Remove Shake from your Videos
There is so much free stuff out there, that sometimes is hard to weed out the gargabe from gems like this. Meet DeShaker, a completely free plugin for the well known video processing software VirtualDub. This plugin truly delivers. No doubt it will be essential for all those video enthusiasts who love to shoot handheld footage. Deshaker uses something called ‘motion vectors’ in order to eliminate camera shakiness. Just take a look at the following video (watch in HD and fullscreen)…
If you watched in HD and fullscreen, you will notice that I shot this handheld, on a lift to the slopes. There was plenty of vibration on the lift, but I think I managed to get some decent footage. However, after running Deshaker on this short clip, I was amazed at the results. Is almost as if I used a steadycam or something similar to stabilize my camera.
According to the developer, Deshaker:
- Stabilizes horizontal/vertical panning, rotation and zooming.
- Works in 2 passes for optimal simulated camera motion.
- Can use previous and future frames to fill in “black areas” caused by the stabilizing.
- Optional motion vector video output during first pass.
- Lots of settings for the advanced user.
- Human guidance is possible on a frame per frame basis.
There are many uses to this plugin, and is all explained in the long and elaborated guide posted at Deshaker’s homepage.
Deshaker is a very small file, that basically needs to be unzipped or copied to the plugins folder of virtualdub. Then is just a matter of opening your video with VirtualDub, setting your compression settings for audio and video, and adding a filter… deshaker. The usage of the plugin is fairly simple if you follow the short guide on the developer’s page. In essence:
- Open the video clip in VirtualDub and add the Deshaker filter.
- Select the correct Source pixel aspect and Video type.
- Make sure Pass 1 is selected.
- Step through the video in some way, for example by selecting “Preview filtered…” in VirtualDub. No useful video is created during the first pass.
- Select Pass 2.
- Encode the video the usual way.
The way I understand it, this plugin works by finding the big motions on the footage by looking at the panning, rotations and zooms the video has. It then adjusts or compensates those unwanted movements by actually creating ‘digital shake’, just in the opposite direction of the shake already in place, and in this way it creates the illusion of a steady shot.
All of this and more is explained at the Deshaker’s homepage, along with a more in-depth guide so the user can truly master and fine tune all aspects of stabilization. Enjoy shake-free videos!
Download Deshaker: http://www.guthspot.se/video/deshaker.htm
