Stabilize shaky video without losing the edges of the picture
You stabilize a clip and it comes out looking closer than what you filmed. A head is cut at the top, a sign at the edge is gone. That is the stabilizer zooming in. In AI Video Enhancer Studio you can set how much of the picture must stay, and the zoom stops there.
Why stabilizing zooms in
To cancel a shake, the stabilizer moves each frame the opposite way. A frame moved 10 pixels to the left leaves a 10-pixel gap on the right. To hide those gaps, the whole video is zoomed in by one fixed amount, big enough for the largest moves in the clip.
So the shakier the clip, the bigger the zoom, and the more of the picture you lose at the edges. AI Video Enhancer Studio stabilizes with ffmpeg's vidstab filter. Left alone, vidstab picks that zoom itself. The crop limit puts a floor under it.
The trade-off
The zoom is not wasted: it is the room the stabilizer needs to move the frames. Limit the zoom and you limit how far each frame can move. A clip that needs less room than your limit comes out exactly as before. A clip that needs more keeps the part of the shake there is no room to cancel.
Automatic
The stabilizer picks the zoom the shake needs. The smoothest result, and the most picture lost. This is the default.
At least 95%, 90%, 85% or 80%
The zoom stops at the share of the picture you choose. Gentle shake is still removed in full. On rough footage, part of the movement stays.
100% (no zoom, the edge moves)
Nothing is cut. The frame still moves to cancel the shake, so a border moves along the edges instead: the edge pixels are stretched a little, then it is black.
What we measured
Test clip: a handheld street shot, 320×240, 8 seconds, stabilized on Strong with the AI Video Enhancer Studio command line. The zoom is the one ffmpeg reports for the clip. The picture kept is the area left after that zoom.
| Keep in frame | Zoom | Picture kept |
|---|---|---|
| Automatic | 6.35% | 87.7% |
| At least 80% | 6.35% | 87.7% · limit not reached |
| At least 90% | 3.75% | 92.6% |
| At least 95% | 2.21% | 95.6% |
| 100% (no zoom) | 0 | 100% · the edge moves |
At least 80% changed nothing on this clip: it needed less zoom than that, so the limit never came into play. The limit is a floor, not a target. At 90% the clip kept a little more than 90%: the limit caps the zoom, and the stabilizer may still use less.
On very shaky footage
Here the limit matters most, and it costs the most. The stabilizer can only move each frame as far as your limit leaves room for, so the biggest jolts are only partly cancelled. You keep more of the scene and see a bit more movement. If the shake still bothers you, step down one notch: 95% to 90%, 90% to 85%. If the edges matter more than smoothness, keep the higher number.
How to set it in the app
- Add your videos and click Next.
- On Configure, set Stabilization to Light, Medium or Strong. If you start from a preset, pick it first: choosing a preset sets the crop limit back to Automatic.
- Right under it, open Keep in frame and choose At least 95%, 90%, 85% or 80%, or 100% (no zoom, the edge moves). The setting only shows while Stabilization is on.
- Click Start Enhancement.
From the command line
The same limit is --stabilize-keep: a whole number from 50 to 100, or auto (the default). It needs --stabilize or a preset that stabilizes. Without one, the command refuses the limit instead of ignoring it. AI agents set it as stabilize_keep in the MCP enhance_video tool.
# One clip, Strong, keep at least 95% of the picture
aivideoenhancer enhance shaky.mp4 --output .\stable --stabilize strong --stabilize-keep 95
# A whole folder, Medium, no zoom at all
aivideoenhancer enhance .\clips --output .\stable --stabilize medium --stabilize-keep 100Good to know
Stabilization runs on the processor with ffmpeg's vidstab filter. It is not AI and needs no graphics card.
100% removes the zoom, not the stabilizing. The picture still moves to cancel the shake, so its edge moves too.
A few frames can show a sliver of edge in a corner when the camera rolls, with or without a limit: the zoom is sized for sideways and up-and-down moves.
The Watch Folder has no Keep in frame switch. Its presets stabilize on Automatic.
New to stabilization? Strengths, drone and phone tips are in our guide: How to Stabilize Shaky Video: Drone, GoPro & Phone Footage (2026 Guide)
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