Hyperlapse stabilization

[bsartist]

Trying my hand at a hyperlapse. I edit with FCPX on a Mac. The stabilization feature is useless at stabilizing the jitter between frames (I have to export a master then reimport to apply stabilization).

I’ve seen videos on using After Effects but I’m not interested in being extorted $20/month for a subscription.

Anyone know of other alternatives? Either free or a reasonable one time purchase? Otherwise I’ll probably have to give up since the results are unusable.

Thanks.

 

[monki77]

Try Davinci. The stabilisation is good and can be customised beyond it's simple "one click" fix feature.

DaVinci Resolve 15 | Blackmagic Design

What kind of timelapse did you take by the way... Video or Photos?

 

[bsartist]

Try Davinci. The stabilisation is good and can be customised beyond it's simple "one click" fix feature.

DaVinci Resolve 15 | Blackmagic Design

What kind of timelapse did you take by the way... Video or Photos?

I took a series of photos every 2 seconds while traveling sideways at 2mph (using a Litchi waypoint mission) making it a hyperlapse as opposed to a straight stationary Timelapse.

I made the distinction not to be pedantic ;-) but if it were a straight stationary timelapse I could take a run at manually cropping and registering each frame in photoshop using layering like an onion skin. But since it’s moving everything is changing in each exposure.

Thx for the DaVinci pointer. I don’t know if I want to pay the whole learning curve to replace FCPX but I might try it for just the stabilizer.

 

[monki77]

I know I should have said hyperlapse, but there's a lot of debate about what a true hyperlapse is and whether moving it's moving 10 meters or 10 miles.... Anyway.... That's not why we're here

I just asked about video vs photo because I've had the same issues in your situation. The amount of warp and wobble was so frustrating after hours of stabilisation in Premiere and Davinci, to the point i just sacked photos off and tried a video hyperlapse instead, and it was like night and day. It was so smooth.

 

[bsartist]

I know I should have said hyperlapse, but there's a lot of debate about what a true hyperlapse is and whether moving it's moving 10 meters or 10 miles.... Anyway.... That's not why we're here

I just asked about video vs photo because I've had the same issues in your situation. The amount of warp and wobble was so frustrating after hours of stabilisation in Premiere and Davinci, to the point i just sacked photos off and tried a video hyperlapse instead, and it was like night and day. It was so smooth.

Interesting. You mean shooting video and just speeding it up?

I’ve thought about that and wondered if the benefit of doing stills is just saving storage. Which is kind of meaningless because I can fit a battery worth of video on my card anyway. I guess the stills are a higher frame size but is that worth it?

If you ARE talking about video sped up I may try that.

 

[monki77]

Yep, just speeding up the video.

The general argument is that photos hold more data compared to video frames, but I doubt it makes a massive difference unless you want to do some major post processing, especially in good light!

Something and nothing worth mentioning - Because of the length of the video you'll get multiple 4GB files as that's the highest single size the SD will hold on the Phantom. They'll line up and play fine on your timeline though.

 

[bsartist]

Yep, just speeding up the video.

The general argument is that photos hold more data compared to video frames, but I doubt it makes a massive difference unless you want to do some major post processing, especially in good light!

Something and nothing worth mentioning - Because of the length of the video you'll get multiple 4GB files as that's the highest single size the SD will hold on the Phantom. They'll line up and play fine on your timeline though.

Thanks. I am well (and painfully) aware of the file size limit. . I have shot a bunch of video that spans multiple files. Why do I say painfully? LOL. I just pulled my hair out, posted here and on DJI forum (as well as PM with DJI) on a nagging problem of freezes one second into the second file created for 25 - 30 frames. I couldn’t get anyone else to say they had the problem. So I thought it must be something I was doing differently. I finally hunched that it may be due to my use of H.265 and that most people probably don’t use that yet. I turned it back to H.264 and problem went away. So I can now happily shoot more than 5:27 of video (one file worth) without it freezing on me at second 5:28. LOL.

 

[monki77]

That's something to know... so using h265 and shooting over the 5:27 limit of 1 file size creates an issue? Like many i haven't even touched h265, it seems even though it gives better quality for slightly larger file sizes, the support just isn't there =/

 

[bsartist]

That's something to know... so using h265 and shooting over the 5:27 limit of 1 file size creates an issue? Like many i haven't even touched h265, it seems even though it gives better quality for slightly larger file sizes, the support just isn't there =/

That has been my experience. I was hoping for smaller file size with H.265 but it doesn’t appear so. So if there is any quality boost to H.265 I doubt it would be that noticeable if at all. I’ll stick with H.264 even if they update the firmware to fix the problem.

 

[bsartist]

That's something to know... so using h265 and shooting over the 5:27 limit of 1 file size creates an issue? Like many i haven't even touched h265, it seems even though it gives better quality for slightly larger file sizes, the support just isn't there =/

Here is my thread on the topic including samples...

Video freeze after new file opened up

 

[monki77]

Hmmmm...That's annoying! I noticed you use mov...Out of curiosity, have you tried with mp4 format? I'm only assuming that's an option for 265, I have no idea.
Might have a try myself tomorrow and see what happens if the weather is ok!

 

[bsartist]

Hmmmm...That's annoying! I noticed you use mov...Out of curiosity, have you tried with mp4 format? I'm only assuming that's an option for 265, I have no idea.
Might have a try myself tomorrow and see what happens if the weather is ok!

Good point. Not sure if I changed the container format. I may not have.

 

[monki77]

Let me know if you do and it works.... If i get chance tomorrow I'll do the same!

Although tbh I can't see myself using h265, I do prefer to know of these thing so thanks for mentioning it.

 

[bsartist]

Let me know if you do and it works.... If i get chance tomorrow I'll do the same!

Although tbh I can't see myself using h265, I do prefer to know of these thing so thanks for mentioning it.

Will do. Knowledge is power.

 

[gingerbloke]

I've used VirtualDub with Deshaker before for shaky footage - it works well but needs a grunty PC and you must read the FAQ (it's a two pass process) if you've not used it before, it's not a modern point/click/swipe UI. I ran some POI footage from a P3S and it was very smooth, not sure how it will work with Hyperlapse but I'll give it a try when the rain (ever!) stops here in UK.

 

[commonrider02]

Interesting. You mean shooting video and just speeding it up?

I’ve thought about that and wondered if the benefit of doing stills is just saving storage. Which is kind of meaningless because I can fit a battery worth of video on my card anyway. I guess the stills are a higher frame size but is that worth it?

If you ARE talking about video sped up I may try that.

The major benefit to using photos is to use a long shutter so you get nice motion blur. Usually works best around dusk with car light streaks. Otherwise you could simply speed up video. Another benefit of stills is, you can use any of the stills as a stand-alone still image after you’re done.

 

[commonrider02]

Trying my hand at a hyperlapse. I edit with FCPX on a Mac. The stabilization feature is useless at stabilizing the jitter between frames (I have to export a master then reimport to apply stabilization).

I’ve seen videos on using After Effects but I’m not interested in being extorted $20/month for a subscription.

Anyone know of other alternatives? Either free or a reasonable one time purchase? Otherwise I’ll probably have to give up since the results are unusable.

Thanks.

I’ve never seen any better stabilization than adobe’s warp stabilize. It is incredible. If you’re planning on taking the creation of hyper lapse to a professional level you’re going to need the entire adobe creative suite anyway. The cost of adobe is a write off if you make any money selling footage or images.

 

[Weston Ney]

Did you figure anything out?
I second using DaVinci resolve for stabilizer, it is free and it does a decent job, not as good as Adobe warp stabilizer, but decent. I use Adobe creative suite, but I personally found for hyperlapses that warp stabilizer is not good enough either. If you want good stabilization you will need Adobe After Effects and a plug-in called reelsteady. But things do get expensive when you do that...

 

[pskoen]

Trying my hand at a hyperlapse. I edit with FCPX on a Mac. The stabilization feature is useless at stabilizing the jitter between frames (I have to export a master then reimport to apply stabilization).

I’ve seen videos on using After Effects but I’m not interested in being extorted $20/month for a subscription.

Anyone know of other alternatives? Either free or a reasonable one time purchase? Otherwise I’ll probably have to give up since the results are unusable.

Thanks.

I used to get good results with both the Android and x86 versions of Microsoft Hyperlapse. As you might imagine, the PC version offers more customization. I realize you said free, but they offer a trial. At one time there was a beta .apk which was free without a watermark; of course the whole ethical spectrum of options are available to you, from changing your device's date to [whatever].

 

[bsartist]

I used to get good results with both the Android and x86 versions of Microsoft Hyperlapse. As you might imagine, the PC version offers more customization. I realize you said free, but they offer a trial. At one time there was a beta .apk which was free without a watermark; of course the whole ethical spectrum of options are available to you, from changing your device's date to [whatever].

I said “free *or a reasonable one time purchase*” (emphasis added). Not “free or pirated.”

Do these versions of hyperlapse really do stabilization? Do you pay one time for the license?