frequencies.. Everytime the drummer hits the bass drum it makes the footage jittery because the vibration on the floor was affecting the tripod.. Ive seen some tutorials for After effects but they focussed on fixing a shakey hand.. whereas this effect is much finer vibration Is there any software out there that can stabilize this smaller vibration ? it would be great if a reputable company made something specifically for this.. The problem is theres lots of zooming in the footage also so can you seperate and fix the jittery aspect from the zooming and pans etc ?

April 30th, 2010, 01:10 PM	#2
Don Bloom Inner Circle Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 6,609	Mercalli has one NewblueFX has one After Effects give search a try-this has been talked about many times __________________ What do I know? I'm just a video-O-grafer. Don

April 30th, 2010, 02:08 PM	#3
Dean Sensui Inner Circle Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Honolulu, HI Posts: 2,054	After Effects CS5 has Mocha, which is a powerful tracker. However, if you used a slow shutter speed, such as 1/60 or slower, that won't solve the motion blur problem. So while your image might get nicely stabilized, you'll still have an odd "motion blur" problem constantly plaguing your footage. __________________ Dean Sensui Exec Producer, Hawaii Goes Fishing

April 30th, 2010, 02:46 PM	#5
Dean Sensui Inner Circle Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Honolulu, HI Posts: 2,054	I used something called Silhouette to stabilize a shot that was with the camera in high winds. The slight vibrations were nicely removed. I don't know if AE's basic tracker can do that, and I went straight to the Silhouette plug-in to handle the task. I know that Silhouette is a better tracker even if it's slightly less convenient than AE's built-in tracker. Mocha should be able to do it even better. I can't say for sure as I just got AE CS5 last night and hadn't been able to test it yet. __________________ Dean Sensui Exec Producer, Hawaii Goes Fishing

April 30th, 2010, 04:28 PM	#7
Dean Sensui Inner Circle Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Honolulu, HI Posts: 2,054	Randy... If you can provide a few seconds of the problem footage I can see what I can do with the tools available here. That way you can see if stabilizing it makes it any better or if it's even possible to stabilize it at all. __________________ Dean Sensui Exec Producer, Hawaii Goes Fishing

April 30th, 2010, 02:27 PM	#4
Randy Sanchez Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Sydney, Australia Posts: 109	I used a Z1 to shoot it, its done as PAL 50i.. Ive seen the tracker in After effects where you manually select points and it tracks those pixels from frame to frame but i dont think that would work for me... what ive got is very small vibrations that last for a split second then stop and then start again.. Everytime the bass drum in a song is hit is when it happens.. So its frequent, but the upshot is its freqency is fairly low.. Do you think the stabilization programs that exist are going to be able to deal with this type of problem ?

April 30th, 2010, 03:17 PM	#6
Randy Sanchez Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Sydney, Australia Posts: 109	i just downloaded the newblueFX plugin for Vegas and its really not doing what i need.. Unless im way of with the settings it doesnt seem to be detecting the minor vibrations and is just doing something completely different..

April 30th, 2010, 07:12 PM	#8
Perrone Ford Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Tallahassee, FL Posts: 4,100	If these guys can't help you, send me a sample and lemme play with it. I've done miracles with lots of footage for folks. But what Dean said was right. If the shutter speed was slow, you may be up a creek even if we do get the motion stabilized. __________________ DVX100, PMW-EX1, Canon 550D, FigRig, Dell Octocore, Avid MC4/5, MB Looks, RedCineX, Matrox MX02 mini, GTech RAID, Edirol R-4, Senn. G2 Evo, Countryman, Moles and Lowels.

April 30th, 2010, 07:54 PM	#9
Randy Sanchez Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Sydney, Australia Posts: 109	If i upload a sample and you guys manage to get it looking better, would you then tell me what you have done or would you want me to send all the footage ? I wouldnt be able to do the later thats all so ultimately i need to try and work out how to overcome it at my end. But i would really appreciate the help and could upload a short clip if thats suitable ? Thanks

April 30th, 2010, 08:23 PM	#10
Dean Sensui Inner Circle Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Honolulu, HI Posts: 2,054	Randy... No problem giving you the details of what was used and how it was done. If you happen to have similar software then you can apply the same techniques to help fix what you have. I don't think I'll have time to do all the footage as I'm in post production mode right now and have other projects in progress. __________________ Dean Sensui Exec Producer, Hawaii Goes Fishing

May 1st, 2010, 12:54 AM	#12
Randy Sanchez Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Sydney, Australia Posts: 109	i uploaded a short clip.. Its an M2T file straight from the Z1.. Its not very long and there might be worse areas in the recording than this but its a fair example of how it looks through most of the shoot.. Here is the link.. password = dvinfo RapidShare: 1-CLICK Web hosting - Easy Filehosting size around 80meg By the way we take our sound from the mixing console so the audio off the camera is hugely distorted but we dont need to use it so we generally dont worry about it.. The other camera is on the opposite side of stage and in front of a similar speaker but (strangely) didnt seem to get any vibration at all ? Which makes me wonder about the nature of vibration itself.. Because of the hit and miss nature of this at louder concerts it would be great to find a solution in software.. If not a perfect fix just something to clean it up cause its almost unusable otherwise.. I had a thought, this kinda doesnt make much sense but i'll mention it... Do you think its possible that the Z1 picture was being affected because the audio levels were too high ? Could such high volume through the internal mics have been an issue ? I know that doesnt typically make sense but because the camera on the other side didnt get it at all it makes me wonder why only one camera was affected under very similar conditions. Thanks for the help.

May 1st, 2010, 09:29 PM	#13
Dean Sensui Inner Circle Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Honolulu, HI Posts: 2,054	Randy... You uploaded a .RAR file which my Macs don't recognize. Stuffit tried to open it and asked for a passphrase. If you have time you might want to upload something more universal like a .AVI file or something that doesn't require decompression to open up. __________________ Dean Sensui Exec Producer, Hawaii Goes Fishing

May 1st, 2010, 09:51 PM	#14
Randy Sanchez Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Sydney, Australia Posts: 109	When it asked for the pass phrase did you put in "dvinfo" ? Thats the password i put on it.. If you tried entering the password and it didnt work i will upload another file.

May 1st, 2010, 10:13 PM	#15
Perrone Ford Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Tallahassee, FL Posts: 4,100	Yea, the RAR file wasn't the best idea. I got it opened and had a looksee, but was on my way to set this morning. I'll have a good look at it when I get a moment. __________________ DVX100, PMW-EX1, Canon 550D, FigRig, Dell Octocore, Avid MC4/5, MB Looks, RedCineX, Matrox MX02 mini, GTech RAID, Edirol R-4, Senn. G2 Evo, Countryman, Moles and Lowels.