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When I create edited films on iMovie and then export them to Youtube, Youtube's stabilization enhancement greatly increases the quality of many of my shakier action shots. Unfortunately, this same process ruins all of my titles and text overlaid on the screen.

Currently I am exporting the problem (shaky) scenes as single iMovies to youtube, stabilizing them, then downloading them and adding them back into my iMovie project as clips. This saves my text on the screen from being rendered illegible.

I am aware of iMovie's stabilization and have tried it, but haven't gotten even close to the enhancement in watchability of my shaky shots that Youtube's stabilization algorithm/method has given me.

I'm looking for some software that can give me the serious quality improvement that Youtube's can do, without having to use cloud services as a hack like I am now.

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A coworker has just turned me on to using Warp Stabilizer. It's a built-in effect in Adobe Premiere CS6. Before using this tool, I also used After Effects to smooth and stabilize motion.

The difference is outstanding. Warp Stabilizer has worked faster, within my workflow, and more reliable than After Effects stabilization has. This has been huge for me. Here's a quick guide that outlines the effect: http://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/premiere-pro-warp-stabilizer/

Another solution is Lock and Load. I've never used it, but I've heard it gets the job done. Might be worth looking into if you do not already own the Adobe Creative Suite. http://www.coremelt.com/products/lock-and-load-x.html

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  • It is worth pointing out that the same Warp Stabilizer is also available in After Effects as well. It requires less configuration than AE's but AE's standard option or the included copy of Mocha can both do a better job if you have the time to use them right. That said, I generally use Warp Stabilizer for most stuff because it is good enough for being far simpler and faster.
    – AJ Henderson ♦
    Jan 9, 2014 at 15:21
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Adobe After Effects includes stabilization that is of similar or superior quality to Youtube's but it is also not a cheap software package. I don't know of any particularly cheap software stabilization options that do a high end job.

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  • Is it on only the latest version?
    – boulder_ruby
    Jul 29, 2013 at 21:07
  • @boulder_ruby - no, it's been there for quite some time, though it generally improves with each newer version.
    – AJ Henderson ♦
    Jul 29, 2013 at 22:36
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    Creative Cloud makes this fairly affordable actually. Not free but if you're doing enough video work on YouTube to be asking about it - it may be in your budget.
    – Ryan
    Jan 9, 2014 at 14:59
  • @Ryan - I'd challenge that Creative Cloud makes it unaffordable for everyone. The long term cost is substantially higher (multiple times higher, even without going in to the concerns of having to pay forever to access your projects). The short term cost is also much higher if you don't do the 1 year package. $240 a year for one package isn't what I'd call cheap.
    – AJ Henderson ♦
    Jan 9, 2014 at 15:20
  • @AJHenderson ya I figured I'd get some heat and almost added "Runs and hides" to the end of my comment. CC has its issues on the pay structure without a doubt but for something like this it is fairly cheap - he could do a single piece license only for AE making it very cheap. You also dont have to pay forever to access only to edit. Could also counter argue because Adobe does do updates fairly regularly. CS4 2008, CS5 2010, CS5.5 2010, CS6 2011. If they're going to put in the money and effort to keep up with new tech/dev tools then CC is actually the way to go
    – Ryan
    Jan 9, 2014 at 15:36
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MotionBend, http://www.motionbend.com, might be what you are looking for, http://www.fcp.co/final-cut-pro/news/1119-motionbend-takes-video-stabilisation-to-the-next-level-and-adds-fcpx-xml-export. Do you have any examples of videos you are trying to stabilize ?

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