NewBlueFX Stabilizer

[Dennis Vogel]

Anyone use the NewBlueFX Stabilizer product? Is it worth $40? I have a code good for 60% off all NewBlueFX products for August so this would bring the regular $100 price down to $40. And are there any other NewBlue products that are "must haves" in your opinion? At 60% off, I'd grab some others if they are not-to-be-missed.

BTW, everyone who has registered NewBlueFX products should have received email with this offer. In case you didn't, here's the text from the email:

You did it! Thank you for helping us reach the goal of 60 retweets. You're awesome.

Please take a moment to revel in your achievement: obtaining 60% off sitewide for retweeting
about our Awesome August campaign.

Ok, that's enough basking, time to take advantage of the savings!

To get 60% off absolutely anything on newbluefx.com, just use the promo code: AA60 in the cart. Voila!

>Give me 60% off now

Happy shopping!

Sincerely,

The NewBlueFX Team

D

[Jan Vanhoecke]

If i'm not mistaking(?), it can zoom in drastically and create more blurry images, according to whatever used parameters or settings.

[Dennis Vogel]

Originally Posted by Jan Vanhoecke

If i'm not mistaking(?), it can zoom in drastically and create more blurry images, according to whatever used parameters or settings.

Jan,

Zoom in and create blurry images? It's a video stablilizer designed to remove some of the shakiness from hand held video. Are we talking about the same thing?

D

[Chris Barcellos]

Stabilizing programs do zoom in on exisiting image trying to keep elements in center of screen steady. To do so, the programs has to have image on all edges to move to. That is what he meant by zoom in.

Best one I have found is Mercalli, V2 which I use in Vegas. I works pretty well.

Vegas pro 11 has a stabilizer, but it seems to have a lot of problems so I just haven't tried to prefect technique with it. Every time I have tried using it, I have some problems, especially with the rolling shutter correction.

Deshaker is also available for Virtual Dub, if you are into that.

[Edward Troxel]

Dennis, the AA60 coupon was only valid for 24 hours on Wednesday of last week. If you want to look at Stabilizer, please download and test the trial version. If you like how it works, send me an e-mail and I'll work with you to get a discount.

[Dennis Vogel]

Thanks, Edward. I must have misread the email. I will download the trial version and report back.

D

[Update] Forget working to get me a discount. A simple test of a short video I have produced some unacceptable modification to my footage. Attached is a screen shot of some color bars at the top of a frame. This, as well as something similar at the bottom of the frame, showed up for 15 or so frames near the middle of my 34 second clip. I confirmed these bars were not in the source file nor did they show up in the Preview window when I turned off the Stabilizer plug in.

Guess I'll look at Mercalli or do without.

D

[Edward Troxel]

Those are not color bars. That is where it's stretching the footage to fill the frame. That can be eliminated by changing the Border Fill options. You should change the "Method" and "Crop" to eliminate that from happening.

[Dennis Vogel]

Color bars was the only way I could think to describe it. I know they are not real "color bars".

In any case, if I crop won't I lose part of the frame? As you can see, that would crop out part of the subject in the frame. I don't want to do that. Or am I misunderstanding?

D

[Edward Troxel]

Well... you've already lost part of the frame. The bottom of the frame has been lost which is why you're getting what you see on the top. This is necessary to stabilize - the frame must be "moved" to keep the image steady. Try the other border options and use a small crop value of, say, 20% and see what you think of the results.

[Seth Bloombaum]

Edward is right. To put this another way, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch! And, with apologies to Red Giant Software, there really aren't any magic bullets, either. For post stabilization, that means you lose something... typically the frame edges.

The method that all post stabilizers use is to zoom in on the footage and try to identify objects in the frame that should be kept steady. Then, the stabilizer pans and tilts around to do so. Some more successful than others.

Think of it this way - if you project your shaky footage on a screen, you could then shoot it with a camera, doing the reverse of the original moves to stabilize it in your new recording. However, then you have the edges of the screen to deal with, which start to show up as you pan and tilt. You could show them, or, more commonly, zoom in a bit to hide them.

It's all a compromise of your original footage, that's the nature of the beast.

[Dennis Vogel]

Jan, Seth and Edward,

Thank you for the mini-tutorial on how stabilizers work. I guess I really showed my ignorance with my comments. Nothing like reading the instructions before proceeding. I'm gonna have to read the Stabilizer Help and see how to manage those settings.

D

[Dennis Vogel]

I tried NB Stabilizer and decided it wasn't for me. I uninstalled it via the Control Panel but now when I try to load Vegas Pro 11 I get an error message saying one of the NB dlls can't be found. See image below for the exact message.

I also see NB Stabilizer listed among the FX's in Vegas even though it's been uninstalled. I upgraded to Build 701 today and the error persists. Anyone know to *really* uninstall NB Stabilizer?

[Edward Troxel]

Dennis, please reboot, install Stabilizer again, and then uninstall it. Sometimes Vegas does not completely exit so rebooting will solve that.

[Dennis Vogel]

That did the trick. Thanks, Edward.

D