User manual PRODAD VIDEO SHAKER

[. . . ] © proDAD, 2007 Mercalli & Video Shaker © proDAD GmbH, 2007 Autor : Uwe Wenz 1 © proDAD, 2007 Table of contents Welcome Copyright / legal Information General information What is Mercalli?Installing, Registration & starting Mercalli Installing & starting Mercalli Registration / licence key Help function Using Mercalli with different video editing programs / plugin support Adobe Premiere Pro, CS und Elements Avid Liquid Canopus Edius Pinnacle Studio Getting to know Mercalli Settings dialog Profiles Mercalli Light for first tests and quick results Running a quick test Advanced settings (in Standard mode) Expert mode for manual optimisation Movement detection Slider control Important picture area Special video analysis Detectable features Camera stabilisation Slider control Camera balance Camera Motion Border settings Profiles for specific tasks Versatile Handheld camera Shoulder-mounted camera (Shoulder Cam) Tripod 2 4 4 5 5 5 6 6 7 7 9 9 10 10 11 13 13 13 14 15 16 17 17 17 18 18 19 21 22 22 23 23 24 25 25 26 26 27 28 29 29 29 30 © proDAD, 2007 Rescue In Practice Tips & tricks & more Mobile/HD/SD/HDV/HDTV Sensitivity Rendering speed What can interfere with stabilisation?Image noise Compressed video Unused image areas Application to individual clip sections Video-Shaker / add camera shake!List of Video-Shaker profiles List of versions 30 31 32 32 32 32 33 33 33 33 33 34 34 36 3 © proDAD, 2007 Welcome Welcome to proDAD Mercalli ! [. . . ] Consequently, you should only increase this effect (= detail precision) whenever the result of the previous stabilisation attempt is not yet satisfactory. 22 © proDAD, 2007 Important picture area Lets you specify where in an image movement should be detected. Or at least it lets you shift the focus from the edge of an image to its centre. Now imagine a spotlight illuminating only the centre of the image area. With the setting "border", on the other hand, only the border area would be illuminated. You might think that movement detection should always include all available information to achieve the best possible result. Imagine that the filmed object you want the viewer to focus on is a duck, swimming in the centre of the screen. However, the waves around the duck also create movement, which would interfere with the stabilisation of the duck. If movement analysis focuses on the duck (and therefore ignores the waves), the stabilisation result will simply be much better! Special video analysis Detect shapeless contents Mercalli generally tries to include the high-contrast contents of an image in the movement analysis. In such a case, you could include, for instance, clouds in the analysis, which would serve as fixed points for detection of movement. Detect fast motions In action-filled video sequences, certain fast movements during filming may be unavoidable. Depending on the effect you are aiming for, you may wish to select this checkbox to compensate fast movements. 23 © proDAD, 2007 Detect micro motions Again, you may wonder why this is not selected by default. Here's the simple answer: because the detection of slight movements may sometimes be useful, but at other times distracting. The camera has been relatively steady, but the footage is a little grainy. This image noise could be misinterpreted during the movement detection. By contrast, with super slow motion sequences, selecting the checkbox could even further improve the result. Please note that selecting this option considerably increases the rendering time! Detectable features Detect silhouette only With this mode selected, the movement detection feature uses all the rough structures of an object to detect movement. Also detect object contours With this mode selected, object outlines are also detected and included in the movement analysis. Also detect details With this mode selected, not only silhouettes and contours, but also the details of an object are included in the movement analysis. 24 © proDAD, 2007 Summary: This section is where you decide how to optimise movement detection, depending on the video footage and your personal criteria (which only you can choose). Luckily you need no mathematical skills for this ­ which is why you'll probably prefer Mercalli to other stabilisation programs. Camera stabilisation Slider control Lets you set the camera movement, ranging from "soft" to "steady" and static". In lively scenes, you remove shake from a handheld camera by choosing soft camera movement; in portrait takes or object filming, you should rather aim for a static camera movement, which is comparable to scenes filmed using a tripod. In some cases, you may wish to reduce rather than completely remove camera movement, for instance, to retain the character of a live report, but you'll still want to remove extreme camera shake. Other video stabilisation programs only provide a blanket approach, whereas Mercalli allows you to fine-tune your images. 25 © proDAD, 2007 Camera balance Lets you specify the camera effect you wish to achieve as a result of stabilisation. [. . . ] This ultimately cuts rendering time. 33 © proDAD, 2007 Video-Shaker / add camera shake! While we were developing Mercalli, our enthusiastic test users sent us an increasing number of requests for a product that would have the opposite effect. This may initially sound odd, but the request was voiced (independently) mainly by our professional users, and is therefore clearly founded in practice. Our users' wishes were remarkably similar: "Although it is useful to stabilise footage during post processing, in some cases it would also be good to add a bit more life, or even an action atmosphere, to computer-generated scenes or footage that's just "too smooth. "" This is why Mercalli now includes the "Video-Shaker", which lets you add camera shake to your footage. Simply assign the "Video-Shaker" to a video clip, select a parameter or profile, and start the analysis. [. . . ]