proDAD Mercalli V4 offering - 25% discount - anyone using it?

browj2 wrote on 12/19/2014, 11:05 AM

Hi,

proDAD is offering a 25% discount on all things proDAD according to the email that I received with a promo code. The main one is the new Mercalli V4. I have V2 that came with VPX6 and it works fine with what I have done so far, better than the built-in stabilizer from Magix. I presume that there is no plugin yet for Magix for this version and one would have to use the standalone.

Has anyone tried this out and, if so, do you think it is worth upgrading?

The deal is available through Jan. 6, 2015.

Thanks,

Comments

Scenestealer wrote on 12/19/2014, 3:52 PM

Hi John

The offer is attractive but I would not buy just the stand alone without the plugin. I use V2 a lot and it would be a pain to have to process the clips and export them and replace the clips in the timeline.

The dynamic zoom feature would be the most attractive thing for me as it prevents having to zoom the whole clip to the level of the worst frame, with the subsequent loss of resolution. The denoising might be another good feature if it is smart enough.

I have not tested it.

Edit: Oops....nor can I as it appears to be 64bit only. Also it's only 20% discount till 6th Jan.

Peter

browj2 wrote on 12/19/2014, 5:28 PM

Hi Peter,

Thanks for the reply. You're right, maybe, the discount is only 20% on Mercalli. The 25% is on all regularly priced products in the proDAD online shop....except Mercalli? So I tried it out just to see. The 20% was indicated by default. I added in the coupon and the recalc came out lower. The 20% was removed and replaced by a 25% discount. I didn't try actually completing the purchase however, but anyone who wants it should try to use the 25% coupon instead of accepting the 20%. Of course, I was hoping for 20% + 25% off, but....

I agree, it would be much more convenient to have the plugin, so I'll wait.

Thanks,

johnebaker wrote on 12/20/2014, 5:20 AM

I do not if it is still the case, however when I bought the standalone Hieroglyph (4-5 yrs ago) the plugin came with it.

I feel an email to ProDad my clarify the issue.

John

Scenestealer wrote on 12/20/2014, 3:27 PM

I do not if it is still the case, however when I bought the standalone Hieroglyph (4-5 yrs ago) the plugin came with it.

I have a vague feeling you might be right and that is what Mercalli V4 SAL + means - ie. plus plugin. But how do yo indicate which NLE it is for in the online shop?

Peter

browj2 wrote on 12/21/2014, 12:44 AM

@Peter,

I don't think that the plugins are available; I saw no evidence on the site. There is a comparison table on the site and the only version with a plugin is V2.

The email defines the "+" as follows:

"Why the “+” in the name? That's because Mercalli V4 SAL is more than just a stabilizer; with the addition of dynamic CMOS correction to remove skew, wobble, jello, and vibration jitter that traditional stabilization software and gimbals cannot remove. Mercalli V4 SAL+ is so advanced that you no longer need to worry about holding the camera still or mounting with a gimbal. Focus on capturing the action; Mercalli V4 SAL+ can make it look great."

Given that I usually hold the camera steady enough for any problems to be taken care of sufficiently with V2, V4 may be overkill, especially given the type of videos used in the promos. For now, I'll continue to hold the camera steady or use a tripod. My video camera has builtin stabilization, but not the DSRL or the cell phone. On the other hand, maybe I should look closer at the cell phone footage and any handheld footage where I had zoomed in to see if V2 adequately stabilizes the clips.

johnebaker wrote on 12/21/2014, 3:40 AM

. . . . .But how do yo indicate which NLE it is for in the online shop? . . . .

When I got Heroglyph the installer asked which software to install the plugin for so that it was put in the correct place for the software to pick it up.

John

Scenestealer wrote on 12/21/2014, 4:37 AM

Thanks 2x John for the extra info.

On the other hand, maybe I should look closer at the cell phone footage and any handheld footage where I had zoomed in to see if V2 adequately stabilizes the clips.

On the other hand, maybe I should look closer at the cell phone footage and any handheld footage where I had zoomed in to see if V2 adequately stabilizes the clips.

I am sure V2 stabilises adequately, but the issue is that it zooms the whole shot to eliminate a black wobbling border, on all the frames to the same degree as the worst frame in the shot, with the inherent loss of resolution caused by the zoom. V4 takes into account that parts of the said shot may be quite stable and so only zooms those parts to a lesser degree. When the really bad bits of the shot come along it dynamically zooms the shot to the degree necessary to eliminate the larger border caused by the greater shifting of the frame required to effect the stabilisation.

I like the bit about "not having to worry about holding the camera steady"...........I wish!

Peter

browj2 wrote on 12/22/2014, 11:11 AM

@Peter,

Thanks for the comments. I now see the problem with the zoom for the worst case.

The same question just came up on the Pinnacle forum but for using the New Blue Stabilizer. Jeff Naylor, I believe, uploaded some footage, raw (GoPro on a bike over cobblestones), and a another one stabilized 4 different ways.

I downloaded his raw footage and tried stabilizing it with pro-Dad Mercalli V2. No matter what I did, I could not even get as good as the original footage. Then I tried the VPX6 built-in stabilizer and got an improvement over the orginal. I also tried the built-in Pinnacle 17.6 stabilizer and it was even better. As JN found out, the Pinnacle stabilizer was about the best (he did better than I did with it) and the NB plugin was almost as good (hard to tell). My conclusion is that the proDAD V2 is woefully inadequate for anything that is not minor, and way over-priced. It's a good thing that it was bundled with a Magix update.

I downloaded Mercalli V4 and tried it. With a few adjustments, I was able to significantly improve the clip. I could probably get a better result if I read the manual and worked at it, but the improvement is quite remarkable. What obviously can't be corrected are frames that are blurred due to extreme jarring. So, anyone using a GoPro camera and needing a lot of stabilization, it looks like Mercalli V4 is a good solution. I will have to try out other footage using V4 that is difficult to get an acceptable improvement with V2.

I find that the 200$ upgrade price is rather steep for what I am doing.

altarvic wrote on 1/12/2015, 4:27 AM

I think Mercalli V4 is one of the best stabilization tools. It's a pity that Prodad didn't released a plugin.

BTW, here Mercalli V4 is offered with 35% discount

Scenestealer wrote on 1/20/2015, 3:53 PM

Hi John C.B.

I am surprised you have found V2 so inadequate as it serves me extemely well. Did you export the clips you applied it to before comparing? There is an issue with seeing the effect of the stablising in preview if you have the Reduce framerate option ticked in the dropdown that opens with P key. See my comments during discussion with support a while back:-

Mercalli Stabilisation and the Flash button: - I am using Mercalli Pro V2 plugin for Magix with all the recent service updates from their website. There has always been an issue with Mercalli Pro running in MEP at less than full resolution for analysis, but up to MEP2013 it would tolerate ½ resolution playback after overriding MEP’s warning. I was under the impression that the flash / boosted mode in 2014 was an attempt to avoid the necessary switching and these warnings. The default settings for the boosted mode are “reduce resolution” and “reduce frame rate” and a further test has shown me that it is the reduce framerate which causes the stabilisation to be nullified on playback of my 50P material. With just the “reduce resolution” ticked in the dropdown the preview plays smoothly with full stabilization. I presume you carried out your test with only 25 fps material which may not activate a framerate reduction and this is why you cannot observe the problem….?

Also maybe try stabilising the clip in the standalone version of V2 as you would have done in V4.

browj2 wrote on 1/20/2015, 4:38 PM

Hi Peter,

Actually, I find V2 very good for what I do. I don't have extremely jerky footage or a goPro camera (although it would be fun to attach one to the dog to get a dog's point of view). So unless there is a huge reduction in price and V2 can't resolve my issues, I'm staying with V2.

However, for anyone that has a major problem, V4 is probably the solution. The example that I used was from Jeff Naylor on his bicycle, and he was trying to find a way to make it much better. I don't recall exactly the settings in VPX6, so I'm not sure if the reduce resolution/framerate were selected. If I find the some time, I'll revisit this. The video was rather extreme and was the type of footage that proDAD was saying that V4 could resolve. It seems to do it quite well, but the footage had some blurred images which obvously could not be repaired by Mercalli or any other similar program.

I'll let you know when I get back to it.

Thanks,