Virtual Dub's Deshaker is driving me crazy

[Patrick]

Ive got some time lapse footage which has some unwanted movement and it is to be incorporated into a film that I'm submitting to a film festival. I'm having mixed success with Virtual Dub's Deshaker tool. Sorry if this is a little off topic but the footage was obtained from digital stills (not film.) The finished film will be 1920 x 1080. Initially, I created a 1920 x 1280 copy of the video (no cropping) and used Deshaker on that which was quite foolish of me. Deshaker did a reasonable job but because of the inevitable cropping, I end up with a video clip that is below true 1920 x 1080 quality. Very silly of me. It looks fine on a medium sized HDTV but may not look so great on a big screen at a festival.

So next, I went ahead and created a full resolution 4608 x 3072 video from the stills and tried Deshaker on that. It was to be later imported into Sony Movie Studio where it would be reduced to 1920 x 1080. First pass went okay but with the second pass, it took forever to process. 12 hours later and it was still rendering. And it had only completed frame 9 out of 165 supposedly. I aborted it. I guess the software couldn't cope with a file that huge.

I then created a 2350 x 1567 video from the stills and started Deshaker on that. But when the very last step came, it refused to render. I get an error message that says: "Cannot start video compression. An unknown error occurred (may be corrupt data.) Error code 100."

Would it be anything to do with the Xvid codec I selected? I used this very same codec on the previous two renderings and did not have this issue on those occasions.

Since then, Ive created two more video clips from the same stills (utilising different file sizes) and I keep getting the same error message. Ive created a 2300 x 1533 and a 2330 x 1553 video and neither of those will render. I guess I could try some different codecs from within VD but Ive no idea which ones are worth using (I know not all codecs are created equal.) These are the ones that I have in VD - Cinepack Codec by Radius, Intel IYUV, Microsoft RLE, Microsoft Video 1 and Xvid MPEG4 and of course Uncompressed RGB (I would prefer some compression but minimal quality loss.) Which would be the best codec to use out of those for HD video?

[silverhalide]

This would have never happened with a Bolex H16 and a nice Bell & Howell projector. Digital workflows sure can be frustrating.

[Patrick]

This would have never happened with a Bolex H16 and a nice Bell & Howell projector. Digital workflows sure can be frustrating.

True. Though the issue could have occurred with the telecined film! The problem has now been fixed - it just started randomly working again.

When I was shooting on film on a regular basis, I regret not doing any time lapse on 16mm. I did do heaps of time lapse on super 8 though. I had a Krasnogorsk 3 but I couldn't get the single frame function to work. Ive never owned a Bolex H16 but I lusted after one for a while.

[silverhalide]

Glad to hear you overcame your frustrating software issue. Those can be very frustrating.

[slashmaster]

Ive got some time lapse footage which has some unwanted movement and it is to be incorporated into a film that I'm submitting to a film festival. I'm having mixed success with Virtual Dub's Deshaker tool. Sorry if this is a little off topic but the footage was obtained from digital stills (not film.) The finished film will be 1920 x 1080. Initially, I created a 1920 x 1280 copy of the video (no cropping) and used Deshaker on that which was quite foolish of me. Deshaker did a reasonable job but because of the inevitable cropping, I end up with a video clip that is below true 1920 x 1080 quality. Very silly of me. It looks fine on a medium sized HDTV but may not look so great on a big screen at a festival.

So next, I went ahead and created a full resolution 4608 x 3072 video from the stills and tried Deshaker on that. It was to be later imported into Sony Movie Studio where it would be reduced to 1920 x 1080. First pass went okay but with the second pass, it took forever to process. 12 hours later and it was still rendering. And it had only completed frame 9 out of 165 supposedly. I aborted it. I guess the software couldn't cope with a file that huge.

I then created a 2350 x 1567 video from the stills and started Deshaker on that. But when the very last step came, it refused to render. I get an error message that says: "Cannot start video compression. An unknown error occurred (may be corrupt data.) Error code 100."

Would it be anything to do with the Xvid codec I selected? I used this very same codec on the previous two renderings and did not have this issue on those occasions.

Since then, Ive created two more video clips from the same stills (utilising different file sizes) and I keep getting the same error message. Ive created a 2300 x 1533 and a 2330 x 1553 video and neither of those will render. I guess I could try some different codecs from within VD but Ive no idea which ones are worth using (I know not all codecs are created equal.) These are the ones that I have in VD - Cinepack Codec by Radius, Intel IYUV, Microsoft RLE, Microsoft Video 1 and Xvid MPEG4 and of course Uncompressed RGB (I would prefer some compression but minimal quality loss.) Which would be the best codec to use out of those for HD video?

So what's causing the shaking in your timelapse? A not so sturdy tripod?

[Patrick]

So what's causing the shaking in your timelapse? A not so sturdy tripod?

Yea it's likely the tripod. Ive been shooting time lapses for well over a decade and they've all been rock steady....until now. I got a new tripod recently which is quite light weight. I'm used to using all metal tripods but this one is a mix of plastic and aluminium. I though it would be okay for time lapse but so many of the time lapses that I have shot with this tripod have needed some kind of post stabilisation. Usually very minor but this particular time lapse (in which I used VD's Deshaker) has some pretty severe movement. I was using an old Canon FD 200mm lens (probably 1970s vintage) which is quite a weighty lens - pretty large too. I had locked the tripod semi-tightly while I was working on my composition. The plan was to lock the pan and tilt movements super tight only after I finalise the composition. Silly me - after getting the exact composition that I wanted, I forgot to fully tighten, and started shooting. A lot of the time lapse is pretty steady but there are times where there are some weird up and down movements which doesn't really make any sense. I don't really have any explanation as to why the camera and lens combo would randomly move up and down. And they're pretty severe movements too. The camera doesn't have in-body stabilisation so it can't be that.

[slashmaster]

Hmmmmmm, maybe the wind blew it. Are the legs black? Maybe they soaked up heat from the sun unevenly and expanded unevenly. What did you make this timelapse of if I may ask? Is it something that will never happen again or someplace you might not be allowed back to again? Someplace far?

[Patrick]

There was a little bit of a breeze now and again but unlikely enough wind to move it. And it looked very stable the whole time. Yes the legs are black - interesting theory though there are struts on the legs to keep their position consistent. It's a time lapse of the tide coming in at the sea shore which really tests my patience. Usually, I don't mind waiting around when shooting time lapse but with this particular subject matter, it's a case of waiting for many, many hours. Plus I'm fairly satisfied with the way that VD's Deshaker handled it.