Lock&Load

Hot off the presses today is a new plug-in from CoreMelt, Lock and Load. Available for Final Cut Pro (and Express) it’s for stabilizing shaky shots and according to the CoreMelt website it “can take the worst hand held shaky cam footage and make it usable footage.” Those are big claims but if you’ve ever used the built-in Smoothcam effect you know it can often work magic. Smoothcam’s biggest problem is it’s slow and has to analyze an entire clip even though you may have only used 2 seconds in an edit. Lock and Load claims to be the world’s fastest stabilizer and “6x faster than Smoothcam.” Key features from the CoreMelt website:

  • No need to choose tracking points, Lock & Load intelligently analyzes the entire clip for you, just select the clip and go.
  • With intelligent adaptive zoom, Lock & Load will automatically compensate for differing levels of movement and zoom in to remove edges.
  • Removes or smooths rotation and zoom changes as well as X and Y movement.
  • Analyses only the portion of the clip you select, no need to export and re-import long clips.
  • Works with all kinds of footage, no “too much movement” errors.
  • Gives smoother and more fluid results on all types of footage from landscapes to city scenes.
  • Intelligently ignores foreground motion.
  • Multithreaded motion analysis uses all processors on your system.
  • Realtime preview of the smoothed clip without rendering.
  • No learning curve, instant intuitive user interface, works directly on the FCP timeline.

The plug-in will sale for $149 but CoreMelt is running an introduction special of $129 until September 8. If you want to buy the entire CoreMelt bundle (and if you don’t have it check out my review here) you can get it all for $499. Grab the free demo and check out Lock and Load for yourself.