Stabilizing very short regular vibration

Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy

Stabilizing very short regular vibration

Posted by Jim Burns on January 31, 2011 at 12:31 am

Hi,

I have some trouble with some HDV footage of a live concert.

There’s a very short vibration evident, regular, in time with the kick drum, which lasts for only 2-3 frames. None of the stabilization tools I have access to – FCP plug-in and iStabilize – can fix this.

I always shoot live concerts with the inbuilt stabilization switched on unless I’m shooting hand held. The camera operator, on that particular night, reset all the settings to factory before setting up the camera and didn’t switch on the stabilization.

Looking at the monitor closely, there’s a vertical movement of about 3 scan lines in the interlaced footage. It’s no big deal on my 17″ MBP but on the 24″ Dell monitor it is very distracting. I want to screen this film in a cinema when it’s complete. I will not be able to tolerate this nasty shaking 🙁

I would really appreciate some creative ideas on how I could sort this mess out.

Thanks!

:-j

Alan Okey replied 15 years, 3 months ago 4 Members · 6 Replies
6 Replies

Steve Eisen
January 31, 2011 at 4:29 am

Try Lock and Load from Core Melt

Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Vice President
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group
Victor Perez
January 31, 2011 at 4:43 am

First have you tried Motion. It has a good stabilization filter. Much better than Final Cut Pro’s.

Core Melt Lock and Load and Core Melt Lock and Load Frames have saved me from those shakes numerous times. Much cleaner and faster than FCP’s filter as well.

Victor
http://www.editvictor.com
http://www.hbhm.tv
http://www.itvisus.com
Jim Burns
January 31, 2011 at 11:22 am

Thanks for your suggestions, so far, folks!

I’ve tried Logic, Lock & Load (Frames and X), C2 Gadget Editors Tools (Camera Shake) the FCP built in SmoothCam plug-in and now I’m stuck.

I’ve attached three frames in the links below. Frame 1 is the normal (no-shake) frame, Frame 2 is when the drummer kicks, and Frame 3 is the tail off of the kick. If there was a Frame 4 is would look the same as Frame 1. And I get this every time the drummer kicks his bass drum.

Please help 🙂

Frame 1:

https://db.tt/6ErJv4w

Frame 2:

https://db.tt/wU5NBGZ

Frame 3:

https://db.tt/CTJ2jCH
Alan Okey
January 31, 2011 at 5:29 pm

Sorry to be the voice of gloom and doom, but I think you’re screwed. If a slight image shift were the only problem, you might have a fighting chance, but it looks like the image is actually blurred within the frame, so simply repositioning the frame (which is what stabilizing software does) isn’t going to help. The repositioned frame will still be blurry. You might be able to fix it with Mocha Pro, which can look at frames preceding and following a damaged frame to create a new frame, but it would be a lot of work and far from an automated process.
Jim Burns
January 31, 2011 at 6:09 pm

Thanks Alan,

I think you’re absolutely right.

I’ve been playing around with the frames before and after this event, copied them over the broken frame and set both their opacity to 50%. Even that is better that what’s there already because the vertical disruption appears to be more apparent than a worse horizontal blur.

As you rightly say this is not a smooth process and so I’ll look into the Mocha Pro option.

Argh 🙁

Meanwhile, if anything else occurs to you I’d be delighted to hear it.

:-j
Alan Okey
January 31, 2011 at 6:54 pm

Try posting your examples over in the Imagineer Systems forum for their expert opinion regarding Mocha Pro’s suitability for your problem.

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