HDV to SD workflow with Stabilization
 

Hey Guys and Gals

I've got an edit to do as a promo for yachting club, the footage was shot in HDV 720p. The final copy will probably web web H.264 and PAL SD.

The footage is really shaky, and my thinking is I can somehow put the 720p footage into motion or similar and use it to stabilize the footage in on a SD canvas... If that makes sense - This way I won't lose any quality other than HD to SD...

Any suggestions / "yes I've done that" / "no that's a stupid idea will never work..." :-)

Thanks
Ryan

If you use Premiere for editing, try ProDad Mercalli for the stabilisation - it has a preset for boat motion correction. You can download a trial version frre of charge.

To downscale, I use VirtualDub, using a method based on that described on Anton's video site. I then use Procoder 3 to create DVD compatible files. I find this gives far superior results to using Adobe Media Encoder, which is notorious for low quality down-scaling.

if it's really shaky there's no low-end software that can bail you out. Slo-mo perhaps?

'Ryan, if it was shot at a slow shutter speed (1/50 0r even 1/100) Mercalli or similar will probably blur it more as the frames are repositioned. It's worth a try though being progressive footage, at least you won't have to worry about deinterlacing. Mercalli plugs in to Sony Vegas and is very quick to process, give that a try if you have it. NewBlue just released a stabilizer too, similar to Mercalli $70.

Cheers Ian

VirtualDub has a very good (although time consuming to set up) plugin for stabilization.

See http://www.guthspot.se/video/deshaker.htm

You could also use VDub for resizing, it is one of the best if not THE best methods for making SD out of HD.

thanks all for your replies

I have FCP studio - probably should have mentioned that - probably using motion's stabilize or smooth-cam in FCP. but I'm trying to work out the best format. My raw footage is HDV, I the final product will be in SD, how can I get the best results & quailtiy in motion / smooth cam by putting HDV into it and exporting as SD... hopefully that make some sense... :-)