August 22, 2012, 10:31 PM — Though image stabilization in cameras and cell phones has come a long way, it's still got a long way to go. Video stabilizer Mercalli Easy ($20, free demo) is easy-to-use software for your PC that offers what some cameras don't: An automatic and effective solution for stabilization and other issues in your videos.
Aside from the common shake and jitter problems--which Mercalli Easy handles nicely--cell phone and digital camera videos also suffer other wonkiness, such as rolling shutter. Then there are stutters and dropouts when video frames can't be captured or written fast enough to memory. Mercalli Easy also did a nice job correcting these issues on all of the videos I put it to work on.
Using Mercalli Easy is a snap. Drag the imperfect video to the program's main window, press the play button, and save the result.
Pros may need more control over the process, which can be found in vendor proDAD's more expensive offerings, but the average user should be more than pleased with the results of Mercalli Easy.
The free demo Mercalli Easy is fully-functional, so you can get a feel for how well it works, but saved files have a watermark in the form of a large pink X across the screen. The only caveat is that there is effective video stabilization in most video editors and suites these days, so don't pay for it twice.
If all you need is a solution to your videos' wonkiness, take a look at Mercalli Easy.
