In 1999, The Blair Witch Project caused some moviegoers to run out of theaters. Ten years later, Avatar had pretty much the opposite effect. And now YouTube seems to have learned from both developments, introducing an image stabilizer and a 3D tool this afternoon.
Let’s start with the image stabilizer. It aims to smooth the sort of jittery, jerky movements that (in addition to argumentative and whiny characters) made The Blair Witch Project less than mediocre. This is achieved through a “unified optimization technique,” according to a post on the YouTube Blog, and in case you were wondering, a YouTube representative added via email that it’s unrelated to the acquisition of Green Parrot Pictures.
The stabilizer’s effectiveness is impressive. You can see it at work in the second of the two videos below.
As for the 3D tool, YouTube’s official blog post stated, “If you’ve used a pair of cameras to capture stereographic video, but need the two streams to be synchronized and laid out in a way compatible with YouTube’s 3D feature, this new tool will do the work for you.”
Together, the two features are sure to earn the attention of plenty of content creators, from amateurs with camcorders to almost-pros trying to conduct groundbreaking experiments.
The new features will of course benefit YouTube’s more passive users, too, allowing them to suffer fewer headaches and enjoy cutting-edge effects.
Both the image stabilizer and the 3D tool are live right now and free for everyone to test and employ.
