De-Shake filter?

[Marc Brackhahn]

I filmed something with a broken foot and a monopod. Needless to say it was shaky. I would like to salvage alot of that footage. What is the best software, program, or plug in to stabilize shaky footage? Thanks!

[Romuald Martin]

Depending of the amount of shake and the filmed scene you may try to use the stabilize / tracker tools of your software. As a drawback, if it works, you may need to scale a little the image. In general this is dependent to the actual scene elements because you need to set tracking points.

For example, these are the tool capabilities from Autodesk Smoke:

Tracking and Stabilization

* High-speed, high-quality motion tracking with four-point corner pinning (perspective).
* Auto-Stabilization node automatically counteracts shakes or bumps in a camera’s motion while retaining overall camera movement.
* Track and automate spline-based garbage mattes.
* Subpixel field or frame-based motion analysis tools.
* Image magnifying glass for accurate positioning of tracker boxes.
* Pretrack path analysis and display for intuitive selection of potential track points.
* Advanced controls for smoothing, refining, or locking track data.
* Offset, forward, and backward tracking for flexible tracking off-screen and occluded objects.

Taken from: Autodesk - Autodesk Smoke - Detailed Features

[Drew Mandac]

I use the Stabilize Motion feature in AE. It's simple to use and works great for my purposes. I shoot with HDV cameras, but if I'm delivering in SD DVD, I'll capture the footage in HD, stabilize in HD, and then import into PP and scale down to fit the SD frame size.

[Robert Young]

Mocha (which ships with CS5) is a very effective motion tracking program.

[Battle Vaughan]

Mocha shipped with CS4 also, imho it doesn't get much better than this for tracking or stabilization....

[Marc Brackhahn]

Thanks for the tips!