I'm on a integration in kdenlive for the stabilization. i will commit a brach with that in later. First this will simple call the simple commandline. Later all adjustable parameter will be changeable.

Parameter to use can be viewn with

melt -query filter=videostab

melt -query filter=videostab2

I'm looking forward to the integration, but that might be real tricky! Thanks for the hints. I shot video on a little Kodak Playsport ZI10 in 720P at 30FPS (really 29.97). I'm giving the following a shot:
melt -verbose -profile atsc_720p_2997 100_0032.MP4 -filter videostab -consumer xml:100_0032-vstab.mlt all=1 real_time=-2
melt 100_0032-vstab.mlt
melt 100_0032-vstab.mlt -verbose -consumer avformat:100_0032-vstab.mp4 properties=mp4 real_time=-2 threads=3

I already ran the original clip through transcode, so I'll take a look to compare transcode versus mlt/videostab. But - wow!!!!! This is brutally slow on my tiny Netbook. I'm thinking any app that calls it might need a word of warning - get a cup of coffee, take a nap, head off to the office and check when you get back. I know I'm going at it underpowered, but it takes some time.

Original Clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfXTzxMYjXA
Stabilized with transcode (just default settings): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWBQdk0U1xg
Stabilized with melt videostab filter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZNvEm_32eI
Stabilized with MELT using videostab2 filter: http://youtu.be/a88TuT5d8PA

(edited - I messed something up. The original clip is much larger in size than the transcoded and melt'ed versions. I must have done something wrong. I went from about 22 megs down to 5-6 megs)

In all reality, I checked out a small, lightweight tripod with the legs shock-corded together. For pan and sweeps standing in one location, I'm going to use a tripod (still need to figure out the best way to handle the speed of the pan and sweep though). I'll still try to learn more about video stabilization, as I want to take clips while hiking or biking and those will be pretty unsteady. I didn't want a tripod or a monopod, as I picked up a pocket camcorder specifically so it would fit in my shirt pocket and I could carry it anywhere. However, I need to do something to clean up the motion in my clips.

I have one of those Gorilla pods with the bendy legs and a bean bag type thing both are great when travelling light to gain a bit of support on a rock, fence, tree whatever.

Also with the Gorilla pod I bend the legs right round upwards each side of the camera and use them like handle bars spacing my hands further apart from the camera and a little offset front to back it helps stop some of the rotation of the camera. Not ideal but can help.

Yellow - thanks for the tip!! When I bought the little Kodak ZI10, I also bought a Sony external clip on mic and a small desktop tripod. I looked at the Gorilla pod, but decided on a small plastic Ultra-pod II. It hadn't even occurred to me to mount the camera on the pod to hold the camera steady. Sure - I figured using it on a desktop would be cool for a mini-interview. So, I mounted the little camcorder on the ultra-pod, held two of the legs of the pod, rather than the camera itself - and wandered through the house shooting at 720P, 60FPS. Tried viewing it on my Netbook, no go. My wife is out for the day so I hooked up to the new Mac Book Pro we bought a few days ago. She may not be getting that Mac book Pro back!

Anyway, thanks for the tip. That made a huge difference, and I might be able to use software to filter out the remaining jitter and shake. Not about to reshoot my last project (it was a one hour round-trip, and a four hour clean-up whittled down to 24 short clips further whittled down to 2-3 minutes of video). But will use that method the next time out.

So - pay attention to shooting methods first to cut down on shake. Then use image stabilization on digital video to clean it up.

Absolutely, shooting methods and practice, including minimizing panning :-) is most important, there's no magic button to fix after. Even hardware assisted GPU stabilization solutions take time away from editing and are not necessarily a one hit fixes all. :-) But we all have occasions a stabilize tool is inevitable.

My personal preference with regard to panning is not to :-), but to take 3 or 4 shots of various points of interest in the view rather than a pan l/r or r/l and cut between them or dolly a couple of them with a small slider. Panning can feel uncomfortable, difficult to get steady unless using a fluid head tripod and I think it takes far too long in the length of the video to go across the pan and keep it comfortable, compared to a more snappy cut between a few short clips of interest.

All personal choices though, no right and wrong way. :-)

marco, not wishing to jump the gun but I see the Stabilize options in kdenlives Project menu in latest svn but when I try applying it to a clip in the Project Tree or for a clip on the Time line nothing appears to happen. I guess this is work in progress?

I do have the stabilize options in MLT on the CLI.

the new code that works is in the stabilize branch of kdenlive.

if someone would help testing ( it should work, but it is yet not possible, to change the default parameters ATM)

if is seems to work for you i could merge this into master

marco, unfortunately I'm not building from source but instead using sunabs svn PPA on Ubuntu, I'll try building the stabilize branch to test, many thanks.

Hi Yellow, I'm using svn in Ubuntu 11.10 in Gnome2 environment. I've tested the stabilize but I see no changes.
I've used a clip 1920x1080 50i and the same converted at 1280x720 25p but I don't see any processing starting. (i've transcode already installed).
What's missing?

you dont need transcode for that, the code is in mlt too.

it takes a (maybe very long) time to see the progressbar changing.
after that you have a myvideo.mp4.mlt file from myvideo.mp4.
When you clip "add to project" the resulting .mlt file will be added to project also.

so could you test this with a bit more time ;)

i'll commit some changes to adjust all the parameters for the filters

I don't see any interface. Again, no progress bar is present and CPU activity is normal.

hmm, did you update some minutes ago ?

i pushed some changes into stabilize branch.

I've seen now. This morning were not available. However nothing is changed for Stabilize. Or first I choose to stabilize AND AFTER I MUST transcode in another format?

Marco, when running from the command line, I saw that I needed to run melt first, it generated an mlt file (that I could watch) then you ran melt again to end up with a stabilized video. On my under-powered netbook it took a significant amount of time, and I named the output clip with a new name. (it took me at least 30-45 minutes to stablize a small clip, but I have a slower netbook)

As integrated into KDenlive, do you still do a multi-step process? Does it make a new clip? Or does the .mlt file go into the timeline for viewing, then you get the stabilized clip on final rendering? I was just wondering how it worked so that when stabilize hits the sunab ppa I'd know what to expect.