Just can't get stabilization work properly.

[Jim Halpert]

Hey all,

In the past 2 days i've been trying to find a method to stabilize my video.
It's been filmed by my friend, with pretty shaky camera, so I want to get the video stabilized.

Anyhow, after searching and trying many methods, it seems like nothing works!

I tried plugins such as deshaker, and SteadyMove Pro.

It seems like everyone over the web manages to get their video stabilized, yet mine won't, even with several methods.

The recent one I'm using at the moment is the SteadyMove Pro plugin for AE.
I did exactly as shown on the tutorials, yet it still doesn't work!
The video is still shaky, and not only it doesn't do any better to the video, it gets the quality worse and the audio delayed.

As you already realised, I don't have much background with editing videos, but i'm a quick learner with it comes to that stuff (i'm working with photoshop and such for many years now).

What can I possibly do wrong?

p.s
The only thing wrong with the videos is that the picture is shaky. The video was taken without movement. It's a static filming of a moving object (human) with many shakes like the person filming got Parkinson.
If i'm not mistaken it was HD camera. I heard it's a common problem with those cameras.

Thanks in advance.

[jagabo]

VirtualDub and Gunnar Thalin's deshaker filter usually work pretty well. Although it's a bit tricky to use. You have to set it to pass 1 then preview the entire video. Then set it to pass 2 and save.

Maybe if you posted a short sample...

[Jim Halpert]

I did it.. did exactly as showed in any possible tutorial and article. It just won't go good.

Here's an example on low quality and no sound (on purpose for min weight issue) part of the original shaked movie (I made a cut):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIq0_REy6b0

[lordsmurf]

When it comes to camera shake, I've always preferred Steadyhand.

[poisondeathray]

Your problems are more than just camera shake - there is warping in the image (rolling shutter, jello), probably from a CMOS sensor camera. This is not easily fixed, but there are some plugins for foundry nuke that claim to work ($)

[Jim Halpert]

Those warping are on a specific timeline or on the entire video?

[poisondeathray]

The warping occurs when you pan too quickly with a CMOS sensor. Straight lines become bent. You should read up on "rolling shutter" and CMOS issues. Do a search

Here is a dramatic example of rolling shutter, your video exhibits the same characteristics, but to a lesser extent
http://www.vimeo.com/6894404

This is in addition to the shake which affects x,y axis. Normal stabilization plugins/effects help improve x, y shifts and (even rotation for some plugins) , but they cannot take care of warping

[jagabo]

You shouldn't use Youtube to post your sample. It's impossible to tell what problems are caused by youtube and what problems were in your source. Just trim a small sample and post it here if less than 6 MB. Otherwise use MediaFire or some other file transfer service.

Remove all the duplicate frames before attempting a deshake. That is your major problem. I'm not sure exactly what the right frame rate is but try TDecimate(mode=2, rate=10). If your source has those black borders remove those too.

deshake.avi

[Jim Halpert]

Here's a part from the beginning of the video:

dsc_5274_xvid.avi

[jagabo]

resize 704x400 + Deshaker:

deshake2.avi