Image Stabilization with ProDAD Mercalli 3.0

    I was in a bind.
I needed a completed edit in only two days and one of my "golden" angles that I definitely wanted to use was too shaky to be comfortably viewed. I tried various other so-called stabilization plugins and techniques, but my handheld video was just too shaky to be fixed. I had no time to reshoot this particular clip if I wanted to, but I felt it was a necessary addition and didn't want it to go to waste. After an intense hour long research session on the web, scouring through dozens of forums looking for the miracle answer, I was drawn to the solution of using the Mercalli 3.0 Stand-alone (SAL) video stabilization software by proDAD. I've used stabilization plugins in the past (with MACs, PCs, and Avid) and have had fairly decent results, but none of these could handle the amount of camera shake I was dealing with. The plugins I had used in the past took nearly 15-20 minutes to analyze and render (on average, depending on the size of the clip) and left me yearning for better results and my lost time back (imagine you render your stabilization to the wrong parameters and need to wait 15 minutes each time just to find that you need to reset your parameters and try again -- this was my reality). For months prior I was editing at a quality well under what I expected from myself due to the limitations of my software and within minutes this issue was remedied.

    I purchased Mercalli 3.0 SAL, as I was in a bind worth a small price, and I had it up and running within minutes. I did a simple drag-and-drop of the file I wanted to stabilize and did a simple "universal camera" stabilization analyzation, at the single click of the mouse. In less than a minute I was left with exactly what I had been looking for all along, for years -- a very smooth, cinematic quality camera movement that could be analyzed, rendered, and exported in a fraction of the time of what I was used to with alternative specialty plugins. I'm amazed.

Here's a comparison of an erratic, handheld shaky camera clip before and after stabilization using proDAD's Mercalli 3.0 software:




 
    As a fair warning, I've used the proDAD Mercalli 2.0 plugin with Adobe Premiere Pro and that was one of the plugins I was referring to that was too slow and inefficient; I stress my recommendation for Mercalli 3.0's Stand-alone software rather than the 2.0 plugin. I hope this helps anyone working through a similar issue. And, in case you were wondering, I am not, by any means, a paid advertising agent for proDAD; I'm just elated with the efficacy of my new upgrade -- a happy customer!

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