proDAD Mercalli SE SD video?

[Kingston]

Peem,

Mercalli doesn't have an analyze button. Just OK and Cancel.

NewBlueFX Stabilizer has a "Analyze" button. But I can't get it to work properly in X5.

[Peem]

Thanks Kingston,
What would we do without this forum. How much time would we waste trying to make things in VS work. Your tip about progressive was a great help.

Regards, Peter

[Ken Berry]

My own observation on the Mercalli filter (in X5 -- I never used it in X4) is that when dealing with HD video, you don't have much alternative but to output new video after the Mercalli filter has been applied, in *only* progressive format.

I do most of my videos in original HDV (UFF) 25 fps and output in the same format. I just so happen to have finished a project where fairly unusually for me (! !) I appear to have had a bad case of the shakes throughout. The end result was still quite watchable, but for a Virgo like me, I certainly noticed lots of shaking going on. (Heaven help me, I didn't have my floating head tripod with me that day in Belgium, and in addition it was very cold...)

So I decided to apply Mercalli to the whole new output file which was around 13 minutes long, and as I say HDV UFF and 25 fps. After waiting quite some time for the video to be analysed by Mercalli, I then output it to exactly the same format: HDV UFF 25 fps. But while the shakes were pretty much all gone in the new video, the quality had noticeably -- and I mean quite noticeably -- degraded, and even in quite slow panning shots there was a lot of shimmer. I realise that HDV, like all mpeg, will degrade on reconversion, but I have reconverted many times without any particularly noticeable loss of quality.

So I decided to convert it to AVCHD progressive video. As it turns out, I made an initial mistake of first using 50p, but the added frames made it rather choppy, especially in panning shots. The quality in still shots was nevertheless rather good. When I then set it right to output in 25p, the overall result was still pretty good -- though I would not say perfect. The video was very clear throughout, just about as good as the original HDV, but there was a modest amount of shimmer in panning shots. A good deal less than with the Mercalli output to interleaved video, but still noticeable -- if only slightly -- to a critical eye.

I haven't yet downconverted the video to DVD-compatible -- and thus usually interleaved -- mpeg-2. But I am not sure I would be hopeful about doing so based on the above results -- unless perhaps if it uses Frame Based.

EDIT: I have now downconverted the Mercalli-applied video to DVD-compatible mpeg-2 (PAL 8000 kbps) using both UFF (as per the original HDV) and Frame Based. The latter won hands-down! The UFF version was virtually unwatchable since the shimmer during panning I mentioned in the interleaved HDV output above was intensified. It was missing in the Frame Based output, and indeed the latter didn't appear to have even as much shimmer as the progressive example mentioned above.

So for me at least, it seems that if I am to use Mercalli, the eventual output will need to be progressive for HD video and Frame Based for SD.

[laurentje]

...

So for me at least, it seems that if I am to use Mercalli, the eventual output will need to be progressive for HD video and Frame Based for SD.

I used Mercalli once with VideoStudioX10 in recent past, but I was rather disappointed because of the interlaced material. Ken has right: only usable if the material is progressive. That was in 2012 and also with VideoStudio X20 in 2017. Nowadays I get great announcement from Corel with new VideoStudio Ultimate 2018.

Is it still the same add-in from Mercalli (V2) from 7 years ago in the 2018 version?

[Ken Berry]

Yes, it is still much the same version. It now shows as version "2.0.127 Tech. r.79" and with copyright showing as 2007 - 2017. I imagine the "Tech r." part means something like "Technical revision"...

I bought the stand-alone version 4 of Mercalli, but I have to say that version 2 is a bit simpler to use and still does a good job.

Mind you GoPro Hero 7 Black is soon to be released with what appears to be a truly excellent stabilizer built in (if the trailer videos are accurate)... and that will probably increase expectations of software like Mercalli...