Blackmagic Forum

I see the a7siii about to be announced July 28th, and it looks like it's going to have gyroscope metadata for stabilization in post, just like the FX9. I'm wondering if there's any existing or planned support for using this data in Davinci Resolve and/or Fusion, or if the only way to use that is to preprocess the video before importing it into Resolve. I think from what I've seen, support for Prores RAW isn't in the roadmap either, at least publicly, but any updates on that would be great too.

We typically don't get to know about what features BMD is working on until release, or very shortly before.

I've now tried metadata stabilization with the Sony s7siii. I works very well; I'd say it is the best form of stabilization I have seen. But the workflow to use this with Catalyst Browse or Prepare is extremely poor, to the point it is not practical to utilize this stabilization in many cases.

If you've worked with Catalyst you are aware of its limitations so I won't go through that, but for the simple task of metadata stabilization the free version Browse only outputs HD, not 4K, so you need to purchase Prepare for 4K.

It would be extremely useful if Resolve had the capability to stabilize video from metadata from the a7S iii. Sony FX9 users will have the same issues, and it is likely future Sony cameras will have this stabilization technology. So this is a feature request, to incorporate metadata stabilization into DaVinci Resolve.

I second that request, it would be very useful to people using gyro metadata for stabilization. I know Sony doesn't emphasize it too much (to the point it doesn't even mention it in the specification of the ZV-1), but this metadata and the stabilization potential it offers is a huge step forward and will probably be implemented in other cameras sooner or later, so this feature, which might seem niche at the moment, will be useful to many other users.

The following Sony cameras capture gyro stabilization metadata which Catalyst Browse can use in post:

Venice, FX9, FX6, FX3, A7SIII, A7C, and ZV-1.

Supposedly 17.2 implements this for Venice, but the few people who tried it cannot get it to work. I tested it myself on the FX6 and it doesn't work (although support for that camera wasn't stated).

This would be a great feature to implement.

The Sony A1 also has stabilization metadata.

I registered version 2020.1.0.595 of Catalyst Browse because it wanted my A7Siii camera model and serial before it would play my 4K recordings. This week I have been recording HLG in XAVC S-I 4K 50p (Intra), with the camera's SteadyShot turned off. This so I can compare the difference between metadata stabilization and Resolve's own stabilization.

So far Resolve wins easily for me, while Catalyst stabilized clips do play smoothly they are dreadfully soft in comparison. This makes them unusable for me especially since adding Catalyst stabilized clips doubles the project size unless one is prepared to delete the originals.

The gyro information from Sony Venice cameras is included in the clip as per-frame metadata.

DaVinci Resolve 17.2 can read this per-frame information into the Camera Pan Angle, Camera Tilt Angle, Camera Roll Angle and Camera Position metadata fields and embed them in EXR exports in each frame.

To monitor the info for each frame, you can step through the footage in the Fusion Viewer with SubView turned on and set to Metadata (top arrow).

I am not a big Fusion person so...how do you use this information to stabilize your footage?

If the gyro data is only accurate to a tenth of a degree, I don’t think you’d be able to stabilize telephoto shots which usually need it the most. Where this would be useful is in compositing scene extensions and 3D objects in Fusion.

Instead of using the metadata to stabilize the shot, would there be a way to use it to place an object in the shot, so there would be no need to track the shot in Fusion?

Damn I want that feature badly! Catalyst browse is a PITA to use. If resolve could apply stabilization based on gyro data, that would be immencly cool! Maybe someone could make a fusion fx to do that if Resolve already CAN read this aforementioned metadata?

For all my Sony shooters out there looking for gyro stabilization, there's a new Free and open source project called Gyroflow that does just that. The standalone version is in pre-release, and a Resolve plugin is on their roadmap.