Stabilizer Plugins - Deinterlace First???

[Chris Harding]

Hi All

With either the NewBlue or Mercalli Vegas Plugins (I have both) if you choose the upscale border method (so the imaged is zoomed into to cut out the borders) surely it would make sense to set project properties to de-interlace any source footage that is interlaced????

Isn't the method much the same as a zoom using pan/crop?? If you do a pan/crop on interlaced footage the interlacing lines get horribily messed up so I'm suspecting that the same would happen with footage that is stabilized and zoomed slightly to crop out the border. I'm currently setting the de-interlace option from "none" to "interpolate" as there tends to be a fair bit of movement with footage that needs stabilization!!

Any expert opinion from anyone stabilizing footage that is interlaced??

Thanks

Chris

[Tony Spring]

Hi Chris

That's very interesting.

I have exactly this problem with interlaced footage when using Mercalli. I didn't realise it was because I use the option to upscale the borders, I just thought it was the destabalizing in general that was causing the probs with the interlace lines. I sometimes use the reduce interlace flicker option in vegas to cure the problem but it seems that this option just deinterlaces the footage.

I'll have to try Mercalli without using the upscale borders option because I'm not too keen on the 25p look.

[Chris Harding]

Hi Tony

From what I have found, if you use dynamic borders (and can put up with the fill in), then the image dimensions are pretty much the same and you don't have to de-interlace at all. However with upscale you get nice clean edges but it definately affects the interlacing!!

The image with upscale in SD (like you I'm 720x576) softens the image quite a lot as the zoom-in is often quite harsh!!! For critical projects it's better to use 1440x1080 footage so the upscale is not so bad quality wise!! I haven't tried it but in SD, you can improve an upscaled image by adding the Vegas FX Sharpen plugin BEFORE adding the Mercalli Plugin and set Sharpen to "light"

Just for interest, do you know if you can apply Mercalli to the entire track so it stabilizes all events on the track???

Let me know if you find any more hints/tips???

Chris

[Richard Jones]

I doubt if you can apply Mercalli to a complete track as different events will require different presets etc and these all have to be selected manually.

I've found it pays to play around with some of the other (perhaps not immediately obvious) presets when I want to stabilize an event --- and have tried as many as half-a-dozen before finding the one that works best. As you probably know, Mercalli has to be the last FX in the line as any FX applied afterwards negates the Mertcalli adjustment.

The interlace point is an interesting one and I too should like to have some advice on this. Incidentally, have you tried raising the question with ProDad themselves? If you do and receive an answer I should be verey grateful to learn what they have to say.

Richard

[Chris Harding]

Hi Richard

Thanks for the info..I figured as much especially if different events need different profiles!! Yes I know about making Mercalli the last in the plugin chain..but thanks for jogging my memory!!

Just for interest, if you analyze an event with say one profile and after viewing it decide that you would like to try another profile, can you simply select the new profile and click the analyze button??? I was wondering if the previous profile and adjustments are automatically deleted if you re-analyze with a new profile????

I think the sensible thing to do is de-interlace unless you plan to use the dynamic border set at minimum. In Vegas anytime you try to zoom footage that is interlaced you will upset the interlacing. When the still ran 4:3 MiniDV I decided to "impress" clients with a 16:9 version as well and left the interlaced footage alone and the interlacing went crazy because I had cropped the 4:3 top and bottom and Vegas had then zoomed it to fill the frame. The faster the montion the worse the result and the TV can no longer handle the interlacing cos it's out of sync!!

Just one other question?? What do you find the best result is for dealing with the border?? If you allow it to zoom to fill the image goes very soft!!!

The registration process is a bit strange...when I paid for the software I got a "register" code and that required me to send details to ProDad for a "key code"..however if I use the software it doesn't put a big red "X" on the frames anymore ...Do they actually send another key to use??If so where does it go???

Chris

[Richard Jones]

Hi Chris,

As I see it, applying a second profile seems to over-ride the first one, meaning that this is a replacement rather than an additive procedure.

Although I have used them far less than I should have (I'm basicqally a lazy beast!), the Movement Detection and Camera Stabilisation features are worth playing with.

I tend to use the Without Border (Upscaled) option almost every time even though this occasionally results in a seeming loss of focus. This is where playing with the other profiles comes into play and, if I'm still not satisfied, I might try applying the Vegas Unsharp Mask FX (despite its name, its a sharpening function --- see its own presets) before re-trying Mercalli again.

As far as I can remember (but apart from being lazy I have a poor memory --- perhaps one is the product of the other!), I was given a Key which I saved and then clicked on an exe file within it which meant I was able to use Mercalli properly and without time limit.

Good luck,

Richard

[Joe Marler]

Mercalli 1.0.19 was giving me severe combing artifacts if applied on moving subjects for AVCHD 1080i/30 input material from a Canon HF100. Out of desperation I finally tried the Mercalli option video-format: "No Fields (Progressive Scan)". That was illogical since the input material was interlaced. However this eliminated the combing.

Mercalli 1.0.19
Premiere Elements 8.01
Windows 7 Home Edition
EVGA P55 FTW, i7-860 @ 3.8Ghz, 8GB DDR3
EVGA nVidia GeForce GTX-275

[Chris Harding]

Thanks Joe

One can only assume that video input means "what do you want to do with the video coming in???"

I really didn't know that it had that option ... setting it to "no fields" would simply strip the interlacing so the combing would be eliminated. When I get a chance, I'll zap some 1080i thru Vegas without de-interlacing and see if the Mercalli "de-interlace" does a better job

Chris