Mercalli image stabilization - 1st impressions and questions
 

Just bought and installed Mercalli, running Vegas 7. See my thoughts on the purchase process in another thread.

For now, my reviews... mixed at best.

* Bad The registration is a pain in the butt, and not instant.

* Good It plugs into Vegas instantly

* Bad The manual is... not good. Don't expect any real help. Don't expect any details on what functions are better at doing things than others. Trial and error is your friend... which it shouldn't be.

* Bad Drag the FX onto your clip. Then click the track AGAIN before rendering it. Why the second click? Just to piss Dylan off.

* Good Works FAST.

* Good Stabilization works well, and offers many different types of stabilization options.

* Bad Rendered image is noticibly softer. OTOH, I'd rather have a soft image than a shaky image.


Questions:
Does anyone know where I can find specific details on how each mode works?

Does anyone have a solution to the image softness/deterioration? I've used it with a locked down perfectly still image where no cropping occurs... and it still softens it. I'm not talking about the dynamic images, but the actual picture.

That's it for now.
Overall impressions. It isn't perfect, but it'll bail you out of bad handheld video.

I add the Vegas Sharpen filter to the clip, set to very light. You must have the sharpen filter BEFORE the Mercalli filter in the filters chain or there are problems when rendering (?!)

I experience the same image softness. So I just asked the programmers at ProDAD about that problem (with Screenshot and detailed description) and will keep you informed.

My biggest complaint with Mercalli is that it doesn't handle the rolling shutter of the EX1 very well. Stabilized images tend to look like they are made of jello...very wobbly. VirtualDub's Deshaker filter has a switch for a rolling shutter that eliminates this problem. Can't mercalli do the same?

Bill, following your proposal I have started to test DeShaker under VirtualDub (vs. Mercalli) and I am beginning to like it. Have you some DeShaker-presets to share (shooting from driving car, handheld etc.)? Would be much appreciated.

I use the excellent deshaker script instead of Mercali when the following is true:

When I have a static background and there is nothing moving at the edges of the frames.

In this instance Deshaker works wonders and you get stabilized footage with absolutely no loss of resolution.

Otherwise, I like Mercali better.