Tool to fix shaky blurry videos

ashish

ashish

Level F
I recently observed that videos captured on phone appear shaky and blurry when watched on a tv or pc. This is for daylight videos with ample of natural sun light. I dont shoot in night.
Shaky as in when we start to shoot a video and when we pan camera around, the turning around/panning transition appear shaky and blurry and not smooth.

I'm disappointed at this. And willing to correct or minimize it using any tool or software for windows platform.

Kindly suggest.
 
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IMO, it has to do with low light when the video was shot. If there was enough lighting, the smearing effect (also called oil painting effect in pictures) is pretty much permanent.

The most you can do, is run noise reduction to make it slightly sharper.
 
ankushv said:
Buy a phone that has a camera that supports optical image stabilisation , (OIS) .
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Every phone has it. I'm using OP6. And that setting is ON by default.
kvn95ss said:
IMO, it has to do with low light when the video was shot. If there was enough lighting, the smearing effect (also called oil painting effect in pictures) is pretty much permanent.

The most you can do, is run noise reduction to make it slightly sharper.
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Nope. Videos were shot under bright sun and specifically mentioning that I'm referring to daylight videos only.
 
Shakiness - almost all video editors should have a way to "stabilize" shaky videos

Blurriness - whether this is due focus being off, or motion blur due to low light, you can't really do anything about it

If you have generally shaky hands, get a phone gimbal. Stabilizing in post is resource intensive
 
Which resolution were these videos shot in and the fps?

Higher resolutions are more taxing and could lead to frame drops and more jerky looking video
 
ankushv said:
Buy a phone that has a camera that supports optical image stabilisation , (OIS) .
Click to expand...
OIS on mobile can correct shake upto a few mm only. Essentially it can correct shake caused by a cautiously steady hand. It can't stabilize normal videos.

ashish said:
Every phone has it. I'm using OP6. And that setting is ON by default.
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You need a camera app with a great EIS support. Gcam does exceptional stabilization. Unfortunately most Gcam apks out there can't do it. You'll have to do a lot of digging for it. Ask in telegram group of gcam for your mobile. My mobile doesn't have OIS. But with a correct Gcam, I can shoot video while running and they come out gimbal like stabilized.

To stabilize your old videos you can use google photos. It won't remove blur but it'll make videos 10x more watchable.
 
lockhrt999 said:
OIS on mobile can correct shake upto a few mm only. Essentially it can correct shake caused by a cautiously steady hand. It can't stabilize normal videos.
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Yeah, OIS is mostly for photos @ankushv For videos digital stabilisation is required and that is done by cropping the video a little.

Older xperias did not have OIS for a long time but their video stabilisation was better than others.

If there is a setting for stabilise/steady video use it. It disables OIS during video and does some light shake processing.
 
The panning can never be smooth unless it is done at high fps. To pan smoothly at 24-30fps at normal speed, there is a complex formula involving focal length of the lens, distance of the subject and background from the lens and speed of panning etc. Even Hollywood do not care for such details. If you must pan then use it painfully slow like very sloooooowww and it will feel smooth or do it very very fast. These are the only two ways to avoid jerky panning.
OIS is there to avoid blurry photos, it cannot do anything in videos, only EIS can make a difference.
For smooth panning
1) Do it painfully slow. Act like a statue and take 20-30 seconds for a 150 degree pan.
2) Go high fps. It will immediately look smooth. 60 fps
 
powervgx said:
OIS is there to avoid blurry photos, it cannot do anything in videos, only EIS can make a difference.
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OIS and EIS are not competing solutions. They work in series. If your device has both, then you will get the best output.

OIS moves a lens element to compensate for your camera's movement, to keep what the sensor sees constant. This will help both photos and videos, especially in low light. On phones you can't really see the effect on wide lens, since it's more noticeable on higher zoom/longer lens where the shakiness is amplified. Wildlife photographers shooting animals from far away will benefit from it when shooting handheld.
OIS also helps videos, without cropping in.

EIS crops in on whatever the sensor is seeing, and moves that frame around to make the video appear still. There's no reason to use this for photos - a single photo can't convey phone motion. You need a minimum of 2 photos to perceive any movement. If you want to keep an object centred in a photo, while the camera is shaking, for eg. on a boat, you can just take a photo and crop it later while maintaining max FOV.
The more EIS crops in on a video, the more stable the output can look.
EIS also needs a lot of CPU power to work, hence not seen on older/less powerful devices.

TLDR:
OIS: no crop, max FOV images/videos; can reduce blurring in low light photos/videos; hardware solution; can cancel up/down+left/right movement only
EIS: crops, lesser FOV image/videos; can't help in low light videos; software solution, needs CPU power; if implemented, can cancel out rotation as well

That said, given enough light and cropping headroom, EIS can outperfom OIS. Check out the GoPro's awesome EIS
 
n1r0 said:
EIS also needs a lot of CPU power to work, hence not seen on older/less powerful devices.
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Oh yeah it was and the infamous your phone is heating up messages

But that EIS worked well when the phone could handle it. This was in the days when gimbals weren't available.
 

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blr_p said:
Oh yeah it was and the infamous your phone is heating up messages

But that EIS worked well when the phone could handle it. This was in the days when gimbals weren't available.
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I still have this Xperia Z3 both mini and normal phones. These phones were extremely hot when shooting under bright sun on any day and yes that warning..
 
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Use a gimbal. It will reduce most of the jerks and issues wrt not having one. That shaking or jitter during panning is because the phone can't save the video as fast as possible to storage. Try using a uhs3 card instead of uhs1 card. A faster card will allow your phone camera to dump data faster on it

Example:
 
For the already shot videos maybe try frame interpolation using Waifu2x
Edit: do the interpolation only on the stuttering part. Try with target fps 120 since your fps is 60 but in reality it would probably be 24-30 at those parts.
 
nRiTeCh said:
I still have this Xperia Z3 both mini and normal phones. These phones were extremely hot when shooting under bright sun on any day and yes that warning..
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6pack said:
Try using a uhs3 card instead of uhs1 card. A faster card will allow your phone camera to dump data faster on it
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For recording in 4k, UHS-I U3 cards (like the one linked above, look for the "U3" or "V30" symbol, which guarantees min 30MB/s write speeds) are a must. Slower cards can't write fast enough and will overheat and destroy themselves. My GoPro actually burnt my fingers and killed the card when recording on a slower Class 10 card.

Even with a U3 card, 4k will generate a lot of heat as it needs a lot of CPU power - it is pumping out 4 times the pixels as 1080p. This is the reason most devices have a time limit for 4k but no such limit for 1080p.
 
n1r0 said:
For recording in 4k, UHS-I U3 cards (like the one linked above, look for the "U3" or "V30" symbol, which guarantees min 30MB/s write speeds) are a must. Slower cards can't write fast enough and will overheat and destroy themselves. My GoPro actually burnt my fingers and killed the card when recording on a slower Class 10 card.

Even with a U3 card, 4k will generate a lot of heat as it needs a lot of CPU power - it is pumping out 4 times the pixels as 1080p. This is the reason most devices have a time limit for 4k but no such limit for 1080p.
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I always use inbuilt memory and keep cards handy for those just in case issues so this card thing doesnt apply for me. That xperia was known for frying pan!
 
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