Stabilize video with FFmpeg

Pass one measures the motion. shakiness (1 to 10, default 5) says how shaky and quick the camera is; accuracy (1 to 15, default 15) trades speed for precision.

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf vidstabdetect=shakiness=5:accuracy=15:result=transforms.trf -f null -

Pass two applies it. smoothing=30 averages the camera over 61 frames (2 × 30 + 1); interpol=bicubic gives a sharper result than the default bilinear; the unsharp filter restores a little of the crispness the zoom takes away; -c:a copy keeps the sound as it is.

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf vidstabtransform=input=transforms.trf:smoothing=30:interpol=bicubic,unsharp=5:5:0.8:3:3:0.4 -c:v libx264 -crf 18 -preset slow -c:a copy output.mp4

• smoothing: how many frames either side are averaged (default 15). Higher is calmer, but follows deliberate pans less closely.
• optzoom: 1 (the default) picks one zoom for the whole clip that hides the edges, 2 changes it as the shake changes (at most zoomspeed per cent per frame), 0 turns it off.
• zoom: extra zoom in per cent; a negative value zooms out and shows more of the frame.
• crop=black: fill the uncovered edges with black instead of keeping the previous frame’s edge (keep, the default).
• tripod=1 on both passes: hold the camera completely still, as if on a tripod, relative to the first frame.
• optalgo: opt (the default) optimises the whole path; gauss and avg are simpler moving averages.
• show=1 on the first pass, written to a video instead of -f null, draws the measured motion so you can check it.

In a Mac or Linux terminal (or Git Bash on Windows), this loop steadies every MP4 in the current folder and saves each as stable- plus its name. It reuses one transforms.trf, since each clip is measured and corrected before the next one starts.

for f in *.mp4; do
  ffmpeg -i "$f" -vf vidstabdetect=result=transforms.trf -f null -
  ffmpeg -i "$f" -vf vidstabtransform=input=transforms.trf:smoothing=30:interpol=bicubic -c:v libx264 -crf 18 -c:a copy "stable-$f"
done

The stabiliser on this page works on the same ideas, with named controls instead of options, and re-plans the camera path the moment you change one, so there’s no second pass to wait for.

In November 2026 we ran vid.stab and the stabiliser on this page over the same 11 short clips: six real clips (walking, hiking, a concert, a car interior, skiing and cycling) and five steady clips with shake added, so their true camera path is known. A separate tracker, which shares no code with either, measured the shake left between 1.5 and 15 Hz, the range of hand tremor, footsteps and vibration.

• With its default settings, the stabiliser on this page removed 54% of that shake, against 31% for vid.stab with smoothing=30.
• It left less shake than vid.stab on 10 of the 11 clips.
• On the five clips with a known true path, it removed 72% of the shake, against 64% for vid.stab.
• vid.stab kept slightly more of the frame on most clips, because with crop=keep it lets the previous frame’s edge show at the worst moments. With its default settings the browser stabiliser never shows an empty edge; it zooms in a little instead.

Eleven clips is a small sample, and your footage may behave differently, so compare both on a clip of your own before you settle on one.

If your FFmpeg has no vid.stab, the built-in deshake filter works in one pass. It corrects only sideways and up-and-down shifts, not rotation, looking for movements of up to 16 pixels by default (rx and ry, at most 64), so it suits gentle shake best. By default it mirrors the picture into the uncovered edges.

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf deshake -c:a copy output.mp4