How do you stabilize captured video?

[VideoMan]

The source from which I capture my video "jumps" occasionally. I use either VirtualDub or Premiere for capturing. Does anyone know of how to stabilize the footage either during capturing or during post processing after the footage is captured?

Coincidentally, I haven't been playing around with video capture for quite a long time(I used to do tons of it). So I lost track of and forgot a lot of things. Could someone please tell me where I could obtain the filters and plugins for VirtualDub(apart from those on VDub's website).

Thanks in advance!

[dphirschler]

Not sure what you mean by "jumps". Do you mean the motion is jerky? or does the frame itselft jump vertically?

You could try a temporal smoother/cleaner. There are at least two for Virtual Dub. Aside from that, perhaps the fields need to be swapped if it an jumpiness caused by swapped interlaced fields. Need fmore info.


Darryl

[VideoMan]

Sorry about the ambiguity. What I meant was jumping vertically.

To give some more detail, I am recording from a VHS source. I believe that when the recording was made onto the VHS tape, either the tape, or the VCR recorder head or both were a little dirty. I find this causes recordings to "jump" but is remedied by cleaning the VCR head with a head cleaner.

The VHS tape can also become dusty from long-term storage which is what I believe happened to mine. So now I have a "jumpy" recording because I used this old but high quality tape for recording something new.

I have cleaned both VCR head and VHS tape using their respective techniques and tools but alas, I'm stuck with the "jumping" problem.

I hope anyone reading this will learn from my mistake-if you plan on using/playing a tape that has been kept in storage for a long time, clean it first! Especially if you're going to use it for recording.

[dinesh]

I am also faced with the same problem of the picture "bobbing" up and down, while recording from VHS. I tried Video Stabilizer (trial version with water mark). Looked like a tough task (may be I did not have the patience). I understand there are some filters available commercially for working with VirtualDub ( www.dv99.com ) . If any one succeeds let me know. Thanks.

[dphirschler]

There is a filter out there somewhere (I actually have it, but cannot remember the name of it, nor have I used it yet) that lets you modify certain frames. From what I understand with this filter, you should be able to load the bad frame into some paint package, fix it, and have VDub use the fixed one instead of the bad frame. Not sure how many frames can be fixed this way, but it's worth a try.

Just how far is the frame jumping? Is it just jumping up a few pixels, or is it jumping up half the screen and wrapping to the bottom?

There may also be an AVIsynth filter out there that takes care of this, but I am not the expert on AVIsynth.


Darryl

PS. If you wanted to search for this filter, it wasn't too difficult to find. I started on VDub's own filter page (maintained by Donald Gaft?) and went through all his links for more filters. There's some great stuff out there!

[dphirschler]

The filter is called "Frame Tweaker". It is similar in nature to an AVIsynth filter. It requires a script which you can create right there in Virtual Dub.

Here is the link to the filter.
http://www.geocities.com/cplarosa/video/

Here is a quote from (the author) Chris LaRosa's web site describing the command that corrects a vertical frame jump.

"SHIFT
Shifts the contents of the source frame up or down by the specified number of lines. This is useful for correcting frame jumps which can occasionally occur in film or video. (see also: COPY)
Syntax: first[-last] SHIFT [EVEN | ODD] lines [PASTE]

The lines parameter can be positive or negative. If lines is positive, the frame will be shifted down by the specified number of lines. If lines is negative, the frame will be shifted up by the specified number of lines. If the "EVEN" or "ODD" parameter is used, only the even or odd field in an interlaced frame will be shifted. If the "PASTE" parameter is used, the new lines will contain the lines at the same position on the Frame Tweaker clipboard. Otherwise, the new lines will be black. "

Hope that helps.


Darryl