Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Which editing app has the best Video Stabilization?

M

MegaSignal

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 20, 2003
304
0
Although I have been most impressed with Pinnacle Pro with regard to video stabilization (the best I've seen in my limited experience), it has now become buggy and crashes a lot on my old PC. There is no Mac version of Pinnacle Pro at this time. Since then, I have purchased a late-2012 mini w/ 16GB of RAM to use with my Canon HF200 (AVCHD), a most difficult camera to hold for smooth shots.

I want the best video stabilization software (FCP X, Premier w/AE, I don't know) out there for my new mini; any suggestions?
 
Last edited:
D

daybreak

macrumors 6502a
Sep 4, 2009
531
0
What about a good tripod?. FCP-X has a good software. I think stabilisation should only be used in emergency.:rolleyes:
 
Z

Zwhaler

macrumors 604
Jun 10, 2006
7,094
1,567
FCP X has pretty excellent stabilisation with 3 customizable parameters (transform, rotation, and scale). Even if your video is totally stable except for a split second shake, it will fix it. I'm sure the other pro equivalents like Premiere and After Effects are great as well.
 
M

MegaSignal

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 20, 2003
304
0
daybreak said:
What about a good tripod?. FCP-X has a good software. I think stabilisation should only be used in emergency.:rolleyes:
Click to expand...
Good point - or at least a heavier camera. This little Canon is basically nothing more than a high-tech director's viewfinder, however, I now have no less than eight hours of irreplaceable video that I need tweaked and/or otherwise stabilized, as was done so well with Pinnacle Pro before it zonked out on me (along with quickly disappearing SSD memory) on my PC.

----------
Zwhaler said:
FCP X has pretty excellent stabilisation with 3 customizable parameters (transform, rotation, and scale). Even if your video is totally stable except for a split second shake, it will fix it. I'm sure the other pro equivalents like Premiere and After Effects are great as well.
Click to expand...

Thanks! I appreciate your input and shall narrow my choices to either FCP X or the Adobe Suite.
 
Last edited:
D

daybreak

macrumors 6502a
Sep 4, 2009
531
0
Also take into consideration will the two software advance in updates and improvement and the long term cost.
 
wonderspark

wonderspark

macrumors 68040
Feb 4, 2010
3,048
102
Oregon
Zwhaler said:
FCP X has pretty excellent stabilisation with 3 customizable parameters (transform, rotation, and scale). Even if your video is totally stable except for a split second shake, it will fix it. I'm sure the other pro equivalents like Premiere and After Effects are great as well.
Click to expand...
It's been a while, but I did try out FCP X to stabilise a clip, and I kept getting this strange behaviour whereby the image would be zoomed and even flipped horizontally and/or vertically. It was beyond strange, and I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure it out, but was unsuccessful. I tend to use Mocha and/or After Effects for that, and it comes out surprisingly well.

I think it was FCP X 10.0.2 or 10.0.3 that I had tried, though... so I should try running it again, now that we're up to 10.0.8. I'm sure if I got rid of all my Adobe software and forced myself into FCP X, I'd figure out how to use it properly. :p
 
M

MegaSignal

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 20, 2003
304
0
I've just ordered the 'Elements' version of Premiere, as it was at a nominal cost; I shall evaluate. In addition, I've set up an appointment with an Apple Store in my area for a demonstration of FCP X. Even if I have to eventually purchase the full version of Premiere and After Effects, it'll be worth it in the long haul.
 
T

tillsbury

macrumors 68000
Dec 24, 2007
1,513
454
Why not just download FCPX (free for 30 days) and run your video through it. It seems pretty good to me, better than Premiere 5.5 and Pinnacle (old versions I used on Windows), but I don't know about the others.

Note that in FCPX in order to be able to use stabilisation you have to get the app to "analyse" the clip first. You can do this either while importing or later once you've imported it. Only when this is done can you click on Stabilisation and stuff happens.
 
D

daybreak

macrumors 6502a
Sep 4, 2009
531
0
Would it not have been more sense to have gone to the Apple Store first?, before investing hard earned cash into a software which you are not certain with.
If people give me valuable information my first port of call is to get first hand experience before jumping into the river.
Guess every person has a different approach regards software.
 
yoak

yoak

macrumors 68000
Oct 4, 2004
1,672
203
Oslo, Norway
I've used both premiere's Warp stabiliser and fcx and in automatic mode the Warp stabiliser is unfortunatly much better than fcx. Unfortunatly as in adobe's offering is much more expensive, unless Elements has it too
 
M

MegaSignal

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 20, 2003
304
0
daybreak said:
Would it not have been more sense to have gone to the Apple Store first?, before investing hard earned cash into a software which you are not certain with.
If people give me valuable information my first port of call is to get first hand experience before jumping into the river.
Guess every person has a different approach regards software.
Click to expand...

It would appear so, but a bundled version of Elements, being sold at a most reasonable cost, included a lite version of Photoshop as well, something I already needed. In addition, I'll be able to get a basic feel for the workflow of Premiere.

But I see your point; this is probably Adobe's version of "gateway" marketing, as I should be able to upgrade from Elements.

----------
yoak said:
I've used both premiere's Warp stabiliser and fcx and in automatic mode the Warp stabiliser is unfortunatly much better than fcx. Unfortunatly as in adobe's offering is much more expensive, unless Elements has it too
Click to expand...

This is the first time I've heard of Warp stabilizer; thanks for the info!
 
Last edited:
A

adamneer

macrumors 6502
Apr 18, 2013
420
747
Chicago, IL
i havent used anything else, but Adobe's warp stabilizer in Premiere and After Effects CS6 works extremely well. you can set it to either smooth motion or no motion at all and change the method of stabilizing from image warping to cropping, rotation, position and scale, or a few other combinations of those options. you would be hard pressed to find a better, easier image stabilizer, though you would also be hard pressed to find a more expensive alternative. you can download a free 30 day trial of any adobe CS6 product you want, so I'd suggest you do so.

to go a little further, sometimes it helps to manually keyframe the motion after the warp stabilizer has finished because while it will usually be dead on accurate for most shots, it might sometimes slowly rotate or make a gradual move from one side to another. the good part is that since it has been stabilized, the rotation or movement is usually very linear and easy to correct through motion keyframes.

you will want to break your footage up into clips that correspond with the type of movement you want to stabilize. this will help the program do its job in 2 ways -

1)you will either have shots you want completely still as in tripod mounted, or shots that pan, zoom, scan or "steady cam" which you will want to apply a smooth motion to. you can only select one type of stabilization per clip - there is no "smart detect" setting, yet...

2)as you can imagine, it is a processor intensive effect and the longer the clip you are stabilizing, the more the program has to interpret before applying the effect


if youve never used After Effects, you might want to just use the Premiere version, especially since you probably have longer clips that you'll want to cut into segments. After Effects is an amazing program, but it is far from intuitive or user friendly for anyone with no compositing experience. I will say however, that the AE version will produce slightly better, slightly faster results.



one more thing and this is just nitpicky, but Angry Birds is an app; Premiere Pro, After Effects, or really anything sophisticated enough to stabilize motion in video is called a program.
 
M

MegaSignal

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 20, 2003
304
0
adamneer said:
one more thing and this is just nitpicky, but Angry Birds is an app; Premiere Pro, After Effects, or really anything sophisticated enough to stabilize motion in video is called a program.
Click to expand...

Thanks - dutifully noted.

----------
adamneer said:
i havent used anything else, but Adobe's warp stabilizer in Premiere and After Effects CS6 works extremely well. you can set it to either smooth motion or no motion at all and change the method of stabilizing from image warping to cropping, rotation, position and scale, or a few other combinations of those options. you would be hard pressed to find a better, easier image stabilizer, though you would also be hard pressed to find a more expensive alternative. you can download a free 30 day trial of any adobe CS6 product you want, so I'd suggest you do so.

to go a little further, sometimes it helps to manually keyframe the motion after the warp stabilizer has finished because while it will usually be dead on accurate for most shots, it might sometimes slowly rotate or make a gradual move from one side to another. the good part is that since it has been stabilized, the rotation or movement is usually very linear and easy to correct through motion keyframes.

you will want to break your footage up into clips that correspond with the type of movement you want to stabilize. this will help the program do its job in 2 ways -

1)you will either have shots you want completely still as in tripod mounted, or shots that pan, zoom, scan or "steady cam" which you will want to apply a smooth motion to. you can only select one type of stabilization per clip - there is no "smart detect" setting, yet...

2)as you can imagine, it is a processor intensive effect and the longer the clip you are stabilizing, the more the program has to interpret before applying the effect


if youve never used After Effects, you might want to just use the Premiere version, especially since you probably have longer clips that you'll want to cut into segments. After Effects is an amazing program, but it is far from intuitive or user friendly for anyone with no compositing experience. I will say however, that the AE version will produce slightly better, slightly faster results.
Click to expand...
Most insightful; your post was very informative.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom