Image Stabilization in CS5 (no Mercalli Support)

Question

I have preordered CS5, and currently make use of the mercalli FX plugin to stabilize shaky video clips.  It doesn't appear that mercalli will be compatible with CS5 for a while, is there some other plug in I can use to provide high quality image stabilization?
Has anyone used motion stabilization in After effects and compared it to what Mercalli does?
For now I guess I will stabilize clips in Premiere Elements, export them, then use the pre-stabilized clips in CS5 but that will get cumbersome fast.
Are there any really high quality motion stabilization plug ins that will be compatible with CS5?  Has anyone here compared Mercalli to other solutions, and found one that's better?
-Roger Uzun

Answer 1

Using the new version is far easier than the old, as you no longer have to select the best preset - the software now does this automatically in the initial analysis.  It is still possible to tweak the various individual settings manually.  With the old version you had to buy the expensive "Expert" version for this feature, but this time around there is only the one version - the expensive one of course!
As far as I know, the new version is available to existing users only, on special request.  It is expected to be generally available at the end of this month, and the help files will be with it then.
You do have to watch for a number of potential pitfalls:
field order - Mercalli is not good at detecting this automatically when used as a Premiere plug-in;
treatment of borders - an inevitable consequence of all stabilisation is that the area of video moves within the frame, leaving blank areas at the edges.  these vary from frame to frame and there are three alternative ways of handling this.  the new version is less clear in this, to me at least.  I normally zoom the video to eliminate the black borders.
transitions - if you apply Mercalli to a clip in your timeline and then apply transitions to the end(s) of the clip, the analysis will have to be done again, as you have introduced previously unconsidered areas to the clip.  I normally apply Mercalli to the clip on a second timeline, render and export the clip, making sure that I include all the material that I may want to use, if I apply transitions.  I generally apply colour correction, etc before exporting to avoid as far as possible quality loss due to repeat rendering.  I usually apply 10% sharpen filter at this stage too.  The new version offers a stand-alone version, which I like very much as it marks in red areas of the video in which extreme correction has to be applied, opening up scope for selecting the "less-unstable areas of video for use.
I have never used either After Effects or Mocha, but I have used all the other commercially available stabilisation software, and Mercalli gives by far the best results of the half dozen or so.  I have tried  the New Blue stabilisert, but I could not get on with it.Most of the others I have used are no longer available.  You could try SteadyHand from Gooder Video.
Message was edited by: Alan Craven