Sony Stabilize worthless in Vegas 12?

TheLaw wrote on 12/20/2012, 11:18 AM
I went from Vegas 10 to Vegas 12 and skipped 11. Supposedly this was a wise move. Vegas 10 had a decent stabilizer filter / plugin and I heard it was a limited version of ProDad Mercalli which did a decent job. It could be applied to clips, portions of a clip, etc. as an effect.

I heard that in Vegas 11 the stabilize plugin effect became a media fx plugin. Now it seems that it applies stabilization to your entire clip in a uniform manner, which isn't practical at all. If I use stabilizers, it's only for a limited portion of a video since the nature of stabilizers is to zoom in to some degree and lose the higher resolution of the image. You want to use this sparingly and when necessary. In addition, a stabilizer adds a huge amount of time to processing. The only way I can see to apply to an event or clip in a timeline is to create a new track and apply the stabilization to that clip.

In addition, I'm not sure how useful the controls are. When it works, it seems very close to Mercalli. But this seems to be a step back from Vegas 10. I'm tempted to dump this all in favor of the New Deshaker and seeing if I can get that going.

Comments

JohnnyRoy wrote on 12/20/2012, 1:35 PM
> "Now it seems that it applies stabilization to your entire clip in a uniform manner, which isn't practical at all."

That's why Sony recommends that you make a subclip of just the part of the media that needs stabilization and apply it to the subclip. Problem solved.

~jr
TheLaw wrote on 12/20/2012, 2:03 PM
So for reasons I can't understand, there are a lot of extra steps to do the same thing we did with version 10. Creating subclips for every clip isn't just the only effect of making the plugin a media fx plugin.
Randy Brown wrote on 12/28/2012, 11:49 AM
I came here with the same thoughts and hoping I was just missing something but I guess not.
I just went from VP10 to 12 also and have a rough cut of clips on the timeline cut into 3 to 5 seconds long each.
I decide to stabilize some of them so I go through the process of opening one of the 5 to 10 minute clips and have to search through it trying to find that exact 3-5 second cut...really?
Say it ain't so!
Randy Brown wrote on 12/28/2012, 12:08 PM
So I just opened up the first (9 minute plus) clip in the trimmer and finally found the 4 seconds I was looking for (these clips are of fast cars being shot from a moving vehicle traveling with them so these sections of clips are not easy to find since there's not a lot of change) and made a subclip.
I took that subclip and put it on the timeline and added the stabilizer...I tried the medium setting and hit apply and no change so I tried to move a slider and they don't move (greyed out)....any suggestions on what to do besides buying a 3rd party app or start using VP10 for this?
Thanks,
Randy
TeetimeNC wrote on 12/28/2012, 1:05 PM
Randy, here is what works for me in VP12:

1. Open clip in trimmer.
2. Set your IO points for the section you want and create a subclip.
3. The subclip will now appear in your project media.
4. Right click on the subclip in the project media, add media fx, and select Sony Stabilize.
5. Select your desired stabilize settings and click apply.
6. Now when you drag the processed subclip to your timeline it should be stabilized.
7. You can also now revise the stabilization settings after the subclip is on the timeline.

There is probably a good reason why SCS changed the process but AFAIK it hasn't been communicated to us.

/jerry

Randy Brown wrote on 12/28/2012, 2:13 PM
Thanks very much Jerry, that does work...but actually I think it'll be much easier for me to take all the cropped clips into VP10 and render out subclips from there...that is unless I totally change my workflow and start using the trimmer for everything (very impractical for most of my work).
I would guess that SCS lost their license with Mercalli and they're trying to write the code themselves...I sure hope they continue to work on it because for some of us it is indeed useless.
Thanks again,
Randy