Corel® VideoStudio® Pro X4 Ultimate Announced!

[MikeA]

I'm seeing some bugs concerning Mercalli on this topic 'X4 Ultimate - proDAD image stabilizer plug in' http://forum.corel.com/EN/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=43130 that is currently being discussed. Seems to me that some work needs to be done between Corel and ProDad before the plugin works seamlessly. I think I will hold off for a while until I see that a) it works as I would like b) it works without having to mess with settings.

One correspondent said that Mercalli can be bought for $49 for Pinnacle Studio. It would be nice if such an option was available for X4 without upgrading. Then one could try it out and if it was not working as expected, uninstall and not purchase. Right now I'd be effectively paying $79 for something that can apparently be bought for $49 elsewhere.


M

[Ken Berry]

Not if you count the Boris FX which apparently work well and are quite professional. Although you can buy that plug-in separately too for $69...

[Ron P.]

So far the only problem I've encountered with Mercali, is having VS X3 installed. For some reason it will install to VS X3 but not to X4. Once X3 is uninstalled, then it will install and work in X4.

[MikeA]

I emailed ProDad about Mercalli. I mentioned the frame/interlaced problem. Here's their response.

"Hello, thanks for your request.

1. Mercalli SE is a special edition for Corel X4 (only with Corel Plugin). The functionality is the same.
2. Please use this current Service 2.0.92 of Mercalli:
http://www.prodad.de/setup/Download-(1) ... s32bit.exe

Please use no other effects of your clip in the Corel timeline. Use Mercalli alone."

May be of some interest/use...

M

[Ken Berry]

Please use no other effects of your clip in the Corel timeline. Use Mercalli alone.

Hmmm... This is potentially troubling if --as it seems to say -- you can't use any other filter when you use Mercalli...

[Joe Linn]

Please use no other effects of your clip in the Corel timeline. Use Mercalli alone.

Hmmm... This is potentially troubling if --as it seems to say -- you can't use any other filter when you use Mercalli...

The only problem I've had with Mercalli was the installation one where it installs itself into the wrong release of VS.

I have used it on numerous 1080i clips without a single problem. initially I was concerned about image degradation caused by the fact that it needs to zoom in slightly. After doing lots of A/B comparisons of the same footage and projecting the result on a 10 foot screen, I have found no noticeable loss in image sharpness. I had originally planned to use it only on a couple of particularly annoying shots. The results have been so impressive that I ended up using it on most of the hand-held shots from some vacation video I am editing.

I have also successfully used Mercalli along with multiple other filters on the same clip. The only thing I ran into is that I need to think about what I am combining. For example, I used the crop filter to put a white border around a clip. I applied Mercalli after the crop filter. Since Mercalli eliminates shake by re-aligning the frames,I ended up with a dancing white border. I changed the order of the filters so the crop filter came after Mercalli and everything was fine.

I am very pleased with the improvement Mercalli has made to my videos. The results have been as dramatic as the demonstration videos.

Joe

[Ken Berry]

Thanks, Joe, for that particularly helpful information. It sets my mind at rest, too, about not using Mercalli with other filters. I wonder, though, what they mean by what they said above...?

[Joe Linn]

Thanks, Joe, for that particularly helpful information. It sets my mind at rest, too, about not using Mercalli with other filters. I wonder, though, what they mean by what they said above...?

I wonder if they are mainly concerned about unexpected results due to the interaction of the filters - such as my dancing white border. Or if you were using a filter that deformed the video -waves or something- it could confuse Mercalli if that filter was applied before Mercalli.

I have one clip to which I applied duo-tone, pencil sketch, Mercalli, and crop. There were no problems once I moved the cropping filter to the end. There is even a transition leading into the clip. Even with Mercalli at the end, the filter worked. The result just looked silly. From my experience, Mercalli has been quite robust.

Now I need to teach myself BorisFX Graffiti. It looks like a very powerful and flexible (ie complicated) package that pretty well requires you to jump right into the deep end of the pool. It doesn't appear to have an "easy mode." Even doing something simple requires you to begin almost from scratch and work with many timelines, primitives, windows, tools, and options. You need to be comfortable with concepts like splines. I'm hunting for a comprehensive manual.

Joe

[MikeA]

So I bit the bullet and bought the box! VS Pro 4 Ultimate. It arrived yesterday and at 11 pm I got to work installing it. It was the upgrade version - at least I paid the upgrade price, having VS Pro 4 installed and working. Thereafter followed what I term 'Adventures in Installing'. The installation DVD boots itself with a menu showing the different components. The first is VS itself and I started with that. It soon became clear it was going to uninstall the existing Pro X4. It proceeded and then finalized. I then worked my way through the other menu items - the new plug ins, etc. When all was done I looked to start VS. But no icon and no mention in the program list. Hmmm! So I went back to the DVD menu list and clicked to install VS (again). This time the procedure was different and it seemed to be installing all components itself. OK... Finally, it was done, and yes, now I had an icon etc. And VS came up. Of course, my libraries were gone and probably anything I had since downloaded. But it worked. But no Mercalli and no Boris. I looked on the Corel website and they had answer just right for me - what to do if no Mercalli and/or Boris. Seems one has to copy a config file from the DVD to a folder for Mercalli. I did that, but the file was there already. Curious. So I rebooted my computer and there it was - at last an M in the FX library. For Boris, I was told I should have installed within a special folder within the Corel folder structure. So after trying a few things I finally uninstalled Boris and installed it in the specified folder. And now I have both plug-ins working. To me, this was all rather too complicated and unnecessary (to say the least). But, the past is the past, and I have a working program and some fun things to try.

Now - as to Mercalli. Initial impressions are that it is impressive. I have had no problems getting it to work. it has a number of options, and as far as I can see, one simply has to experiment to see what works best. I was a little concerned at first, because the plug in seemed to degrade the video. This seemed to be the case if I made a file and played it back externally to VS on the monitor. But I also played it back through my large flat screen TV and there the quality was good, I would even say very good. I need to experiment some more, but using it to steady some video made while I was walking, and that made one sea sick watching it on the big screen, resulted in a pretty steady view and no obvious degradation.

As for Boris, I suspect it needs two semesters of training and the comprehension of a PhD - how many screens are there and how many buttons? And, of course, Corel has come through with their usual detailed guidance. I'm not sure I have the energy nor patience to delve into its mysteries, but it does seem to offer a wonderful array of possibilities.

M

[Roberto]

My feedbacks & experiences.
1. No issue at all with the installation (but I upgraded to X4 Ultimate from VSX3, that is, from not X4)
2. Mercalli stabilizer is absolutely great. I am right now stabilizing a lot of footage taken while I was walking and the result is pretty good. No special trimmering o the parameters, just using glide camera" preset.
3. I played a bit with Boris Graffiti and I agree that the number of options, buttons, etc. require a certain learning period. The product anyway is absolutely professional.

Therefore, for less than 80 bucks, gettinga professional text editor and a well-working stabilizer + VSX4 upgrade was not that bad

[MikeA]

Here's a clarifier from ProDad about using other FX with Mercalli. Earlier I had noted that they had said "Please use no other effects of your clip in the Corel timeline. Use Mercalli alone." I followed up on this,noting that one person had reported using other FX successfully with Mercalli. This is the response, "that´s correct. But use Mercalli ever as first. Then you can use other effects in Corel. Generally its better to use only Mercalli. You have a different order of Mercalli and other effects, then you have a problem...."
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