+1

Well version 3 talks all about 3D stabilization. Obviously version 4 will be all about:

( ( ( ( (( STABILIZATION IN THE 4th DIMENSION!!! )) ) ) ) )

:-)

Seriously though, for a start maybe they will combine the plugin and standalone versions. For a blow your socks off feature, maybe they'll have an option for stabilization of a single object within a video using seam carving techniques. Although I can't imagine that ever being possible or useful.

Mercalli 4 is here.

It's now available from ProDad's website with a 20% off offer for both full and upgrade purchases.

I haven't seen any fanfare or product announcements about it - I just checked ProDad's website today having remembered this thread from October.

It's SAL only but has some really good new features. My favourite on testing today is the ability to stabilize with CMOS correction (skew; jello/wobble; vibrations/waves the latter which has multiple choices). The vibrations/waves selection has made fully usable a couple of previously almost unusable 4K clips which Mercalli 3 couldn't improve. I am just sooooo happy about this feature. The stabilization process for vibrations/waves is quite slow - but I don't care given the incredible results.

My nearly unusable shots were towards the long end of the zoom on a tripod mounted AX100 of a cruise ship in dock several hundred metres away, and of the ship's sail-away - but the camera was being buffeted by some annoyingly persistent and strong sea breezes.

Although I don't have an action cam, Mercalli 4 has settings for action cams with selections for a whole range of individual action cams.

There's more export choices but the new choices are all .mov - so I'll be sticking with the mp4 choice. There's the option of exporting with or without audio, but Vegas Pro 13 (428) wouldn't recognize the exported mp4 clip without audio even though it recognized an export of the same stabilisation event with audio.

My main disappointment is the inability to rename clips on export which would be really advantageous when wanting to stabilize more than one selection from the original clip. So I'll have to continue renaming the exported clip via Windows Explorer before going back to Mercalli to work on the second selection from that same original clip.

For me, Mercalli 4 looks like being a great improvement over 3.

Cheers

Conrad

Conrad! Thank you!

Just watched the Samples.

1] Steadying WITHOUT Zooming-in - woah!

2] Collecting Storyboard Clips. I'll see this on the DEMO.

Downloading now.

Grazie

Well, the NON-Zooming-in, unless I'm trying to kid myself, is extraordinary. I haven't seen this since the earlier "in-fills" options that others had constructed. It is Voo-Doo....

Still kicking the tyres....

Grazie

Ooo-er . . AC3 too!

OK, Can't do multiple Renders from the SAME source INTO one. But maybe making multiple Sessions would do it? Pity....

So far my Wallet is quaking....

G

I'd like it more (find it so much easier) if it was a Plug In instead of SAL.

Richard

I hear you Richard. But I've been liking the SAL for 12 months.

G

Same here, Grazie, I've got really used to using the SAL.

The big problem with the plug-in (i.e.Mercalli 2) was that, occasionally, a stabilised clip via the plug-in would have a random black line or two at the bottom of the frame that was not able to be eliminated by pan/crop (in retrospect, I didn't try track motion to see if that would help). Although stabilising in the SAL still resulted in the random black line, it was able to be avoided by pan/cropping the clip on the VP timeline because it was now a rendered clip exported from the SAL.

Mercalli 4's 'What's New' notes in the Help manual notes that the SAL can get results not obtainable via a plug-in, so I suppose that they've investigated the plug-in approach fairly thoroughly. If the plug-in/SAL approach is a concern, I guess that the Mercalli 2 plug-in could be used for the easier stabilisation tasks and then use 3 or 4 SAL for the more challenging stabilisation tasks where more control is needed.

BTW, I tested tonight on the new 4 a completely unusable shot of the cruise liner taken from about 1 km away on close to the long end of the zoom - it is a jello-fest(though if I'd slo-mo'd it, added soft focus, and a whole lot of color correction etc, it could have ended up looking artistically like the horizon shot in 'Lawrence of Arabia'). Anyway, putting it through the default CMOS correction in Mercalli 4 ended up with a completely usable shot. Truly incredible!. Truly amazing! And I don't mean Gen X, Y, Z 'amazing'. I mean Baby Boomer 'amazing' when amazing really meant amazing.

Interesting. Thank you.

How do you do this in practice when you are editing in Vegas Pro and find an event that needs this treatment? Can you just drop it into Mercalli and then re-import that event when corrected or do you need to do some form of rendering as part of the process? And, if so, what settings etc do you use?

Sorry to seem so naïve!

Richard

No worries, Richard.

You are basically correct. Use the Import Media button in Mercalli SAL (uses the usual directory paths) to import your selected event or multiple events. Work on each one - and you can select which portion of each event you want to stabilise because the SAL has its own timeline with start/end markers to limit the stabilisation length within the event. You can either export each event individually after each stabilisation, or as a bulk lot after stabilising all your selections.

The export is effectively a render. I create a folder called Mercalli 3 (or now Mercalli 4) to export/render the stabilised events to. Then just use Explorer in Vegas Pro to import the event/s into Vegas' timeline or trimmer. Personally, I do the edit on Vegas' timeline, then if the event needs stabilising, I open Mercalli SAL, find the selection that I chose in VP, add a bit of over-shoot at either end if possible, and then stabilise that section and export to the Mercalli folder. Hop back into Vegas, refresh the Mercalli folder in Vegas, put the event into Trimmer, select 'video only', highlight an appropriate VP timeline track and then right-click the Trimmer to select 'Add Media from Cursor" to add the event to VP's timeline. Then it's simply a case of trimming the Mercalli'd event to match the original, copy/pasting any FX that may have been applied, and then deleting the original event.

Sounds complicated? Not at all - it's just a process that is just that - a repetitive process. The best part is doing the stabilising in the SAL.

Settings - for stabilisation, even Mercalli states that a lot of it is playing around with the stabilisation settings until you get something that you're happy with - though the default settings will probably work most if the time. The export setting is up to you - I use mp4, originally using the high setting (huge file size) though I've now moved to the recommended medium setting (medium file size).

I hope that this helps.

Cheers

Conrad

Agreed Conrad.

There's just so much I use that I want to remain in VP: FX-ing; Colour Grading; TWIXTOR; etc... But Event stabilisation? I've kinda grown into doing this exo-VP. Added to which I can ring fence potential hangs bangs and farts away from VP.

Actually, I wouldn't mind maybe the option we have to OPEN in Graphics Editor or using IZoRX as a preferred Audio editor for SAL. Now that would be novel.

Yes, I'm liking it. Clever a Guys at ProDAD.

Grazie

Thank you Conrad. Think I'll give it a go as I've been such a fan of Mercalli 2 (and my hand seems to get less steady as I grow older --- a problem when you can't always use a tripod).

Richard

More good news.

My two disappointments with Mercalli 4 are in fact do-able after all. Yay!

First, it is possible to stabilize more than one section of the one video clip in the one session. From the Media Bin tab, highlight the clip that you want to stabilize and then hit the "+" button to create a copy of that clip. The copy is added to the Media Bin list, but with a "(2)" added to the end of the clip name. Keep hitting the "+" button if you need to and you'll get "(3), (4)" etc. Each of the copies can be worked on separately and individually. Even if you've already stabilized a segment of the clip and then decided to do another segment of the same clip, you can still copy the clip and then adjust the parameters as you wish in the copy. Then just export as usual.

Second, it is possible to change the name of the clip before exporting. Again in Media Bin, left click on the clip name several times and the clip name will - eventually - become a white field, and the clip name can then be changed. The only caveat here is that the clicking process is not all that responsive and may require several attempts before the field opens.

Also in the Media Bin, you can use the up/down buttons to order the clips in the list. I suppose that this is useful if using the "Combine Videos" button to create what I guess Mercalli is calling the Storyboard function. I tried it once and it works well enough, though the resulting export only carried audio from the first clip but no audio from the other clips on the list. Interesting, but I personally don't have a need for this function anyway.

But I am especially happy about the copy function - that will be very useful for me.

That's brilliant, Conrad. Well spotted.

One final thought before I make the upgrade. I seem to remember that, when Mercalli 3 came along, there was a requirement to install a codec package (? K-Lite or some such name) and that this was frowned upon by many members because of the numerous reported problems encountered by people who had already installed such packages. I think it's fair to say that it would be unwise to put a codec package on the PC and wonder whether this is a requirement with Mercalli 4 (or can you by-pass this installation if you want to?)

Sorry. Should have thought to ask this in my last post.

Richard

Hi Richard

I can't recall being prompted to install K-Lite when installing Mercalli 3 on my latest computer about 7 months ago, or when installing 4 the other day. Like you and others, I'm rather averse to installing 3rd party codec packs. Anyway, I can't see any installation of K-Lite on my computer under either of the Programs folders, in the ProDad Program folders, or under Features and Programs from where I guess it should show for uninstalling - though it could reside unobtrusively elsewhere.

Also, the Mercalli user manual doesn't mention K-Lite as being part of the installation process, and K-Lite doesn't appear in the manual's index or get a result using the search field.

I did a Google search re Mercalli and K-Lite, but most results - including to this forum - related to K-Lite and Mercalli 2.0 and 2.1. There was one link to Mercalli 3 but it was in German and wouldn't translate properly.

I'm sorry that I can't provide a more definite answer to the K-Lite and Mercalli question, but I suspect that K-Lite is not part of the installation process.

Cheers

Conrad

Well, I decided to buy it. However the price details are a bit confusing, mixing up Euros and I think US dollars. During checkout, the page reverted to Aus dollars, but the price looked too high ($240 or thereabouts, for the upgrade from V2). When I asked for the price in Euros, it gave me 133-78, which equates to 199 Aus dollars.

Thank you Conrad. I appreciate the trouble you've taken over this.

Richard

I recall that v3 SAL asked to install codecs and I declined. But then the AVCHD .mts files from my camcorder were not recognized by Mercalli. It said it didn't have the required codec. Re-installing and allowing the codecs solved that problem. It never caused any problems for VP that I noticed.

I installed the new v4 SAL trial yesterday and it asked if I wanted to install codecs. (I don't recall if it used the term "K-Lite"). I allowed it. Time will tell whether it causes a problem. I have a system backup if it does.

I know there have been discussions here about the wisdom of allowing Mercalli to install codecs, and whether it installs them for its own use only, or whether it installs them somewhere that affects other programs. I don't think any common agreement was reached on that issue among forum members.

I am a bit annoyed to have bought version 3 SAL only a couple of weeks ago and now find it will cost me near the same to upgrade to Version 4.

But more so, I trialled the version 3 package, it seemed to do the job, so I bought it, but since then I cannot get acceptable results from the software. Everything I try ends up with footage that seems worse than the original.

And the company is less than responsive about it too.

One issue I have is amusing. The footage is from a GoPro Hero4 in 2.7K 24 fps mode, with the camera attached to the front of a train. When the train passes a large corrugated iron shed, the image shuffles down the screen and disappears at the bottom, leaving a black screen, never to be seen again.

Mercalli stole my footage :-(

I am still using Mercalli version 2 even though I upgraded to version 3. Here is why.

Mercalli 2 autosensed the settings on the footage, but let you override them if their sensing got it wrong. Mercalli 3 does not let you override the autosensing, and if it gets it wrong, you are just out of luck.

Where this affects me is that I use a GH3 in the AVCHD mode. I use AVCHD because Vegas stretches the colors from sRGB to cRGB if I use the higher quality MOV format.

The AVCHD format is actually 30p, but it is wrapped as 60i for compatibility with the AVCHD format.

What Mercalli 3 does is to identify to footage as interlaced by reading the header. Then it proceeds to deshake even and odd fields applying some sort of motion estimation that is probably an incredible bit of software programming. In this case however, it introduces interlace artifacts that weren't there before the stabilizion.

I have emailed their tech support numerous times, but it never was resolved.

Anyway, Mercalli 2 works really well. It is quite likely this problem will continue into Mercalli 4, so I wouldn't be surprised if I continue using Mercalli 2 at least until either I get a new camera, or Vegas sorts out the stretching of MOV levels.

I'll 2nd that comment about the "vibrations" feature. Saved some clips I had written off. Had to shoot from a tourist helicopter flight (not chartered) and without my gyros. The heli was vibrating like crazy and going super fast. Thought the clips were a loss. Mercalli 4 saved the day!

My only issue is that Mercalli still sees my Canon C100 clips as interlaced and doesn't give you the option to change this, like I can do in Sony Vegas Pro. (See above by Laurence) I have written to ProDad about this, when I found it in V3. This was their response:

"Hello, I spoke with our engineering again. Your clip contains a meta-info for Interlace and all current programs detect this clip also as Interlace.
Mercalli 3.0 works correctly.

But, we plan for the next version of Mercalli SAL a option for correction this status."

As you can see, they said that we would have the option to chose P/I in the next version. But if they have offered this option, I sure can't find it.

I tried rendering a clip out in interlaced and didn't like the result. So I first rendered the file in SVP to an mov. file. I then loaded this into Mercalli and ran it. Loved the results! Yes, lots of extra steps but loved the results. Here is a split screen sample. http://vimeo.com/114308851